Jumping!

As I said in my blog post this past April, Madeleine has finally found an activity that she loves to put her whole self into. She is now at the stables no less than three or four hours at a pop, she reads about horses, she talks incessantly about horses, she wants to watch TV shows and movies about horses, her room has horse stuff all over it... you get the idea. She's obsessed.

So obsessed that all she asked for, and received, for her birthday last year was entry in a week long riding camp this past August. Her trainer for the week was not the same cautious woman who teaches her regular classes. This trainer didn't want to have the kids working on only their flat work all week, no, she wanted to get the kids jumping. So, she did. Madeleine started jumping low verticals and small x jumps (two poles crossed like an x). But after camp that was it, she was back to her regular trainer in classes designed only for flat work.

However, a few weeks ago her trainer talked to us about moving Madeleine up to a combined class: a half hour of flat work and a half hour of jumping. The kids and I all headed up for her first official jumping lesson two weeks ago, video camera in hand, and watched Madeleine work Cocoa Puff over all the beginner jumps. I didn't take any pictures because I was busy filming for Joe, but my lingering thought from watching Madeleine while she is riding is how mature she looks. Here is this thin nine-year-old girl controlling this 1,200 pound animal-- and she looks like she knows what she's doing while she does so.

Madeleine has always looked forward to her riding lessons more than anything else during the week, but now that she's jumping I think she's looking forward to them even more.