So yesterday I took Carlos along to an arena hire which had an arena eventing course set up. I thought it would be a good chance to see what he would be like since I've yet to really give him a proper jump and knowing from my grid work clinic he was taking advantage of me pretending to be scared I now know to ride him differently and wanted to test it out ready to do some showjumping soon.
I made sure I had my whip with me but once we got over the first few a friend who also hired with me seemed to need it more so I let her borrow it. He gave everything a look as we approached it but I rode him into them defensively and he got the point that I was planning on getting over them whether he liked it or not so he started going nice and forward with little hesitation.
As we tried our first water trap he popped over it with the pole on the floor with no issues at all, as we approached it the first time with the pole up he hesitated but still jumped it however when the first jump and last jump were put back up as jumps (it was set up as a triple and we had the poles down, to begin with) he knocked the first jump and refused the water jump. After having the pole put half down so I could push him straight over it we approached again which jumped fine. After that, we approached again and he took me by surprise tanking off into it, leaving me with very little control. He hit the pole on the first fence and ran out at the second leaving me flying off him and going splat onto of the jump wing with Carlos looking down at me.
After that however he jumped some even scarier fences with the xc fillers underneath so overall I am over the moon with him.
Here's a little video of our session including the fall haha -
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