August 26, 2016

Lesson Wrap-Up: Jump Lesson!!!

Dressage show recaps still coming, but OMG you guys - we jumped last night and it was awesome!

I hadn't been able to ride since the show thanks to work, and it was my last ride for 8 days also thanks to work.  I thought, I don't feel like a fussy Dressage ride that I'll forget by the next time I ride anyway, let's jump!  Also, sometimes my butt misses my CWD and I just need a moment with it, y'know?

Then I looked out at the grassy field and saw this:

Why yes, that is a full size Dressage court at my eventing barn.  One girl going 1* and a couple of Dressage nuts and voila!  The extra pieces get pulled out of storage.

and I felt a little guilty for not drilling the Dressagey things we so need to work on now that the BO was nice enough to extend the Dressage ring to full size.  So I sent this text to my trainer and got this response:
OF COURSE she wants me to jump.

But guys!  It was the first time we had jumped in months, and it was awesome.  We spent the whole lesson doing singles, starting with a walk pirouette to canter transition in order to get him balanced before we started.  Crossrails, verticals and oxers, up to 2' ish.  

I did have to clean my fuzzy jump tack.  This is TWO WEEKS growth after I last cleaned it.  It's not just my tack, everyone's looks like this right now.  I think my ammonia solution lost its effectiveness over the winter, time to make a new batch,

I had enough impulsion to half halt him before the fence.  I had adjustability.  We were seeing distances together.  I was landing with my lower leg and feet underneath me!  He jumped every single jump like a normal horse.  He landed on his leads almost the entire time.

"And it's kind of a good test for your Dressage, because all of the times he's landed on the wrong lead, he's not really been balanced or straight."

Also, story for another day, but I rode him in a running martingale for the first time yesterday - per Denny Emerson, to help more with his hindquarters than his head - and I really liked it.

I had a lot of fun, I hope he had fun.  He definitely attacked it more from his levelheaded analytical Dressage mindset than the old scrambly brain-can't-work-fast-enough jumping mindset he used to have.  I harbor no illusions that he'll suddenly love jumping as much as he loves Dressage, but he has certainly grown more competent at it as he's gotten more aware of his own body, and stronger, through our Dressage training.  It's nice to know we can pull it out every so often for a change of pace.

17 comments:

  1. What a great feeling!! I love when the flat work pays off for jumping like that! Also just curious: what did DE say about running martingales with respect to the hind end?

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    1. I got curious so I found it:

      "You don't use a running martingale to control the head, Denny. You use it to control the hocks."

      Hearing that from a USET jumper rider, maybe 40 years ago, was a light bulb moment for me. As the horse gets hungry in front of the jump, and sticks her head up, if there was no running martingale, there would be nothing to contain the hocks from going out the back.

      But when Rosie feels the pressure caused by her inverting, she brings her head down, letting Daryl's half halt go through, which brings her hind end more under her mass, allowing Daryl's adjustment to happen.

      I remember reading something, I think by Bill Steinkraus, to the effect that a running martingale saved him one rail per class.

      Too tight is not great, too loose is ineffective. It should only take effect when the horse wants to invert. It is a way to say, "Nope---Bring yourself back together, little honey--"

      Whenever these realistic corrective items of tack are used, even if used by good riders, in a correct manner, sure as shootin', some "book larned" purist will have some negative dumbness to contribute, but, hey, dumbness is not unusual on social media, or anywhere else, for that matter.

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    2. You are the greatest blog reader ever! I can't believe you found it. Thanks for posting that, definitely makes this a much more valuable post with it.

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    3. gotcha - that's helpful and matches my experience with isabel. it's slightly misleading to say it isn't about the head - bc it IS in the sense that you want to avoid them inverting in order to keep the hind end engaged, and the head shooting up is one of the prime ways isabel gets hollow... a horse that doesn't shoot its head up like that won't be helped by a running bc it'll never activate. but yea the end result is all about keeping the horse engaged. i like it.

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  2. He said something to the effect of that they are less about controlling the head and more about encouraging the horse to sit and keep his hind end underneath him. I'm hesitant to even try to explain the justification because I'll get it wrong, but it was on his Facebook a couple months ago. I don't even think the running ever really engaged on Connor because he doesn't throw his head up, but it did have an effect on the way he went.

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  3. It shouldn't surprise me, but I just LOVE how much flatwork helps everyone over fences. I can never be reminded of that enough!

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  4. Yay! Jumping! I can't decide between jumping and dressage, either - though mostly, I'm already dreading being locked in the indoor for the winter and feel pressured to get my jumping in now, before it snows. I know, it's not even September yet, and I'm crazy. But a good jump school does make the world a happy place :)

    I've been digging around on here a bit for your ammonia solution trick - my tack is all fuzzy and gross, too! Can you share a bit more about the stuff you use (apparently it comes in different dilutions?) and the ratio? My nasty white bridles need some help.

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    1. Me too...sigh. I hate fall, not because fall is fall, fall is actually quite nice, but because every falling temperature is a reminder of cold dark days in the indoor.

      It's 1 part ammonia to 10 parts water in a spray bottle. It's meant to be a way to keep tack clean between cleanings as a post-ride wipedowm solution, but I found it also helped keep my less used tack from going green when everyone else's did last year. This year, not so much, so I'm wondering if my solution went bad over the winter or something. Or if it wasn't actually the cause of my tack staying clean last year at all. Who knows?

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    2. Me too...sigh. I hate fall, not because fall is fall, fall is actually quite nice, but because every falling temperature is a reminder of cold dark days in the indoor.

      It's 1 part ammonia to 10 parts water in a spray bottle. It's meant to be a way to keep tack clean between cleanings as a post-ride wipedowm solution, but I found it also helped keep my less used tack from going green when everyone else's did last year. This year, not so much, so I'm wondering if my solution went bad over the winter or something. Or if it wasn't actually the cause of my tack staying clean last year at all. Who knows?

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  5. Yay being able to ride in butt candy again!

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  6. Glad the dressage is paying off for jumping too :)

    I can't get over the fuzzy tack, after only two weeks!! I've only ever had tack go fuzzy on me once, and that was when my spare bridles were in a closed plastic container with a spilled bottle of show sheen for months. I can keep tack in the trailer or tack room for years and it won't grow anything. I guess that's why riders in this dry climate aren't very good about regular tack cleaning - we don't need to! lol

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  7. Yay for jumping!! Hope your work load lightens up a little and you get to play around in the newly expanded dressage ring soon as well!

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  8. What the hell is that nastiness? I am so thankful my tank only collects dust

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