Cob Jockey

I was feeling pretty down after XC.  We put so much preparation into it, and aside from a few fences, nothing had changed.  After how good Dressage was, and how, well, usual XC was, I was starting to wonder if maybe he wasn't cut out for the jumping sports and we should just stick to Dressage.

The dream team trekking from warmup to stadium.  Also, we tiny. Photo by Claudia Slabaugh.

The plan was pretty much the same for Show Jumping as it was for XC: leg, leg, leg.  The course was trappy, with multiple rollbacks and weird lines, and had rode horribly for Training and Novice.  Clear rounds were rare, and rails were flying all over the place.

Connor warmed up quietly, like he did at our last two events, so I had my guard up, since that translated to a wild stadium round in each of those cases.

In the end, he surprised me.  It was the quietest, most normal stadium round this horse has ever done!  It was like he turned 9 that morning and suddenly decided to grow up and be a normal adult jumping horse.

Video:

The jumps aren't quite fluid, but he's not racing through it, weaving before the fences, or really putting his nose down much.  It was so NORMAL.  I was elated.

The one rail we had, you can see in the video, I pushed him to it in the last two strides.  Without that, I think he would have gone clear.  Lesson learned.

Now for myself...

This is really the first horse I've ever jumped.  And my eq has never been good.  And while the saddle has helped on approach, and has definitely helped me get my seat back faster after the fence, my lower leg is still swinging in midair, and I seem to be incapable of folding my upper body.

It's hard to get too discouraged about it, since we focused almost exclusively on Dressage all winter, and as a result, that is now what we're good at.  Now it's time to keep that Dressage progress, but work really hard on jumping.  Trainer is on board.

That said, here are some really ugly pictures of me:

Photo by Lisa Brezina

GUYS LOOK AT HIS EYE.  HE'S BORED!  THIS IS THE FIRST FENCE!  THIS IS PROGRESS! Photo by Xpress Photography

Photo by my mother-in-law

Photo by Xpress Photography

Photo by Xpress Photography

Photo by Xpress Photography

His genetic butt wrinkles are clearly evident here. Photo by Xpress Photography

A element of our three stride combination

B element

Our rail :(

Fence 8

Happy pony

I love accelerating away from the fence photos! Photo by Lisa Brezina

Photo by my mother-in-law

In the end, our rail dropped us from a 2nd place finish to a 7th place finish, which would have been disappointing except that I was over the moon at how maturely he has just handled that round.  Real, tangible progress!

What a good boy. Photo by my mother-in-law

This picture wouldn't have happened without the last month of trainer rides.  Worth. Every.  Penny. Photo by Connor's breeder!

"Epic beast mode dragon horse picture" - Carly.  Bonnet and pad courtesy of JenJ! Photo used with permission from Xpress Photography.

"Booooooooooooooring."  - Connor Photo used with permission from Xpress Photography.

 More coming, horse show hangover in full swing right now!

I came out of the show jumping ring with a huge grin on my face, saying, "Well...we got it done.  We always get it done."

(Even if it looked a little ridiculous.  Less ridiculous than FRV, but still ridiculous.)

But a hunter round it ain't.  (Fence 1) Photo credit: Xpress Photo

We had a game plan going in:

Discussing the plan in warmup Photo credit: Mom

strong trot in, hang a right, make a serpentine past a fence so he knows why we're there, pick up a collected canter, head to fence 1 (above.)  As usual, he was sticky to fence 1 and then jumped up instead of across.  It's our jam.

Fence 2 Crdit: XPress Photo

2 was on an angle, and he didn't even give the gate a look, which IS PROGRESS PEOPLE!  REAL PROGRESS!

This is the last time we jumped a gate, and we broken shopping cart'ed it right down to the base and then leapt it like there were lions down there. Credit: Mom's friend Laura

Cruising to 3.  They waived coats and I don't own a short sleeve show shirt, so it got real jumpery in there between the bonnet and my only show shirt, the printed collar Kingsland shirt I scored for $15 (thanks, Austen). Credit: XPress Photo

3 is JenJ's favorite, because the fence matches her bonnet. Credit: XPress Photo

4 was deceptive.  To me, I thought it would ride scary far away and normal up close.  Connor thought the exact opposite and jumped it huge.

Delightful equitation here, though to be fair, my equine partner didn't exactly make this one easy on me. Credit: Mom

He was pretty tense and as a result, picked up the cross canter to five.  Our only rail in recognized SJ so far was at FRV when he cross cantered to a fence, so my score-protecting brain said NO NO NO NO and I went for a lead change, but we are slow at them, so it happened really close to the fence.  My trainer said I was too close to do that, in retrospect, but I did it.

He rubbed it so hard I thought it fell, but it didn't!  Magic.  The only way you can tell in the picture is he didn't get his knees up as high as he normally does.  My fault.

Credit: XPress Photo

I think he rubbed it with a hind foot, because he definitely cleared it with his front end. Credit: Mom

He landed cross cantering after 5, so I fixed it again, and we almost trotted 6?  Or we did trot 6?  It's a little dangerous that I know that Connor can/will jump and clear whatever I point him at even if he's giving it the hairy eyeball.  He just does not like to hit fences AT ALL, and is athletic enough to get over them from most anywhere at this height.  It leads me to make bad  aggressive decisions in SJ.  That's not really a good thing.

Credit for the series: Mom

7 and 8 rode really well, he always pulls it together for the second half of every course, although he was still tense.  Also, it was about here that I realized I should probably think about time after two clunky simple lead changes, and apparently it was obvious enough that my trainer noticed.

Finally jumping across Credit: XPress Photo

Credit: XPress Photo

Photo Credit: XPress Photo

Then there was 9, the last fence.  He's usually so good by the last fence, but not this time.  My trainer had warned me that he might look at the rails sitting on the ground on the rail about 30 feet in front of 9, ready for the next division.  I didn't disagree, but didn't think they'd cause him that much of a problem.  Well, they did, and this is the only fence he rode like a broken shopping cart to.

But the picture is magnificent.  Go figure.  50 years from now someone will look at this picture and say "My, what a willing, beautiful pair!" without knowing what led up to this picture.  Haha! Photo Credit: Trainer

In the end, they don't give eventers style points, and we did leave all of the jumps up and came home under time.  The person I was tied with had a rail, so that left us as the overnight leaders, and me with the odd feeling of knowing that my fate the next day was ENTIRELY in my hands.  Come home clear and win, no relying on other people to mess up.  For someone used to looking up in the standings, it was a new feeling.

Photo Credit: Xpress Photo

What a great weekend!

All photos courtesy of my momma, who was one of the reasons this weekend was so great!

I got a little bit of everything out of the clinic, and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Saturday was stadium day.  She always starts out by asking what we have been working on, and I said "Developing a short, powerful canter between the fences in order to solve our problems".  She laughed and asked what our problems were, and I said hesitating, jumping up instead of across, and things going too fast for his little brain in the ring.

The first time I picked up the canter, Cathy exclaimed how different it was from the last time we rode for her.  "Phenomenal!"  she said.  And she pushed us hard according to the progress we had made, as we started with hind leg engagement by "extreme leg yielding" on a circle, trying to bring his shoulders around first.



She had me think about hands forward all the time, and hands low.  She said I needed to make my half-halts with an upward motion to encourage him to keep his poll up, but then make sure my hands came back down closer to his neck - and to check that by thinking "pinkies closer to his neck".

This has nothing to do with anything, but check out that foreleg extension!

Connor and I's last flat exercise was canter-trot-canter-trot at 12, 3, 6, and 9 on the "clock face".  She was so delighted with our progress that she pushed us hard with something like this, and it paid off.  This was designed to help us find that short, powerful, canter.  This, I have video of:


The jumping, then, felt a lot better.



She used related-distance ground poles both as a warmup, and then in between fences, to help all of us adjust our horses' strides - in my case, always more compact and more powerful.  They really helped, as T Myers noticed in the photo I put up in yesterday's post.

Long spot over one pole - you can see his teeth!  Haha!

Long spot, defensive riding, and Connor being a total badass over a teeny tiny oxer.

Takeaways from Day 1 were that I need to use transitions and half-halts to produce a shorter, more powerful canter, so that we have options when we get to the fences, and so that he feels like he can fully utilize his "stronger body".  That led to a big breakthrough the next day on XC...


And for the record, I'm underdressed because our escape artist Husky/Malamute got loose right as I was leaving for the clinic, and I had to slide tackle the little jerk (grass stain on left knee), and then roll over him onto the concrete with him having some sort of yelping meltdown about the whole situation (torn right knee of breeches + skinned knee).  If I hadn't, he would have continued running for miles and I would have been late.

Since that's my only pair of tan breeches with belt loops, used for clinics and shows, time to go shopping!

Jump videos:

It's been a while since we talked about airs above the ground - I mean jumping.

THE FLOOR IS LAVA!

That's because we've almost done nothing but Dressage since FRVPCHT in June.  This is how this barn rolls, and I like it.

Our jumping is always better after long Dressage spells.  Increased Connor body control + increased hind end strength + probably really happy to see something other than an empty sandbox in front of him = good stuff over fences.

(Plus he's mentally strong enough, and the things we're doing now on the flat are challenging enough, that he's not bored doing Dressage.  A good thing.)

Our 5th Cathy clinic, our first in a year, is going to be really helpful.  For one, she saw my XC warmup at FRVPCHT, and then chatted with me, my trainer and teammate over dinner and drinks at the competitor's party about Connor's levitation over the table on course.  

She also saw the next day's show jumping round in which Connor totally lost his mind in the ring after a great warmup:

No gerbils here, folks.

On my clinic entry form, even though I knew this line is more for people my trainer doens't know, I wrote that I wanted to work on "jumping confidently across the fences."  Because riding this to a solid fence:


is not safe, even with a pony with the hind end to jump a 2'6 table from a standstill and a crazy strong hatred of touching the fences.

I know it's because he's careful to a fault, and briefly pausing to check things out is the fault, and that he did get over this at Starter height fences, but I need him to start trusting himself and me enough to just jump it.

Extremely displeased with himself for touching a fence.

I've talked before about how beneficial it is to have a "sometimes trainer" like Cathy, who has known us since we couldn't jump a crossrail without coming to it like a broken shopping cart, and sees us about every six months.

She sees things that my trainer might miss, just by virtue of seeing us all the time.  Looking forward to some great rides this weekend!