Training XC Course Walk @ Morven Park

***First up, a quick announcement***

MCTA needs volunteers for the upcoming USEA Horse Trials at Shawan Downs. The competition is held over the weekend of May 4-5, although volunteer positions are available throughout preparations the whole week prior. If you're local, please consider signing up! No previous experience is needed, and it's a great way to spend the day at a beautiful Maryland venue, watching world class riders like Boyd Martin gallop around!

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Ok, moving on. As I already mentioned, one big advantage of spending the day at Moven with Amelia last weekend was getting to tag along for her coach's Training and Prelim course walks.

This is the 3rd recognized T course I've walked from nose to tail (4th overall if you include starters). My impression remains..... well, impressed. Esp coming hot on the heels of that MDHT unrecognized T course, this was a much needed reality check.

course walk meta data via Altitude Profile app

Charlie and I have a LOT of work to do before I'd feel comfortable aiming him at this entire course in one go. Schooling-wise, tho? Tbh, most of this course looks like something I'd be relatively comfortable trying out in schooling conditions. Which at least is a good sign lol.

From a meta-data perspective, it wasn't the most intense in the world. Not terribly long at just over 2km (which includes my extra steps for walking around each jump) and with some gently rolling terrain. The max change in elevation is only 12m, far shy of the ~30m we'd see at Fair Hill. We have access to ~25-30m hills at home for fitness work, so this Morven terrain looks well within hand.

full height log at fence 1, with the table at fence 4 looming in the background

From there, tho, the course immediately begins testing my gumption haha. With a full height log immediately out of the start gate. The log doesn't look like much, but it *is* tall.

I really need to get serious about testing Charlie's and my "start box style" haha bc if we can't get out of the gates reasonably well, jumps like this just aren't going to be kind to us. Like we learned at Plantation, too, if Charlie takes enough hard knocks at the beginning of a course, he's a lot more likely to want to quit on me.

nice coop with cutouts

Anyway, tho, the course starts with a little loop. I didn't like riding a loop at the beginning when we did it at our Novice at Loch Moy last year, mostly bc it keeps repeating the whole "leaving the start" feeling. But this loop actually looked fine. Jump 2 had an inviting approach and was just a reasonable coop.

A trend on this course: some of these simpler jumps are also extremely wide between the flags - makes for easy steering haha!

steeplechase rolltop - wiiiiide but inviting

After coming around the loop, this steeplechase fence is pointed directly at the start box. So, probably Charlie would grab the bit and drag me over this thing trying to go back home again haha. This fence in particular looks pretty big to me, but it has a very kind profile to the horses. I'd typically expect to see this style fence topped with brush to keep the horses "up," but this one has a log on top.

max everything table + mushroooms. gulp.

Jump 4 isn't as tall as the brush fence later on course, but in every other regard it's the biggest on course. With the start box immediately to our right, it's possible that Charlie would be a bit distracted or uncommitted. Plus. Ya know. These tables are still pretttty terrifying to me haha. Details, details.

trakehner, seems like the ridges on the log might help keep the eye UP??

Assuming we survived the table, and were able to successfully continue galloping away from the start box, this trakehner comes up after just a little bit more of a gallop. I actually thought this was one of the more inviting trakehners I've seen. But who knows. Again, this is a style jump that Charlie and I have virtually no experience with, and that really needs to change.

straight forward feeder

After the trakehner, we would cross a mucky little stream section, then continue on to the biggest uphill portion of this course, catching this simple feeder along the way. This jump poses zero concerns to me. Obvi tho anything could happen haha - at Plantation we got high-centered on a coop, for chrissakes.

double up banks seem doable but would take some riding

Continuing up the hill to the highest elevation point on course, we meet this double up bank. Charlie *has* schooled this question before, although he wasn't particularly thrilled or keen about it. Having had that experience tho, I feel like I'd know what I needed to do to ride Charlie through this. And it still looks better going up than it would in the reverse LOL.

very kind line, even if the fences are big

Looping away from the double ups, we reach this line that's very similar to the Novice variation I did with Isabel at Loch Moy, except obvi with T jumps. And they aren't even flagged A-B.

chunky but friendly roll top

Charlie has demonstrated enough confidence with the size of T jumps, including styles more technical than these, that I would expect these jumps to go well for us and feel reasonably confident that we could accomplish them today with minimal fuss.

tallest fence on course, but horses fucking love brush fences amirite?

Returning down the hill, we have a nice inviting approach to this brush fence, the tallest fence on course. Bonus is that it's heading back toward the barns. Charlie's favorite lol. My experience with brush fences is that horses generally read them very well, and can really attack them.

Isabel even jumped a fence pretty similar in size to this one above, and jumped it beautifully. You can see just the tips of the brush framing the bottom edge of Isabel's picture on my side bar to the right. So again, I feel like this is something Charlie and I are ready to take a shot at in schooling.

friendly half coffin too

Then to the half coffin - something I'd honestly feel reasonably confident with seeing on course in competition right now. This *is* a question we've schooled, and that Charlie has demonstrably handled well again and again and again. We've more commonly seen the ditch as the A vs the B element, but we *have* done it both ways.

look how much space there is between the flags for this coop!

Then a galloping sweeping turn to this large but inviting coop with a slight downhill landing, wherein again Charlie would quite possibly grab the bit and take off with me haha. Charlie's handled this type of downhill jump pretty well in schooling, so I'd expect it to be fine.

But I also kinda feel like we need more practice considering the most extreme variation of jumping to a straight down hill was the final nail in our coffin at Plantation.

not even flagged on course, and yet this weird ditch-like stream crossing kinda freaked me out the most LOL

Next we thread the needle between some Prelim and Intermediate combinations at this weird ditchy stream crossing. Training could more or less pick your line, and you can see that the stream bed is fairly wide (maybe 4-5'ish feet?) and flat at the bottom. But with the water and steep banks in and out, I honestly have no real clue what Charlie would do here haha.

with a sneaky jump immediately on that bending line up from the creek bed!

He'd probably try to jump it, but only god knows what sort of dance moves that would entail. So that kinda makes me a little nervous, esp bc the course designer did in fact knit this little fold of terrain into a fun T question. Coming away immediately from the stream bank is a quick right turn to this log jump.

it's a forgiving jump tho

It's a gentle question, tho, and one that should be reasonably easy to answer if you have any semblance of control at this point lol. Again, while this particular situation makes me a little nervous, and while I don't feel like we're ready to see it in competition, I'd LOVE to school it. And am maybe now brainstorming ways to put something sorta similar together at our own farm that's crisscrossed with little streams.

this bending line combination is not even close to anything charlie and i have schooled

Anyway. Following that, there's a nice lengthy gallop back from the far end of the course. Likely a point that Charlie would be really hauling ass haha. Then, boom, this bending line + accuracy question. Beam jump, bending to the right, to a corner on a bit of an open angle.

bonus shrubbery right smack in the middle of the corner's face, daring your horse to glance off to the open left side

Plus that fucking bush. Ugh. Yea. This..... This corner is nowhere near as inviting as those corners at Loch Moy a couple weeks ago haha. Charlie has been jumping bending lines in stadium courses for years now, but we've never seen anything quite like this on xc.

Remember last week when I talked about bitting for xc and used the example of a turning question late on course?? Yea. Well. Here it fucking is LOL. As of right now, this isn't something I want to see on course in competition. Maybe I'm not even quite brave enough to school it yet. But perhaps some softer variation of it will make it into our rides?

actually possibly friendlier than that table from 4

Ahem. Anyway, moving right along lol. This wagon actually doesn't really bother me, which is maybe surprising. I like the hay bales as a ground line. And the jump is smaller than the table we would have already jumped at this point. Plus, heading toward home, I'd expect it to be maybe fine. But ya know. Possibly we should just school some big tables in general, just to be sure ;)

not a big fence, but possibly a big question, since it looks and rides almost like a drop into water

This water bugs me out just a little bit. Like I think Charlie could totally do it just fine, but we'd probably need to warm up to it. Like, say, by cantering in and out of the water alone a few times. Then maybe doing the above and below jumps separately. Which, on this course, would be totally allowed even in competition. Time consuming, but legal.

backside of the fences gives you a better feel for the drop

I appreciate that it's such a kind fence going into the water. But Charlie (and I) have limited experience with this, and we definitely need to school it in a progressive manner so as to avoid developing any sorta baggage.

then turn immediately to this reasonable brush fence out of the water. car for scale. 

Coming out of the water looks fine tho, just another ramped brush fence. Again, it's a biggish fence but not the biggest on course. And horses love brush fences. And the barns are right there in front of us haha, so presumably Charlie would be happily drawn in toward home.

final fence is a simple beam. not something i personally love the look of, but after everything else it should jump easy haha

Then, the final fence - another beam not dissimilar to the A element of the earlier bending line. I don't love it but I don't hate it, and feel reasonably confident that Charlie would jump it today if we happened to see it on course anywhere.

Thus wraps Morven Park's T XC course walk. Overall, putting all the above together in one go feels very, very far away right now. We have some very clear gaps and unknowns. Hopefully tho, by gathering this information, I can continue working on filling those gaps and making sure our schooling mileage keeps moving us in the right direction.

Plus, now I have some fun ideas for schooling using the resources I already have on hand at home haha. And quiiiiite possibly an idea involving some manner of godforsaken shrubbery lol. What do you think, does anything in this course look like something you'd want a shot at? Either in the current form, or perhaps some other slight variation?