understanding the 'preparation zone'

Y'all know by now that I'm a helmet cam junkie - whether by watching footage from other bloggers, or from the pros riding at the highest levels of competition.

One of those pros - Ingrid Klimke - has been utilizing SAP's Equestrian Analytics in her videos and I noticed something interesting while watching the footage from her recent win at Aachen.

somehow this screenshot from the footage makes it look easy, doable. spoiler, it isn't!!

It's all related to my tireless efforts to understand what the right jumping canter should be, and how to get there.

Dan has been telling me he wants the horse moving forward to the jump, or, in other words, jumping the fence out of a forward stride. For a while I've been understanding this as 'going faster.'

Then DOC expounded in his clinic upon the concept of the 'preparation zone,' about six strides out from the fence wherein you should already be established in your canter and can focus on 'managed maintenance.'

This is all well and fine, except I've sorta misunderstood both these ideas. In fact, I still might not get it, but I'm maybe closer. My problem with Dan's directives was that I just started running Isabel at the fence. That's 'forward' right? And with the DOC 'preparation zone' I simply stopped doing anything a few strides from the fence. Recall this is what prompted the warning about confusing softness for effectiveness.

not really sure what he would think about my misguided interpretation of his teachings...

So the interesting thing about watching Ingrid's footage was actually watching her speed throughout the course.

Specifically, I noticed that she cruised around 700mpm (give or take - I just eyeballed the numbers), and as the jump would come into view she'd fairly dramatically re-balance the horse and drop down to about 480-500mpm (or lower to around 400-450 for more challenging combinations). Then she would accelerate to the fence - getting back up to almost 550-600 by takeoff (again, depending on the type of fence and whether it was a combination).

Obviously the actual speeds changed depending on the question (ie combo vs. galloping fence), but she accelerated to almost every single fence. Some were jumped from a very slow pace - but it was still moving forward after her initial adjustment. And some (like the easier galloping fences) were jumped from fairly close to cruising speed.

But it was a consistent trend:

• Gallop along at cruising speed. At some distance from the fence - close enough that the horse understands he's to jump that fence, let's say six strides out - re-balance and collect the canter, then move forward up to the fence.

'forward' does not equal 'faster'

Somehow this really helped me make sense of what both DOC and Dan have been trying to say. I checked in with Dan about it (bc obvi I don't exactly have DOC on speed dial) and he more or less concurred that this was what he was trying to get across - tho again he warned that it's difficult to lift the horse's shoulders while accelerating, so I should be careful in thinking about it that way.

Really, what he means when he says 'forward' is to get more lift in the horse's shoulders - more 'jump' in the canter and more horse in front of my leg. But in watching this footage I at least have a better idea of when and HOW to start preparing for the fence, and how to ride those last few strides. Definitely good food for thought!

It's kinda funny how many different channels I'm going through to understand what seems, superficially at least, like a simple concept. Have you ever had any unexpected 'aha' moments watching a random video?