perfect practice makes .... ?

Phew we've had some pretty massive posts lately, eh? Recapping Charlie's three phase debut obviously meant a lot to me - but we can't dwell forever. And with a horse as green as this guy, he's changing so quickly that my updates on his training progress are sometimes outdated before I can even get them up lol.

ENGAGE: JUMPIES MODE

Still tho, I promise to stay a little lighter on the words today bc.... sheesh, sometimes we just need pictures. Anyway. You may have noticed from all those myriad Loch Moy photos that it was basically a GORGEOUS day out. The weather was perfect - mid 60s with clear blue skies and a strong sun.

dark and blurry, but one of the nicest moments of trot yet caught on video. it's actually just a moment of trot during an extended simple change of lead, but idk. i like it. visible right around the 1min mark of the below video.

That..... that had not been the forecast AT ALL. All last week we had lots of steady, soaking, drizzling rain and it was expected to carry through Sunday and into this week. Which.... it totally has. With one exception.

Saturday (the source of these pictures and video) was wet wet wet. And Monday was wet wet wet. But Sunday? Show Day? Perfection. Idk how we got so lucky. But I'm grateful!

i always have a soft spot for this jump since it was charlie's first real oxer anyway

So Saturday afternoon, we dutifully hauled over to OF in the rain for our weekly jump lesson with trainer P. It was kinda funny too bc Charlie's home barn was having an h/j show and a bunch of kids were really struggling in their rides.

such a good boy

One sweet kiddo told me about how her pony had 9 refusals. I asked her when was the last time she practiced jumping her pony in the rain, and she replied "never."

So. Ya know. That's kinda the story, right? Jumping in the rain is different. The footing is different. Maybe the horse is distracted or carrying their head differently to avoid water drops in their ears. Idk. It's just different. Much like a very windy day can be different.

wheeeee jumping!

As tempting as it is to pack it in on those days, sometimes it feels worth it to suck it up and ride anyway. My thoughts being: if I would show in it, I better school in it too. And since Brita and I fully expected to be competing in cold, rainy 50* weather the following day, Saturday felt like as good a time as any to get in that practice. Luckily tho, the footing at OF holds up to basically every element except actual hard freezes.

just breezin my race horse, nbd

As far as jump lessons go, it was fairly standard aside from the rain. We warmed up quickly and economically bc of the weather, and immediately started jumping around, all the horses going all the places all the time haha.

i love his face so much. i'm never gonna let it go!
(also i challenge you to find this moment in the video to see if or how differently you would ride it)

I wanted so badly to just focus on raising my hands, bending my elbows, shortening my reins, with my hands pushed farther forward up Charlie's neck... And just focus on letting go a little more. But trainer P actually took me to task when Charlie started running at the fences a bit, running past his distances in the process.

too casual lol (note the kicked ground line)
(and hint, the previous pic is related to this one)

She admonished me for not carrying my flat work into the jumping which .... like .... gosh I feel like I've paid for that lesson before haha. Oops.

As Charlie became stronger and more anticipatory, it finally occurred to me why I disliked the feeling so much: He loses all ability to be soft or bend (limited tho that ability may be anyway). So in between jumping I often brought him back to trot on a circle as if we were back just working on the flat.

hard to tell who likes jumping the left side more, him or me....

I'm not sure he loved that haha, but it made a difference. And is maybe why when I trotted him during a simple change of lead in our course, he actually produced what felt like quite a nice trot (relatively speaking) rather than immediately anticipating the step back into canter.

i think he's havin fun tho!

Anyway the course work itself felt really really good. Felt WAY better than it looks in the video, but I've resigned myself to that fact for now. We might kinda just look like.... idk, whatever we look like. But the feel of this course was maybe the most schooled Charlie's felt yet over fences.

figuring it out, one jump at a time

He waited. He balanced. He also moved up to fences (even tho I'm still not consistently going with him haha). But mostly, the thing he needs to learn most is not to stretch out to the gap, rather he needs to learn to compress his stride. Bc let's be real - especially at starter trials, the courses will not be set for a stride like Charlie's.

quickie video here

It ain't perfect, but it felt like the best jumping we've done to date. Small steps y'all haha. And I feel a little better about my own riding in this video (flawed tho it ever will be) than I did about, say, any of the xc schooling videos haha.

Gotta just keep reminding myself that, even tho technically Charlie started 'jump lessons' in November, he didn't truly get the hang of it until the end of January (video here for comparison). And he's been developing and changing and evolving ever since. So it's maybe reasonable that I'm kinda playing catch-up a little with him. And that's ok. We'll figure it out.

<3 him

I know a lot of you out there - especially other bloggers, but really everyone - can often have mixed feelings about sharing pictures or video of your rides. Especially bc we're often our own worst critics - our perceived shortcomings stand out to us in glaring, neon flashing signs. And naturally, most of us are amateurs anyway. We don't ride like pros bc.... well, we aren't.

Plus, of course, anything published on the internet is subject to judgement or even ridicule, despite how kind and supportive our own little equestrian blogging community may be (which, btw, I'm always eternally grateful for!).

All the same tho, I personally find a LOT of value in posting honest and representative photos of my riding. Like, sure, most of the pictures are cherry picked from videos. And I don't post the worst of them haha. But taking the good with the bad helps me better understand where I currently am in my training, and where I need to focus. It's a slow process too, so having pictures over time really helps me.

Do you feel similarly about sharing pictures of your riding? Maybe you curate your published pictures a little more carefully? Or do you avoid it altogether? Are you your own worst critic, or are you basically like Popeye, "I am what I am"??