grid your loins!

It's no secret that trainer P from OF loves some grid work. Especially one stride lines set at 18' distances. She's pretty great at finding ways to incorporate them into most courses and exercises, and over the years has often even used them as a warm up for jumping.

puppy in a pony shadow!

The idea with these grids, as best I can understand it, is to kinda set the horse up to figure out his own footwork and own body. The rider is responsible for coming into the grid with the right pace (whether trotting or cantering in) and for keeping the horse straight.

calm down charlie!

Then the horse just kinda does whatever he's going to do, with the jumps themselves providing the education. With such a short compressed distance for one stride (18'), the horse must really compress his body and figure out how to rock back on his hind end and use himself more properly over the out jump. The distance makes it a lot harder to just blast through flatly.

starting work over the one strides

Charlie's had very limited exposure to grids before now - with just two lessons dedicated to the task. Like this one back in February when he was still learning what this whole jumping thing was all about (and actually that grid work helped Charlie have a few breakthroughs). And this one from June when he had a more thorough introduction to one stride grids.

built up to the full four fences

And actually - in most of the first introductions to grid work with Charlie, we've had a run out or attempted run outs. Which I totally get - it can be kinda overwhelming to look down a line and see nothing but a sea of poles and standards. Plus. Ya know. Squirrely green horses are squirrely.

dem knees tho!

Then, in more recent weeks, it's just been plain old too hot to really ask the horses to do that much gymnastic work. Combined with trainer P's limited mobility with a bum knee, the idea got put on the back burner.

i love his expression! 

But we definitely wanted to address it sooner rather than later. Charlie's really figuring out this jumping thing. He's gotten quite comfortable with it. Maybe even too comfortable - he doesn't even bother looking at jumps below 2'6 and can be too casual about it, but is not yet quite educated enough to bail himself out if he (or I, let's be real) ends up making a mistake.

and he actually did shockingly well in the 18' distances

Plus his tendency is to kinda leap at the fences, using his size and speed to get over, instead of really using his body to its full ability. This is naturally not quite ideal, and certainly not something I want cemented as habit.

too easy over the final haha

So to set up the exercise, we started by building up to three verticals in a row, set at 30' distances (so again, a compressed two stride). Trainer P left a pile of poles where the first jump would be, but only set up the second and third jumps of the line.

Charlie had to trot in, figuring out his footwork over that little pole pile before trotting the next two jumps. Then the pole pile turned into a jump and he did all three in a row, with two strides between. My biggest aim here was for straightness, given our history with run outs. This sometimes meant I wasn't as giving with my hands as I needed to be, a constant struggle. But we stayed quite straight!

and bc i like media overkill, here's his final effort

We didn't spend a lot of time with the two stride grid tho, moving quickly over to the one stride line. Which again started with only the 3rd and 4th jumps set up, and the first staying as a pole pile. Charlie had to trot in, figure out his footwork over that confounding pole pile, then continue moving forward to the single one stride.

Then we built up the second jump in the line. Rinse repeat. And then the first jump in the line - so four jumps in a row, 18' distances between them.

one day i'll be more trusting with my position, which will only make charlie's life easier. he seems to be making pretty good work of things despite me tho!

A few more repetitions and all four were set as oxers. Then continue with the rinse repeat nature of the exercise, with me working to enter the grid with the appropriate pace, maintain our straightness, but otherwise stay out of the goddamn way and let the grid do its job.

video of the entire schooling process tho, for those of you interested in how we built up the exercises

Obviously that last part (staying out of the way) is a real struggle for me haha, esp when we'd get into the grid a little dodgy... But actually I was quite pleased both with Charlie's willingness to stay straight. And especially with how soft he stayed through the whole exercise.

Unlike the last time we practiced grids in June, he did not start getting strong and racey on reapproaching the line again and again. He stayed soft to the bridle, trotted quite nicely, and seemed to be very very focused on the job. I liked it!

also, here's Goose the pig. bc why not

By the end too, he was actually almost slow through the grid - like breaking each movement into its own unit of time and space. Sit lift jump. Land step wait. Sit lift jump. Land step wait.

I remember from auditing Boyd Martin a while back that he was very insistent on getting the horses to jump "slower." Not necessarily meaning pace, per se, but actually in the act of jumping itself. He didn't want to see horses racing off the ground or riders rushing or moving too quickly with their upper bodies. Saying instead that horses jump the best when they leave the ground and move through the air slower.

I'm not totally certain that Charlie's work through that last grid was exactly what Boyd meant or wanted. But it felt worlds different from racing at and leaping over the fences.

It was also a really cool feeling to see Charlie be so focused in on the job - thinking so deeply about each step, while also seeming to really enjoy the puzzle. The sense I get from this horse is that he will tackle just about any problem so long as he thinks he can get the answer right. And the more stuff he sees, the more confident he feels in figuring out what's expected of him.