wherein Charlie discovers the launch codes

So. Charlie is my jumping horse, yes? Kinda, sorta? I mean, over the past year and five months (time flies!) since Charlie retired from his racing career, he has in fact learned to overcome obstacles in his path.

But.... anybody who's followed along with the many, many pictures and videos of this process might already recognize that Charlie isn't really jumping, per se, so much as he kinda.... just canters over stuff. Or occasionally he'll lift and fling his shoulders and front end across a jump, with the hind end sorta just trailing behind.

This is partly bc the heights we've tackled are honestly pretty easy for him. He's 17h+ after all, and not exactly a slouch in the athleticism department (even if he's not super inclined toward exertion). It's also bc he hasn't quite actually figured out how to use himself very well yet.

behind charlie, an entire wall of the indoor is deconstructed, and peppered with ladders and Amish carpenters working away with hammers, screw drivers, and all sorts of other fun irregularly noisy odds and ends. excitement!

There are a couple ways to address training a horse to use their bodies better. One way is to keep introducing more height to sorta force the issue, make the horse really focus and pay attention. This can work really well for horses unimpressed with little things, and for riders who are comfortable and confident with more height.

For riders who are a little less sure of their own ability to bail the horse out in dicey situations with big fences -- or who may be wishing to develop a horse who can bail the rider out in said dicey situations -- another option is grid and gymnastic work. Forever and ever amen.

You probably don't have to guess which of those two options appeals more to me haha.

certainly made for a more.... dramatic sense of adventure in the otherwise monotonous indoor lol

So anyway. This week we had our third lesson with upper level event rider K. Which brought along more grid work. It would be easy for me to feel like, "Wow in three lessons with this new trainer we've only tackled variations of the same exact exercise over and over again... When is she gonna switch it up?"

Except... Uh. I'm not taking these lessons only for excitement and variety and fun (tho naturally those are important). I'm taking them bc I'm pretty deeply interested in improving my own knowledge and technique, especially as it relates to training Charlie to be the horse I want him to be: A horse who can take me places I've never been before.

So I'm cool with the repetition over these exercises, esp after seeing the results K has been able to produce. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

fully admitting i spent wayyyyy too much time getting those cavalleti and the arena above scaled to size. approx 52 pixels per 12' stride. arena is 20x40m, so one long side is approximately 11 strides. the gray thing at the end is actually a big tarp covered barn door lying at one end of the under-construction arena, therefore shortening our usable arena length significantly, by up to 2-3 stride lengths. and yes, to answer your question, we DID almost run it over once or twice while tracking left through this exercise.

K is honestly at a bit of a disadvantage with me as a student. I used to have a training program that comprised: weekly jump lessons with Trainer P, wherein we get reps over course work, height, and grids; weekly jump lessons with 4* eventer Dan, wherein we got drilled on technique on the flat and over fences, with exercises that could be incredibly challenging; and regular dressage lessons with Trainer C, who revolutionized our flat work.

This system just.... Worked for me - all the pieces clicked seamlessly together. I'm very fortunate to still be a student of Trainers P & C, but logistics became an insurmountable challenge for regular lessons with Dan. Thus, enter upper level eventer K. Who is not Dan. For instance, she has yet to touch our flat work. And part of me wants to resent that she's not Dan bc I wish I could be taking lessons with him still.

But she isn't, and that's actually not a bad thing either. She's got her own style developed from her own experiences and from working for another local BNR 4* rider, Sally Cousins. And actually almost without me noticing, she's already started touching on some technical details where I *know* I need a lot of help.

the grid: trot pole (not pictured) to small X, one stride to oxer with V-poles. i didn't ask, but believe these were in the same position from last week - set at about 20ish' (possibly 21-22') apart. V-poles are introduced slowly from the edges of the jump and moved inward incrementally.

Specifically, she set up two cavaletti on the long side, having me include them in my warm up of trot and canter. First just sorta cruisin through, letting Charlie find his own way. Which, incidentally, was to trot in for 5 strides, or canter in for 4. (K says she didn't set them at any particular distances - this is very much a "work with what ya got" type exercise).

Then canter through, adding for 5. Then 4 again. Then get the 6. And she says she would've had us try for 3 too if it weren't for the tarp-covered door in one of the arena - making the turn on landing pretttttty challenging on a very open stride (we definitely almost nailed the door after coming through in 4 once anyway haha).

This exercise is SO PERFECT for Charlie, and yet I haven't actually set it up on my own. Who knows why. But having a trainer work me through it? So helpful. The exercise went about as I expected: The adds were easier on the right lead, and the going stride was easier on the left. But just because I already knew that didn't mean it isn't important to keep practicing.

K also echoed what she told me last week about working through the turns: I need to still have a little more forward in my turns to the exercise. I wanted to package Charlie up too early before the first jump, instead of allowing him to move up and then half halting between the two elements.

My excuse for this is that Charlie doesn't really.... half halt yet haha. But. Isn't that what the purpose of this exercise is all about? So yea. Great practice. And I really need to be better about setting stuff like this up for myself, it's so easy to do. Adjustability is one of Charlie's key weaknesses right now.

charlie surveying his kingdom. or. maybe keeping an eye out for the industrious amish. either one, really. also bc i'm a zealot about keeping track of jump heights, i did some very high tech scientifical guestimating on this oxer's height, based on the 2' riser against the standard. verdict? right around 2'9, esp considering the V-poles (4x4 beams). then again tho, everything always looks bigger in the indoor, with shorter standards and narrowed poles.

Anyway, after working over the cavalleti on both leads, we moved back to the one stride exercises from last week. Since the giant barn door taking up one end of the arena, K pulled the first element so it was just two jumps: a cross rail to an oxer.

We started with both set up, tho the oxer started as a very large cross rail. Then slowly built that second element into the oxer, before beginning to introduce the V-poles while increasing height.

Same as last time, K wanted me to think of bumping up with my hands and lifting through the grid. She said that it wasn't just my hands that made the difference, but that there must be something else I do with my body and position when I'm thinking about "lifting" that communicates to Charlie what I'm asking.

And. Guys. Charlie responded.

flahsback to the first time i felt some of the power charlie can have when he actually uses himself. i was incredibly unprepared for his effort over this seemingly boring oxer

Like. This flat-jumping, canters-over-everything, jump-clobberer, can't-be-bothered gelding FINALLY really showed us what he's got over that oxer. Especially as the V-poles moved in.

It was incredible. What a feeling. He actually really cracked his back, really wrapped himself around the jump - while still moving forward and across. His withers actually came up to meet me, wherein I actually finally got to feel my position finally settling into something more resembling what it felt like to jump Isabel (who cracked her back over the merest cross rails).

I wish I had video but have a habit of not asking trainers to record bc I know they're busy actually.... ya know... instructing me haha. Tho K actually said she's happy to do so since she understands the value of studying the video.

Anyway tho, I do have some video from the first time I ever really felt Charlie power off the ground, as shown in the gif below. This is kinda a perfect example bc, esp with the juxtaposition of the second jump where he's flatter and doesn't use himself nearly as well.

via GIPHY

For me as a rider, the biggest difference in riding this is how it affects my position - which you can also sorta see above. His flatter, more strung out jump is kinda harder to figure out for me, since he's kinda just pulling us across the jump without any real push. Whereas in that first jump there's a distinct push up where his withers rise to me and help me sink more into my heels and seat. If that makes sense.

Actually the whole video from that early June lesson is fun to revisit, since it was one of the first rides where things started clicking for us over fences. It's sloppy and messy around the edges. Charlie never really jumps very well and I'm kinda just clinging on for the ride. But it was also the beginning of a new phase in our combined understanding of jumping together.

It's a nice counterpoint to this current ride, where Charlie seemed to have a breakthrough on using his body to jump. The idea, as trainer K told me (also, incidentally, what L Williams wrote in the comments of my last lesson recap) was that these grid exercises will help Charlie develop the 'muscle memory' so that this becomes his normal style of jumping.

badass gentlemen of sport don't need to pose for the camera, obvi

So it was definitely exciting to feel. Especially knowing Charlie's a pretty clever horse and seems to pick up quickly on things that make his job easier and more fun. It'll be interesting to see how all this work translates when we get back outside again and Charlie has more space to get strung out and build in pace. Only time will tell!

I'm looking forward to it one way or another tho! Have you ever felt your horse have a "breakthrough" in any of your riding? Where a concept finally became clear to them? Or they finally figured out how to connect all the pieces of their body together to create that surge of power? Either on the flat or over fences?