about that lesson....

Thanks all for your kind words and wishes for a speedy recovery after Charlie's nail-impalement mishap. It's hard to believe.... but he seems.... fine.

me, when my horse keeps finding new and inventive ways to maim himself

Idk how he does this. Like, he seems to toe right up onto the edge of catastrophe, maybe even sticking his nose ever so slightly over the line... And yet manages to walk away relatively unscathed. I know in my gut that one day, Sir, those wax wings of yours will melt. But today does not appear to be that day.

Vet's orders are to remain vigilant for a potential abscess. Barring that, tho, the horse is sound and cleared for duty. Crazy, I know. But that's Charlie for ya.

aaaaand.... how i cope.

I, on the other hand, might need a few more days to emerge from my cocoon of slightly muted panic. Bc a giant nail in my horse's hoof can have that effect, ya know? But seeing Charlie feeling healthy and happy (and SOUND), with his standard dopey expression really helps!

So in the meantime, while I try to pull myself and my tangled nerves out of the puddle we melted into... In the meantime, let's talk about that how that lesson went before Charlie discovered that nail in a manner exactly opposite of conquering heroes from days past.

flashback to that time my horse did cool things like arena eventing at loch moy

The lesson was kinda fraught with disaster from the start - since we had an overnight ice storm and I needed to reshuffle my work schedule to move the lesson to the afternoon. It was still rainy and icy tho, and the walk up to the arena was slightly harrowing.

Then as we got started, Charlie was moving out a little stiffly. Probably from having stood on literal ice for the past few hours (tho at least his new Mio sheet kept him AND his medium weight blanket nice and dry!!). He loosened up quickly tho, esp with some open cantering on each lead.

oh he also won a year end award too!!

New upper level event trainer K had promised we'd do something other than grids this week, and she did not disappoint. Plus she'd already set everything up - since Charlie and I were her third back to back lesson in a row (and yet Charlie had to be the one to find the nail... grrr).

It was pretty simple stuff, and all starting nice and low to help Charlie ease into the exercises and tune in. We started by trotting up the center line to a single blue vertical at the far end, repeating and changing directions as the jump grew slightly with each pass. Then turned around to do the same exercise, but taking the short turn down the center line to the vertical (coming from A instead of C) and focusing on landing straight in canter.

somehow we pulled 3rd in the BN rankings despite only completing one BN for 4th place lol

This was all well and fine for Charlie, so we quickly moved on to the panel jump with placing poles on either side at E. It started as a panel cross rail and grew every couple of passes, and we circled from each direction cantering in.

My biggest focus here was the turn: Turning early enough with outside knee and open inside hand, and sitting my ass down in the saddle through the turn to encourage Charlie to step up and carry himself forward on his hind legs.

anyway, more interesting things: this lesson's course diagram. plain vertical on center line. vertical at E with placing poles. hog's back oxer at B. 4" mother fucking nail at H.

I also needed to focus on keeping the canter coming forward. My tendency is to try to micromanage Charlie a little too much, to ride him in too quiet of a canter, where we then have to make big last minute moves to get to where we want to be at the jump. And as such, we had a couple misses where I kinda just threw the reins at him and let him find his own way through lol.

Mostly tho, the whole art of this particular exercise was the turn. Given that the arena is 40x20m, and the jump was set on the E-B line, if I got my turn right, we'd then have 3 forward strides after finishing the turn to reach the placing pole. If I didn't get the turn right? Getting through the whole mini gymnastic was a bit trickier.

photographic representation of the same.

After repeating that for a while, I expected the hog's back oxer to ride just fine. And we treated it in the same manner: approaching at canter off both leads, with it going up every couple of passes. Turns out tho, it only really rode easily if I executed the turn well. In this size arena, there really isn't a lot of forgiveness for being sloppy turning down the center or quarter lines. Go figure.

Trainer K wanted to see me be a little more disciplined in both my upper body (sitting up taller and deeper in the saddle in turns to the jumps) and legs (lower legs forward over the fence). And wanted to see me ride a more forward canter, but still keeping Charlie's attention and softness, moving the bit in his mouth if he was getting away from me.

charlie, looking bored by ground poles one evening earlier this week

The final exercise was to be: come down over the mini gymnastic on our right lead, find somewhere to change directions, then come down over the hog's back on our left lead. But... Charlie picked up that nasty little giant nail just as we were picking up our canter.

So. Ya know. That was kinda that.

It was otherwise a good lesson tho, lots to think about for me as rider. I need to commit to memory this feeling of a more forward but still balanced canter. While also being more accountable (ie, less sloppy) in our turns and straightness to fences. When those pieces check out, then it's just a matter of making sure my body parts are all where they belong lol.

It was also yet another lesson making me wish we had more options when it comes to conditioning right now. Private jumping lessons are.... a lot more intense than group lessons haha. And Charlie was constantly trying to drop anchor at every passing standard to catch a little break. As if he couldn't figure out why it was always "his turn" and nobody else was going in between our trips to give us a breather lol.

That's fine tho. More fitness will help. And esp when we're outside more consistently (or when summer rolls around and Brita's school is out) I expect we'll get more group or semi-private lessons too. Which, honestly, tends to be my preference for jumping lessons anyway.

Ya know. Assuming Charlie doesn't get himself killed between now and then. Always a big "if" there, apparently.... Sigh. Do you like private jumping lessons? Or do you prefer groups? Or do you just kinda roll with what you can get?