back on the chain gang

Obviously I hadn't really expected last weekend's horse show plans to get derailed by yet another leg issue in Sir Charles. Rather, we had spent the week in advance going through our normal preparations. With the added priority of continuing to experiment with bitting solutions.

i have no idea why this curb chain is so freakin long tho

The idea being: during cross country at Loch Moy a few weeks ago, Charlie grew increasingly strong, dropping his shoulders and flattening to the fences. That makes it really hard to find a good distance to the jumps - and virtually impossible to get a good half halt through so that we could still ride forward to the fences. But backwards is never the answer, turns out.

And we all saw the pictures right? The result of our unbalanced canter was jumping from a half stride, climbing over a couple, or just basically cantering over the fences.

That all feels even less comfortable than it looks haha, I promise. Tho at least that bad feeling is counteracted by Charlie otherwise feeling completely honest and genuine to the fences.

He went everywhere I pointed him, stayed straight, and tackled everything with gusto. Just.... in a slightly uneducated and careless manner that could be problematic when the fences aren't 2'7 and below haha.

snoozing over the swedish oxer / barrel jump
also THANK YOU Sarah for the video + pictures!!!!! :D

Ultimately tho, it's pretty apparent that Charlie actually has a reasonably correct technique over the fences when he cares to. When properly motivated, his form and expression (and auto-changes) wouldn't be embarrassing in the hunter ring.

And while we often leave lessons with paint smudges on his hooves (bc homeboy is #careless about small jumps. also sometimes I suck #realtalk), he does actually seem to have a conscience and tries to avoid hitting the fences after an early mistake.

The horse can jump. He's got a good eye, seems to enjoy the game, and so far has found it all very easy. Charlie's not particularly impressed by anything, and is maybe growing a little cocky. He thinks he knows all the answers, while simultaneously he doesn't really apply himself fully. Not the worst problems to have, if I'm being honest, but still real problems.

i actually had to push to make the 30' 2 stride work

So we keep working on it. From a training perspective, my focus has been in trying to develop a better half halt in the horse (we're talking long term here, guys lol) while also being stricter about the horse getting behind my leg.

He must move up and lift his shoulders when I push him forward. Must. We need that well-conditioned response to my seat and legs to get Charlie pushing up in front of me. If I can keep him up in his shoulders, it'll be infinitely easier to get cleaner jumping efforts from him.

But the precursor to that lifting process has to be the fully functional half halt - the dramatic re-balancing of the horse that rocks him back and shifts more weight to his hind quarters.

Ideally, at some distance from a fence (let's call it six strides in a well-schooled horse) I should be able to get that half halt through to check in with the horse, adjust our balance, and then shift into "managed maintenance" as we ride forward to the jump. You can see this idea in action in Ingrid Klimke's SAP-enabled helmet cam videos (in fact, I wrote a whole post about it a while back!).

eager to the triple bar

That's the goal, right? The holy grail. The feeling of a "well schooled" horse. Charlie is... not there yet. It will take time. He's also very different from Isabel in that he pulls. He's not the first TB I've ridden that pulls hard (hi Lad!), but he is the first I've taken xc. And it's definitely a different experience.

The key for me will be figuring out how to not get baited into a tug of war. Because that's how I end up riding backwards. And again, backwards riding is never the right answer.

The feeling I'm looking for is: How can I get that half halt through to Charlie in a way that he understands, such that he has that moment of re-balancing where I can then put my leg on and ride forward. A lot of this is mental for me too - feeling like I can push my hands forward and put my leg on. It's a trust thing, right? And it's hard to trust dull brakes.

has #feelings about the curb chain. was #happier when we loosened it

So my intermediary step in this process involves bitting options. Taking away Charlie's ability to blow through me, without putting so much on him that he backs off.

There are literally endless options in this respect, and plenty of folks who have ideas or bits for me to try. So far I've kept it pretty simple tho - working with what I have on hand. We tried the hackamore and I really liked it, but missed also having a snaffle for our warm up and flat work.

Next up was continuing with my normal jumping bit: a Sprenger KK with elevator ("universal") cheek pieces and double reins. Except I took off the leather curb strap and replaced it with a curb chain. Small difference, and honestly I wasn't really sure it would do the trick since Charlie was already pretty familiar with the curb chain / leverage combination from the hackamore.

video of our quick course here

But actually I think we might have a winner here! It'll need more testing bc this particular ride was one where most of our conversations revolved around GET IN FRONT OF MY LEG FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU SLUG.

Ahem, cough cough. There may or may not have been a pony club kick involved....

Mostly tho the feeling was pretty good. At first I had the chain on too tight bc again I expected him to not react much to it based on our hackamore experiences. But actually he was quite sensitive - and we ended up loosening it part way through the lesson.

I really like that it's a normal KK snaffle (no curb action at all) off one rein, with the curb only coming into play when I specifically use it. But the curb *is* there when I need it, and it appears to be influential enough to get the message through to Charles. The biggie here being: I could use the curb, then let go, push my hands forward and put my leg on, and ride forward to the fence.

chain did what i wanted tho: allowed me to keep riding charlie forward to the fences instead of resorting to a backward feel

That's the feeling I want. So I dug out Isabel's old sheepskin cover that I used for the hackamore chain when it was hers, and planned to use the cover during our jumping rounds at the show. Just for that slight dampening effect, since I didn't want Charlie too sharp as show nerves often make me ride tighter.

Obviously the jumping didn't end up happening at Full Moon, which is fine. And Charlie's getting a little extra tlc this week bc I'm all aboard the "Rest not Risk" bus right now. More on that later (he's fine, tho, fortunately!).

But hopefully we'll get a chance to bust out for some more test rides soon. After scratching from last weekend's FMF HT, and next weekend's Loch Moy Spring #2 HT (*sigh*), we've got a bit of a break in the schedule until the end of next month. Hopefully with lots of time to get out and enjoy ourselves!!

What about you, do you enjoy playing around with bits? Or are you more like me, once you find something you like, that's what you try to stick with, whatever may come? Do you have a certain "feeling" you look for or has it mostly depended on each individual horse's preferences or ways of going?