gymnasties

I could tell our lesson last weekend was gonna be a fun one when I got up to the ring to see three separate lines of gymnastics set up. Yessss haha.

Grids felt like the perfect exercise for gettin in our groove with something Charlie's good at and knows well. We warmed up over a simple 1-3 triple combination, first trotting in and then cantering in, before moving directly into the gymnastics.

he's basically a pro at one stride grids

First up was a looonnnng line of jumps all set at short (18') one stride distances. We obvi didn't start with all of them set up - instead building up one fence at a time. Jump 1 was just a cross rail, and we trotted in every time. Jump 2 I think was a plain vertical, but all the rest were oxers.

count 'em, that's 5 jumps in a row

We built up quickly to a full line of 5 fences, and I was very pleased with how Charlie handled them: he stayed very straight and actually surprisingly soft through the line. Tho haha he kinda got half way through and was like, "Christ there sure are a lot of these things!" lol...

These were the only jumps of the ride that got any height to them - finishing around 2'9ish. Considering the technicality and intensity of lots of gymnastics, we opted to keep everything else smaller.

#norespect for this itsy skinny in the two stride grid

The next line was actually a two-fer. Four jumps in a row, set at short (30') two stride distances. Ridden in one direction, the first jump was very skinny and each was progressively wider. Ridden in the other direction, you started wide and finished skinny. Definitely tricksy!

I kinda biffed my turn to the skinny a couple times, but Charlie jumped it just fine. He's not quite as good at two stride lines as he is with one strides, so we had to repeat it a couple times. Nbd tho. Coming the other direction from wide to skinny was definitely more of a challenge lol, and Charlie kinda had a "wtf!" moment but was a good boy and jumped it anyway.

slightly more feelings about the skinny barrels lol

Final line was the hardest of the bunch, especially considering Charlie actually has very very very limited experience with anything skinny. The line was set as two barrels 18' apart, with V poles as guide rails. Then 3 strides to a skinny chevron with no wings.

Charlie was kinda "wtf" about the barrels the first time - wanting to jump sideways over the guide rails instead of directly over the barrel. And I had a little trouble keeping him straight.

whoopsies!!

Then another confused oopsie moment at the chevron. Pretty sure Charlie just didn't really realize he was supposed to jump it. We figured it out tho with the help of a guide rail, after which Charlie was able to put the whole line together a couple times in a row nicely.

nbd, he figured it out

For his final trip too (no pic but it's on the video) we took off the guide rail again, and Charlie was still foot perfect. Actually, I honestly kinda under-rode the whole thing and we got to a sliiightly gappy distance, but he still just up and jumped it. That's my boy!

Obvi I love doing a lot of course work in our normal lessons, but it's a lot of fun to switch it up to more technical type exercises. Especially with the introduction of the skinny fences - something that I always find surprisingly challenging haha, bc they really keep me honest about straightness and balance, particularly in my turns and approaches.

Plus I seriously credit grid work with Charlie's education over fences. Like this past winter when we did almost exclusively grids during the months spent indoors. It really helped Charlie figure out what to do with those giant clumsy limbs of his lol!

Do you ever do grid work? Or even cavaletti type exercises? Do you like introducing unusual elements like barrels and whatnot into your rides? Is there any one type of configuration you've found has been particularly useful or fun for your horse?