xc schooling @ Windurra

My riding buddies Brita and Rachael have all been to Windurra a number of times, but not yet this year. I've had pretty serious FOMO about it, and have basically been plotting our next outing here ever since touring the facilities last summer.

beautiful, albeit hot, day for cross country schooling at Boyd Martin's storied farm Windurra

Finally, the stars aligned and we planned our day. Sunday was supposed to be the USEA recognized show at our home farm, but it got cancelled due to the insane amounts of rain we've been having. The tracks (esp T and M) were supposed to run through the woods which was absolutely not going to work, plus some of the main cross country fields don't have the best drainage and can become boggy.

This all meant, tho, that we all suddenly found ourselves with a Sunday free from obligations! So finally: to Windurra we went!

somewhat amazingly, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves on a sunny sunday morning

Honestly I expected a couple things from the day: that the ground would be muddy and probably very very cut up from heavy usage, and that it would be crowded and potentially a little chaotic.

Turned out tho, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves except for a few folks using the galloping track for conditioning, and a Windurra-based group of riders quietly moving through the course for their own lesson. Plus the ground was fantastic. Excellent conditions and not at all super cut up. Honestly it was pretty close to perfect, except for the somewhat oppressive heat. Luckily we had opted to go in the morning to avoid the worst of the heat.

didn't catch our earliest warm up logs, but we started pretty quickly over a small house

It was a net positive day for me and Charlie too. Very much a learning experience, tho. Charlie's such a good boy, so honest, and so generally unimpressed by things, that I kinda have it in my mind that it should be reasonably easy to just hit the road and jump giant jumps and generally gallivant around like the easiest thing in the world.

That is..... Not realistic tho. Especially not for where Charlie is in his training right now, and for what I am as a rider (read: mediocre).

to a simple table

So I ended up making a series of poor choices in presenting Charlie with obstacles, and then had to do a little bit of clean up. Not necessarily a bad thing, we both learned a lot. But not really ideal either. And it meant that we spent the day working through different sorts of challenges vs just galloping big fences.

and roll top. all easy peasy

For starters, I made a critical error in judgement during our preliminary warm up circuit of the property. I casually pointed Charlie at a baby ditch while on the buckle and without a lot of support, fully expecting him to fart along over it like he has with literally every single ditch ever that he's ever seen. And...... Yea. Critical error in judgement.

We had our first ever ditch meltdown. And it was extensive. I had regrets, realized too late that I could have done literally anything differently leading up to that moment. Alas tho, experience is that thing you get right after you needed it, and so we ended up working through a serious meltdown of my own creation.

cruised through the water a couple times, then caught this little feeder bc nothing else looked super good for where we were

It ended fine, and with the help of Brita and Rachael providing leads etc, we worked through it and Charlie resumed his previous attitude of "No Shits Given" re: ditches. But..... We ended up blowing through a not-insignificant chunk of emotional capital before the ride even really began, and Charlie had already begun lathering up with the stress sweats. Not... Not ideal.

Oh well, next time I'll do things differently.

water water everywhere!

After that, tho, the ride more or less got back on the right track. I opted to tackle some itsy bitsy logs first and Charlie gamely trotted the first, then cantered the second. Then I looped around to a small house with not enough leg or commitment to riding Charlie straight (another theme for the day) and we kinda futzed it a little the first time. Represented and he was great, and cruised right on around in a nice circuit to a reasonably sized table to N roll top, both beautifully out of stride. Bingo.

nice N corner to work over. skinnier and more technical with the tree than what charlie's seen before

We moved on to the water next (partly so Charlie could get a drink) and I kinda just had a little bit of a mental block about the complex.

What I was learning about the way jumps were set on this particular day at Windurra is that there were either jumps a tad too small for us (BN and below) scattered around on flat ground as singles. Or the jumps that looked about right size-wise were positioned with higher degrees of technicality than I felt we were ready to tackle. Especially after the ditch debacle. 

he was a very genuine boy our first time over when i changed my mind at the last second

So while the water had plenty of reasonable jumps around it, they were mostly right at the edge of the water. Not something I really felt ready to do with Charlie, considering he just did his first little cross rail into water the week before and was feeling a little green in general.

Instead we kinda just cantered around through the water, and caught a little BN feeder a couple strides out from the water. Again, first time over the feeder I was wishy washy with my leg but the second time we jumped it much more nicely.

second time was better

There was a great N corner right in the same area tho, and considering Charlie's actually jumped a fair number of corners already, I felt eager to try it. Again tho, the technicality was maybe a titch higher than he's seen with the tree right there creating a visually narrower jumping space, and we kinda squirreled over it the first time. Second time was, again (say it with me) better. 

lots of time spent watching friends and trying to catch our breath in the heat too

By this point, even tho we hadn't really jumped much at all, Charlie was HOT. It was pretty abundantly clear that I've been a bit absent in recent weeks. Being a thoroughbred, Charlie can put fitness on pretty quickly. But he can lose it just as quickly. And where just a couple weeks ago he was extremely fit - on this day he was .... not.

green dotted line reflects terrain - this was a large mound down to a skinny

Plus it took me a minute to realize that the terrain of Windurra would naturally take a toll. Again tho, it was all good stuff. The work on terrain was much-needed for both of us. But I was just a little slow to recognize that we possibly needed to break things down into smaller incremental pieces given how our ride was going, vs just throwing Charlie in.

mayyyyyyybe i should have given charlie a chance to practice the mound on its own first before putting together the line to the skinny..... #noted

Perfect example was our next attempted combination. Windurra is FULL of mounds of various shapes, sizes, and steepness. One in particular looked pretty good for us: with an N brush table positioned on top, dropping down the mound to a small but very skinny brush roll top.

I had it in my mind that we would do just the mound to the skinny first, then maybe add in the table. But... probably I needed to make it simpler than that to start, since Charlie has very little experience with mounds. What I should have done was go up and down the mound alone, and maybe tackle the skinny alone, then put it together.

so then we just practiced the mound by itself and the skinny by itself

Instead I tried the direct line first and Charlie bless his heart jumped the skinny, but jumped it pretty badly and with a bit of confusion and surprise. So we repeated just the skinny by itself, and just the mound by itself (in the video) then put the line together and he nailed it. Attacked the mound and was very positive to the skinny. Good boy, we both learned something there.

Tho yea.... I opted to save adding in the table for another day.

then charlie put it together well

Next up was a combination that probably should have come before the mound to skinny. In fact I kinda went through the entire day a little bit backwards - starting out a little too ambitiously then by the end being a little more practical and pragmatic in what I asked of the horse.

realistically, we probably should have practiced this baby roller coaster *before* the mound to skinny...

Bc jumping up and down hills is very new to Charlie, and he's not super confident about it (tho I fully believe the studs are helping and this ride ultimately I believe gave him more confidence). So next we went through a long line of very small jumps, set on a "roller coaster" section of terrain with a gravel basin in between.

he handled it well tho, with some extra leg

Charlie eyeballed the black pipe that was set on the down hill, but cruised right on along through the gravel to the small house. And even tho I got him there a little bit long and under powered, he made a very good executive decision and left the ground well. Again, good boy.

Part of my problem is that I see these exercises as somewhat simplistic. Except, ya know, they have to be practiced. The horse has to be introduced to questions like jumping up and down hills in a way that he can easily understand and figure out how to arrive at the correct answer himself. Which he did in this case. So I'm happy with it.

double banks up! with bonus puddle lol

Finally we hit up the last element of cross country's holy trinity: banks (having already looked at ditches and water earlier in the ride). We had gone up and down a couple little banks already in the ride, but this tiny double bank up looked perfect. I cantered Charlie up the second half first on its own, then put it all together.

aaaaaand a little bit of fuckery lol, still made it up tho

....Probably, again, with too little support and commitment. On this day, Charlie just plain old needed me to ride him. And with the hackamore my steering is not quite as good and I tend to ride a little too casually with my contact. Plus. Ya know. The horse has never seen a double bank before and even tho it was small it was maybe overwhelming. Nbd tho, he still went up the second bank even if it was very crookedly.

second time, again, was better. twas the theme of the day

And again, as always, the second time was better (plus we trotted in this time). Sigh. Emma. This is very much a "Me" problem. I need to take the way I ride the second time and just make it my first instinct. Like, at some point I should stop needing to make mistakes in order to whip me into shape. Should just... Ya know. Ride the first time haha. Maybe one day lol. #goals

finishing with a little confidence boosting spin over the same N roll top from earlier

Regardless, tho, I was still pretty happy with Charlie. Aside from the ditch meltdown, he was very honest and genuine to everything even when I put him in bad spots. He stayed present and went forward (when I bothered to put my leg on) and honestly made a lot of good choices, or seemed to learn from some of the lesser choices. 

helmet cam highlights here!

We finished up with one last gallop over a simple N roll top just to reaffirm that confidence and let him attack a fence. Which he did just fine, despite being very very hot, very very sweaty (true story, he was lathered up his entire face underneath the hackamore plates lol) and being kinda generally ready to be done for the day lol.

well-deserved naptime on the trailer

We rode for just over an hour, with much of that spent watching Brita and Rachael tackle their own more advanced jumps and combinations. So a pretty reasonable ride time - Charlie just needs more fitness work.

All in all, it took some work to sort through my takeaways from this ride. On one hand it would be easy to be disappointed in myself for making some bad choices or maybe having some expectations that weren't in line with where Charlie is in his training.

Ultimately tho, I'm not disappointed. Quite the opposite: I'm pretty happy. I would love to just gallop around and take endless pictures of us jumping impressive things. But.... That's really not where Charlie is right now and not at all what we need to work on. We need to be working on all the little pieces in between: Riding forward (and straight) to each fence, and maintaining balance and pace on changeable terrain.

except for busy busy Bird, who apparently never naps lol

With that in mind, I think it was a really productive ride. Charlie got a TON more experience on terrain, and felt more confident with every pass. Especially that last time down the mound to the skinny was excellent, and he was fully locked on even as he descended the mound. Perfect.

Plus, even tho I was uneven in my focus on riding forward to everything and keeping Charlie on a more ground-covering stride, when I *did* ask for it, Charlie answered every time. That's another biggie for us.

So that's another schooling experience under out belts. Another net positive, chock full of learning moments. And it felt very much like the horse also walked away knowing more than he did when we started. Hopefully we can both retain some of the lessons learned during this ride lol.

It's all good tho bc with my renewed focus on the "now" vs the "long term plan," nothing relied on the outcome of this ride and it's becoming easier for me to just take each outcome as it arrives without worrying about what happens next. It's especially easy now bc we just have a lot of schooling opportunities coming up: like next weekend at home, and then again at the end of the month at a low key twilight schooling event. Should be good times.

In the meantime, am I the only one that has to go through some mental acrobatics after a ride to figure out how to find the silver linings and positives? It's so easy sometimes to want to feel down about a ride, or feel like the small details take forever to work through when we just want so badly to be there already, wherever "there" is.... But in my experience, it usually is possible to find some good from every ride. Usually lol. What do you think?