finally, an xc lesson!

On one hand, I am often a little frustrated at not getting to school cross country as much as I'd like. There's always a reason, ya know? Ground too hard. Ground too soft. Scheduling conflicts. General yellow-bellied pansy-ness. You know how it goes. Excuses, excuses.

On the other hand, tho, in retrospect Charlie and I have actually gotten out a fair amount this year. Not as much as I'd like, but then again Charlie doesn't seem to need as much as I do in terms of repetition and regularity. So for his purposes, he's had a pretty good year of schooling.

the crew!!! complete with trainer P riding along bareback on lesson pony Pickles bc why not lol. (also you can see the front of the piano, pictured again below, in the top right corner)

We had our first outing of the year back in January, schooling the all-weather courses at Loch Moy. It was his first time seeing solid jumps since his surgery, and he easily rocked around the full BN course (in pieces tho, bc we were a little too wild to put it all together for the actual derby round).

Then we made it out in March to school at home for the first time all year on impressively good ground. This was... a very special day for me. Hard to explain why, but Charlie was excellent. We stuck to BN fences, but still found a few to add to our repertoire that had previously been a bit intimidating to me. Like a big log with a drop landing, and a substantial log table thingy.

Then in May, Brita and I headed out to Shawan Downs after their recognized HT to school the competition courses. I had walked the N course ahead of time (after finishing up my volunteer shift at the HT) and was determined: we would start laying the ground work for moving up. And? Charlie could not have been better.

hey, it's a log!

We only skipped the smaller early fences on course, but jumped all the important stuff. Including some of the biggest jumps he'd ever seen before (like the green table at the end of this post) and he never blinked - even despite some of my standard bobbles, mistakes, and under-riding.

There was a lull in our schooling sessions for a little bit while we were out actually, ya know, competing. But we got back to it in July for a laid back schooling session at home. This was Charlie's first schooling since our disastrous Plantation outing, and I had to be a little more focused on puffing him up vs just getting out and jumping all the things.

He was good tho, and happily tackled a mixture of BN and N jumps (and the deep dark scary T ditch!!), and his only struggles with the N line of roll tops were very honest issues -- leading to my decision to get him drilled and tapped for studs.

splash!!! also: the first time we almost died lol

Later in July, we did a pace clinic at Loch Moy that focused more on learning speeds across a 1,000m track than anything else, but we still stuck around after to jump one or two things. I honestly credit that pace clinic - and it's obvious focus on riding forward - with helping Charlie get his mojo back.

Then just a week or two later, we headed out to Boyd Martin's legendary Windurra for another fun schooling ride. The ride unfortunately began with a very unexpected ditch issue with my decidedly not ditchy horse, which blew through a lot of Charlie's emotional capital before we even really got started. Not ideal.... It was still a good ride tho. We got a little more practice with tricky terrain and more technically styled jumps (corners and skinnies) while mostly sticking to conservative N and BN sized fences.

Finally, our last schooling was during the Labor Day hunter pace at Tranquility, where we mostly played around but tackled a few N jumps all the same. Obvi nothing garnered a look from Charlie and it was all just for fun.

these chevrons have always been intimidating to me. they took charlie by surprise too but he gave it a good honest effort!

So ya know. We've had some good solid outings this year, and combined with Charlie's competition runs (BN at Loch Moy this past spring, then N at Loch Moy, Plantation, Jenny Camp, and then Loch Moy again for their twilight event, where we also added in a massive T table!) it feels like Charlie's pretttttty damn schooled to all things BN and N at this point.

Also worth noting: despite our best efforts and intentions, we've also been without coaching for all of the above, with the exception of trainer P warming me up for xc at Plantation. To me, this is decidedly not ideal.

Like, sure, Charlie's doing just fine. I'm 100% confident that there's nothing at N or below that Charlie can't face (except maybe down bank combinations bc..... I'm a pansy and really haven't done my homework here like I ought to....). 

i also dislike this piano (called so bc the other side is actually built to look like a piano)

And despite a lack of formal training on cross country with Charlie... I've got literal reams of lesson notes from getting started at these levels with Isabel. Thanks to the blog, I've been able to study study study all those notes from Dan and Trainer P, plus the actual footage from those early lessons. It's helped a lot, and Charlie's benefited directly from that.

But the flip side is.... I'm really bad at pushing myself. And really good at rationalizing my way out of new challenges. Competitions are weirdly good for me tho, bc if you put a flagged obstacle on my course, then I will be all stoic like "Well I guess that jump is just gonna have to get jumped!" But give me a field full of the same jumps, but now unmarked, and yea. I'll totally just be like, "Eh it looks big tho. Not today."

Which is part of why the Shawan schooling was so useful for me. I had walked the course and knew which jumps were N. So even when we got there and they were unmarked, I couldn't talk myself into believing otherwise. I knew what was N, and knew that if I wanted to do the N stuff, that's what I had to jump. So I jumped it. And it was fine. Charlie was fine. And therefore, I was fine. Educational experience!

yep, we've seen this before

Kinda the same story when we school at home - I know which jumps are which without a shadow of a doubt. And can make choices accordingly. But take me to Windurra and.... yea. I really didn't go for it. When maybe I could have.

That's not a bad thing, per se. All experience is good experience for Charlie. Positive easy mileage is always worth it. Like when we did the Twilight at Loch Moy and I opted to not really school any of the T (except for that one haha). It's really great to feel like we're ready for a challenge, to feel like there's more there to push for, even if I'm a little shy about actually doing the pushing haha.

But that's what lessons are for, right? That's why it's so great to have a trainer there to dismiss any excuses, while also providing the guidance necessary to be successful with new challenges.

seen this before too! funny how this past spring, this table was the biggest thing i'd ever pointed charlie at. and now? it's old hat!

Unfortunately I ended up feeling a little disappointed with this particular lesson in that regard. We've had a ton of rain here (I believe record rainfall across the entire year in Maryland) and the ground is just... not good. Therefore we needed to be as judicious and protective of the ground as possible.

Meaning: some jumps were entirely out of the question (like the line of N rolltops that Charlie and I have struggled with). And otherwise trainer P wanted minimal repetitions to avoid tearing the ground up. So a couple jumps that we did a little funny (like the line through the water to the red coop) didn't get a second chance to smooth it out.

Also we had a bit of mixed group, including some folks who are totally capable but had never schooled xc before. So a lot of time was spent introducing them to the finer points, while Charlie and I felt a little bit like an after thought.

short helmet cam here!

So I ended up having to ask to jump bigger things than what trainer P directed me to - like asking to jump the chevrons and piano jumps (both of which have vaguely haunted me since 2015 haha) instead of doing the same BN jumps that Charlie's jumped a million times.

Obvi asking to jump other things is totally fine, and trainer P had no problem with it..... but it kinda undermined the hope for the ride: that I'd get a trainer to push me to go where I hadn't gone before. Like, there are other jumps out there that I want to jump. That I *know* Charlie can do, is maybe hungry to try. But.... time and again, when faced with the opportunity, I wuss out.

And even in this ride, even as I'm sitting there *knowing* that I should ask trainer P if we could try them.... I just... didn't. Again. Sigh.

So we really only just jumped a handful of things. All of which Charlie's seen a number of times before - with the exception one log at the beginning and the chevrons and piano that I asked to try. It was kinda boring, honestly. Tho let's be real: that's never the worst feeling when schooling haha!

Charlie answered every question, was clever where he needed to be (like when we almost fell down in the deep water but he still locked on to the jump anyway!), and basically just hopped around like a pro. I'm cool with it.

Hopefully tho, at some point it'll stop raining and we'll be able to get back out again sometime soon to try for more.