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Monday, March 25, 2019

exercise du jour: grids + angles

Happy Monday, y'all! It feels so so good to be writing a normal lesson recap again, instead of yet another sad sack post about whatever latest woe has befallen my hot house flower of a horse. I'm sure those future posts will always come. Bc Charlie, obvi.

But for now? It's back to business as usual, and it's such a relief!

so freakin happy to be jomping things again!!!
It was especially nice to walk up to the arena for our normal weekly jump lesson with Trainer P, and feel reasonably confident that my horse would be sound. Bc, you see, I had brought him up the previous two weeks just to hang out, or just to see. No dice tho, he'd been too sore. Not this time tho! Yay for healing haha!

happy feet haha
Another bonus was that, while we *do* have stuff on the calendar, there's no real agenda for anything that has to get done immediately in terms of prep. Right now Charlie is extremely unfit, but otherwise he honestly feels pretty good. Which, like, he should feel good bc he just got his hocks done, got that magna wave treatment, plus had four weeks of R&R.

cantering bigly over the low bounces
Now that we're getting back into it, tho, the name of the game is fitness. And basics. Always and forever.

Which worked out perfectly, bc Trainer P had been doing grids already with her earlier lessons that day. Apparently there's a CT here next weekend so all the jumps had been moved around to paint standards, and she didn't feel like making a new course. Fine by me, grids are my favorite!

so serious into the narrow grid of one strides!
We had three lines of gymnastics set up: a line of bounces, a one stride line, and a two stride line. All pretty low heights. Tho, interestingly, as you can sorta see above and below, the grid of fences set at one stride were all built with the narrow-ish brick boxes as fill. Which, I believe those boxes are right around 4' wide.

So not the skinniest of skinny jumps, but esp all set up in a line like that, definitely asking for straightness. Good practice!

not too too terribly narrow, but enough to get the point across over a line of four jumps
Charlie didn't care one bit tho. Actually he was pretty quiet and casual about the whole thing. Not dull tho, and not sour. Just very workmanlike. Very much like he knows the drill, knows how to solve these puzzles, and was quite content with just getting on with the job.

center line was a grid of three fences each set two strides apart
Meanwhile I could try to focus on my own self a bit too, always useful lol. Eventing Nation just ran blogger's recap of a Buck Davidson clinic, and one nugget that stuck out to me was about rein length. Buck apparently said you should be able to touch your elbows together in front of you while maintaining a connection.

For me, this was a useful, tactical description, and also helped me remember to sit up and open my chest. Gotta love those meaty little morsels!

the center vertical was perfect for coming in on an angle to slice as a single
Anyway, tho, the bounces were kinda hard to get any real effort out of Charlie. Like, honestly he was just treating them like canter poles with an exaggerated stride vs actually jumping them. The other lines went well tho, and were good practice with a few repeats.

I had kinda figured that would be it, actually, since it was a little warm and my horse is so unfit. But after we schooled all the individual lines, then put them together into a little mini course (in the video below), trainer P then had us shift gears slightly: to angling the fences.

we, uh, we better in one direction vs the other LOL
I've worked on jumping fences on an angle with Charlie maybe.... like, twice in the last two years. It's something I always think that I should be schooling, but somehow never quite get around to it. Who knows why, ya know? But as soon as she had us start on it, I was actually pretty excited!

pictured: just narrowly missing a runout here haha
Tho Charlie sorta lulled me into a false sense of security with our first effort, coming in on an angle off the right lead. Bc you see.... Charlie's always been pretty uneven in his shoulders -- his left shoulder is unbelievably earthbound, heavy, and constantly falling out... it's unreal. And it's always really pronounced after time off, with right now being no exception.

me too, charlie. me too.
So when we nailed it off the right lead, then figure-8'ed around to catch the same jump back the other way off the left lead, we actually almost died lol. Charlie just.... didn't pick up, and instead of supporting him with my leg, I got wayyyy ahead of him haha. Whoops! Turned out, this was a great exercise for us, tho, since I was forced to address that left shoulder drift issue.

there we go tho! it's hard doing this angle thing when your left shoulder apparently weighs 2,000lbs!
Our next time, we still chopped in an extra stride and kinda sorta almost nailed the standard, whoops. After that, tho, we got back onto the same page. Phew! And again, I kinda figured we'd be done for the day with that, but nope. Trainer P had just a few more ideas for us.

putting a line of angled fences together - starting with the narrow bricks!
She hadn't planned the lines out in advance to work this way, but actually the distances weren't too bad. So she had us catching one of the narrow brick boxes from the line of one strides on an angle, then continuing to an oxer from the line of two strides.

First effort was again off our trickier left lead, and you can see in the video how we just weren't quite as confident leaving the ground off this lead. Plus I honestly was a little nervous and had no idea how this line was gonna ride haha.

wheeee kinda super-manning out over the oxer!
It rode fine tho. Well, it rode a little long after our conservative in jump. But there was never any doubt that Charlie was going. He really seemed to have no problem understanding the whole "slicing the fences" concept. Which is awesome haha. I mean, we weren't exactly on the most severe angles or whatever, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

angled line going the other way
We finished up by looping around to repeat the figure 8 coming the other direction on the right lead - much easier for us. Which was nice bc this line was a little shorter and wanted a bit more of a forward ride. And it worked out! Good boy Charlie!

pictured: not murdering the doggo, whoops haha
Tho, uh, right as I made the turn I realized the dog pictured above was kinda sorta sitting right around where I wanted to takeoff haha. Whoops. Oh well, no dogs were harmed in the making of this video!!


It was definitely really fun tho. Idk what it is about changing it up a little bit - skinny fences or jumping on an angle or whatever. But that more technical stuff kinda makes me have to think a little more, and makes the horse pay more attention. Plus esp the angled fences were much clearer barometers of our straightness than anything else we've done lately.

Tho. Ya know. It could have also just been so refreshing bc it was our first lesson outside since 2018 haha. Yessssss, spring is coming!! Is anyone else dusting off any fun or favorite exercises now that the weather is finally improving?


26 comments:

  1. I'm having so much fun reading about everyone's excitement at getting back at it. Even those with indoors, it's lovely to wear less layers and even GET OUTSIDE. LOL. I love the happy feet photo.

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    1. lol i love the happy feet pic too <3 and yes omg, getting outside and into the nice weather has been just amazing. so much fresh air!!!!

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  2. This looks like so much fun! But, even though I am a dog lover, I cannot STAND dogs in the arena. Especially when jumping. It makes me crazy. Sarah's dogs are in the arena almost always and I can't tell you how many times it has ruined my line or completely distracted me. Ugh.
    Anyway, rant over. You guys look great and now he totally can slice any jump!!

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    1. oh man, yea dogs in the arena can be such a challenge. at this particular barn tho it's just.... an unavoidable way of life. everyone who lives at the farm owns multiple dogs and they basically run the place haha. for the most part, tho, the doggos get out of the way. and for the most part, i usually just hold my line and expect the pups to move. tho yea idk if you remember last winter when we were doing those skinny barrels and yea, the dog in my way totally threw me off and we had a terrible jump. ugh lol. at least my horse doesn't care anymore tho?

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  3. LMAO at the dog! But you guys look awesome and C looks happy to be out doing all the things. Very casual over all the bigger elements, which is always a great feeling :) So glad I got to finally officially meet ya this weekend!

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    1. so great to meet you too, congrats again on such a killer day!! can't wait to read all the details and see all the media from jumping! and thanks, i was so happy with how Charlie responded to the angled approach - love his casual attitude!

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  4. Yay for getting back to the grind! You guys look good

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  5. Yeah jumping! Glad you are back at it!

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  6. You guys are looking so fantastic! It looks like the perfect day for a lesson as well. Even with the time off, you two are certainly on fire coming back and getting at it!

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    1. thanks! that's maybe the best thing about charlie - he always seems to really bounce back fantastically after some time off!

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  7. Grids are my FAVORITE! Sounds like a super fun lesson!

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    1. so fun tho!! and i love a good grid session too haha, esp after so much time off!

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  8. That angled exercise looks like a lot of fun with a lot going on to make it happen correctly. Dogs and horses combined drives me nuts. My own dogs are not allowed basically anywhere near the horses including the barn and the arena if a horse is in it.

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    1. the angles were so fun! and went a lot better than i expected, actually. tho the issues off the left lead were maybe useful to experience lol. and yea, dogs can make things challenging for sure. at some point i want to fox hunt charlie tho, so i actually really appreciate that he's pretty broke and non reactive to riding around dogs at this point

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  9. Charlie can be summed up in one word in nearly every photo: ENTHUSIASTIC! He looks so happy to fly through those exercises.

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    1. so enthusiastic and so happy!! it honestly feels like he really likes grids, and the angles were just different enough to make him pay more attention. such a fun ride :D

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  10. haha that silly dog! I jumped over my trainers dog with a pony one time a long time ago - damn heeler got in the way. Glad Charlie is back at it and feeling good!

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    1. lol the dog in the 5th picture from the bottom (looks kinda like a pile of manure in the top right corner, but i promise it's actually a dog) has *definitely* been jumped before LOL

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  11. LOL! I relate, Bast's left shoulder is often also 40,000 some odd lbs. It makes circles and canter departs wicked difficult. It's often so heavy it lifts his hind end in the air. Which, ya know, is cool. (not) Love that the slicing was such a good exercise! Would your knowledge about his more confident right lead make any strategy impact to your XC riding? Like, would you try to approach a more difficult or spooky fence on the right lead? Or is that superfluous once the Charlie train is a chuggin?

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    1. yea actually to be honest i've known about his right lead / left lead feelings for a long time, and realistically speaking we probably jump upwards of 75% of our xc fences off the right lead. mostly bc, unless i've specifically put him on his left lead and we're approaching our first fence, or coming off a sharp enough left turn that he changed, he's basically always on his right lead.

      tho it's worth noting: the distinction between leads is not so obvious when jumping a fence straight on. like the roll top from last week had a better left lead approach, so even tho i wasn't really sure that's what i wanted to be doing (bc nervous + left lead), we did it and he was fine. another notable: when he wears studs he's WAY more confident on his feet and actually busts out lead changes left right and center at the slightest shift. to me, this all means that his lateral imbalances aren't too terribly deeply or permanently rooted. but the angled fences really but a sharper focus on it, which makes sense when you think about it, tho i hadn't expected it. it's definitely going to be a useful exercise in continuing to get him more even from side to side!

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    2. Interesting! I wonder if your farrier has ideas about different shoe shapes for increasing traction behind without studs? I am admittedly totally in the dark about such things, but have heard stuff like that is possible? (Probably stupid expensive, though. Haha.)

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    3. yea that's probably a step farther than is necessary. and the problem in some ways is actually up front - when i first bought him, his shoulders were visibly inches and inches different in placement on his body haha, and he had that high/low syndrome going on up front. hard to tell what came first. over time he's evened out but it's just something we work with, ya know?

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