Clear round Merrist Wood 30-01-13

So, we didn't end up going to Crofton on Sunday as it was blowing a gale and not safe to take horsebox out.  Braved a quick hack down the railway line and let him blow off a bit of steam.  Few hairy moments but not too bad.  Massive hailstorm hit just as we got back to the yard!

Monday did some jumping in the school just to remind him as not jumped for couple of weeks.  Small parallel with planks, sl bigger vertical and then a 3ft1ish vertical.  Warmed up using same exercise as so on the flat now - trot-walk-halt-trot then some walk to canter keeping a nice forwards canter from the start.  Concentrated on using outside aids round the preceeding bend to set him up for the fences and he met every single one spot on stride wise.  If couldn't see stride just concentrated on riding forwards and letting stride coming to me rather than panicking and hooking back.  Really great, positive session.  Just need to stop him jumping to the right over everything - always been a tendency of his but I'm letting him get away with it and even encouraging him to do it if we get a bit deep - I doubt it really makes much difference depth wise!

Tue - blowing a gale again so just did 35mins of lunging in draw reins.  No silly buggers like last time - all nice soft, round transitions up and down.  Lovely work considering it was pitch black in the school and sooooo windy.

Wed - clear round at Merrist Wood.  Hunted Noah earlier in the day so was kinda tired esp as looking after Llewi on box rest with foot abscess at the moment.  Got down there and had plenty of time to warm up so conentrated on same warmup routine as at home and then plenty of time to pop a x-pole few times then small upright then ascending spread then square parallel.  All of them spot on - if in doubt, leg on and let fence come to you.  No hooking allowed.  Went into ring with same thoughts and was really pleased to get 2 clear rounds.  He touched a couple but nothing major.  Got a little close to first fence first time.

Fence 2 spot on:

Fence 3 was a big parallel on a related 4 strides that I had to actually hold slightly to fit 4 in and he looked at it slightly but jumped it well.

Then round left hand bend to fence 4 and remembered to keep leg on round the corner:

Related 4 strides to a 2 stride double upright to oxer which he made easy:

Then sharp right hander to orange/black fence - difficult turn but he'd landed on the correct leg, managed to get him back to me, outside aids, turn and leg on - just the way you're meant to and not what I usually do so chuffed with that :)

Then dogleg to white oxer stile where he seriously jumped right and nearly took the wing out with my foot.  Resisted temptation to hook to a narrow fence though for once!

Finally left hand turn to simple upright and got in far too close but clear:

Quick regroup then straight on to jump another round. Much better shot at fence 1:

Another great shot at fence 2:

Fence 3 more positive this time then round to fence 4:

Again got the related distance to the double spot on by just keep riding forwards to part 1:

Not quite such a good strides to the orange and black off the sharp right hander:

Straighter to the stile oxer though and then saw a bit of a long one to the final upright and steeplechased it:

SJ lesson on Sat with Lucy Thompson so can hopefully work more on this forward thinking thing as it seems to be working well!  Then gonna have a play on the XC in the afternoon - v exciting!