He watched us warmup over a 2ft9 vertical and I was quite pleased that I didn't try and hook to any of them and he popped them all quite nicely but I dont think Kevin was too impressed - he said he looked lazy, jumped flat and lacked the double push from behind to really ping him over the fences. Looked like he paused on take-off which is an off-putting feeling. Took off his martingale as felt it was restricting him and also his flash as didn't feel he needed it.
So we worked over a pole, 1 stride to a raised pole, 1 stride to an upright which gradually got raised. Remember to look at the first pole on the ground. He did mess it up once but managed to fiddle his feet and get over it. Kevin felt that really helped improve his technique and he was pinging much better.
Worked on down a related 7 strides to another vertical. Really difficult to just sit there for that long and not fiddle but if just let fence come to me it worked well. Then moved onto a dog leg turn from vertical to oxer and oxer to vertical. Managed to ride forwards from vertical to oxer but backwards hooked every time to the vertical - doh! He did clout the oxer once when Kevin put it up and he just didn't bother picking up higher over it - gave it a decent knock and didn't touch anything else.
Built it up into a course of related distances and doglegs and he made it all seem pretty easy.
Main theme was keeping the forwards - use whip on neck to get him whizzed up if needed, keep the rhythm, dont worry about his headcarriage - it was insanely high without the martingale but he wanted me to give it a go competing him without it. It did seem that when he got in close he had a lot more freedom to use himself and clear the fence without it so that's got to be a good thing. Worth a try!
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