Carl Belson SJ clinic MW 09-10-13

Arrived to find myself surrounded by a blinding amount of bling and that was just on one girl's breeches!!  They were all platinum blonde and dolled up to the nines.  Boy did I feel out of place.  I nearly turned around and went home.  Watched someone do the clear round and do a nice job and then a lad on a horse with the most amazing back end over a fence - he jumped a lovely round over 1m then they whacked the fences up to 1m10-1m15 and he started stopping and Carl started yelling and everyone got more and more wound up.  He clearly knew the rider well but I very nearly bottled it and buggered off home again.  I don't like being yelled at.

Anyway, decided I could always leave if it was terrible so put my brave pants on and got on.  Group of 4 of us.  Had a walk around and then we did some trot work large round the arena, sitting trot and collect around the short side then push on down the long side really activating his back end and careful not to let him come too deep in the collected.  Then we did similar in canter.  Trot was then banned and we had to canter to walk/walk to canter and simple or flying changes.  We did canter to walk, walk 5m circle then back up to canter.  Did a lot of this - Monty was foaming - he very rarely foams!  I thought this could be fun as totally knackered him before we've even jumped!

So, then we popped over a 2ft6 vertical and he was really sticky and cleared it by miles and I felt his back end flick into the air like I never have before.  Next time he jumped it without the spooking but I still felt the back end ping.  Put it up to 90cm and we all came again - yet again he pinged.  Really don't think I have ever felt his back end so active.  Guessing it was all the warmup work we did but will have to remember that kind of warmup as it really seemed to activate his back end.

There was a course set up and we worked out way around it jumped a couple of fences at a time.  First time over the first jump which was an oxer he really backed off the nice, forwards stride I saw, so I had to really push him to take that stride and he must have cleared it by 2ft, nearly jumping me off in the process which messed up our line to the 2nd fence which was on a curved line off the wall.  No chance to do it again before he was putting it up.  It was already bigger than I've jumped for months and months so I was a tad bricking it but no way was I going to turn into a big wuss in front of the others especially when he was jumping so well so I manned up (sort of!).  So next time round we did the first two and then a tight left hand turn to a humongous oxer which I messed up the line to and he ended up coming down on the back bar and then we had another curved line out to the wall and then off the wall to a vertical which I never got quite right all session for some reason - kept jumping to the right to fit in another stride.  Got told to come round again and jump the oxer again - scared witless TBH but focussed on getting a good turn and letting the fence come to me and thankfully met it on a good one and he flew it.  Then we had to do the 4th fence, round a sharp left turn to a big green oxer then a dogleg right to an upright on 4 or 5 strides.  Then sharp right to a vertical to big oxer on 4 strong strides.  I got the oxer ok (thank god) but then rode a straight line rather than a dogleg so got in too close on 5 strides and knocked it down.  Managed to fit 5 strides in the related distance as got in too close to the first part.

So, then he put them all up a bit more - was wondering if anyone would notice if I sneaked out at this stage - and sent us up the other end to come in and jump the whole course one at a time.  Well, he bloody flew!  We still didn't manage to quite fit in 5 nice strides in the dogleg so took that out but powered through the final line on 4 good strides.  He felt absolutely awesome!  Got made to do the oxer (which was now an ascending spread) to vertical dogleg again - argh - was happy to have survived it once as it was mega big but did it again and just about managed to fit in 5 strides and clear it.  Didn't help I felt I really had to work to get him to take me over the oxer which didn't help me land in balance quick enough to make adjustments.  He was really powering over the jumps but still needs plenty of leg to keep the power up so he is happy to go on a normal stride and not back off and chip in.

So, things I need to work on:

• not letting him jump right - partly that is my fault as I let him move over to the right to make himself more room if we're running out of space but it does mean he always tends to go right
• reacting quicker on landing so I can make adjustments and then ride forward for the next fence
• not trying to look for strides round the corner, get straight and then focus on the fence and the stride will come
• outside aids round the corner, don't up the speed anymore but keep up the power

Overall though, was super pleased with him.  I went up to the green ascending spread at 6 and the blue oxer at 3 afterwards and both were on 1m10.  I've never jumped a course with fences that big in it before and he made it feel easy.