Training at home

We were due to go to BD on Tuesday for a pre-Regionals practice but sadly snow meant this got cancelled.  On Thursday once the snow had gone I decided to have a go at one of the exercises Nicholson had shown us at the IEF on Monday.

4 jumps on a circle - how hard could that be?  Turns out a lot harder than it looked!  The rails are kept low to encourage the horse to just keep the rhythm and make mistakes as needed so he learns to think for himself. The rider doesn't look for strides, the horse can drift in/out slightly to find his stride but the rider just keeps the rhythm.

Once we got going it wasn't too bad but then I made the mistake of aiming for the outside edges of the jumps, didn't quite get the turn I wanted and we had a disagreement over who was going over the jump - turns out it was me without him.  Naughty as he could have easily jumped from the standstill he had come to over something so tiny but instead he nipped out to the left again - argh!

Here it is actually going well.

I thought it was a good exercise for him as he likes to charge over his jumps and charge off again afterwards.  He finds it hard to sit and pop and rebalance quickly and certainly the constant turning was good for getting his hindleg engaged and keeping him thinking.  He assumes all jumps come in straight lines and as we climb the levels they most definitely don't!  This is an exercise I will certinaly be doing more of although a lot more practice needed before we will risk increasing the height of 2 of the jumps!

Finished off with a few jumps over a skinny made of 2 jump blocks with guide rails - he was nice and straight, but I wouldn't risk it without the rails at the moment - he is not to be trusted right now.  Huge amount of work needed to get this left run-out idea well and truly out of his head again.

Followed that on with some flatwork schooling today trying to do some riding with one hand and keeping the throatlatch open whilst also doing work with him deep and round and staying soft over his back.  We did a bit of work on his changes as not done them for a while and played with doing some 4 time changes across the diagonal which he managed a row of three twice - over the moon with him for that - they need tidying but they were obedient and clean - yay!  Also he did some lovely canter half pass much better bent round my inside leg and followed that up with a super clean change each way as well.  Very rewarding session :)

More training at home this weekend as I am working so no trips out for us.  But a busy one next week with SJ lesson from Chris, arena eventing at Wellington, a bit of XC schooling and some BD including E57 which we haven't done before.  Sadly couldn't find anywhere with E59 to practice for the Regionals so will just have to keep practising the components at home and hope for the best on the day!