Chris Burton SJ lesson 09-04-14

Started with the canter work.  Cluck and kick - one aid, big response then sit and hold him in the canter with core.  Mustn't rely on my legs to keep him going every stride.  When I stop riding he thinks he needs to walk.  Needs to maintain himself better.  On the left rein must keep him straight into the outside rein.  He needs to sit in the canter, keep the power and hold himself.  Then send the canter forwards, then bring it back.  The more adjustable his canter is, the more likely we are to meet our fences in the right place.

We did the x-pole to oxer exercise and he was really powering over it - he kept nearly jumping me off!  The idea was to change the rein after each jump so open the new inside rein but without fail he landed on the left lead so this is something we really need to work on at home.  He lands on the right lead when we jump fences on a diagonal and it's obvious we're going right afterwards but if there's any chance we might be going left he favours the left lead.  This is why we then end up going disunited when we turn right so must get him listening to that opening of the inside rein more so we can stop the disunitedness as this is what leads to him having fences down.

Moved onto a course which had a vertical off the corner which Chris warned some of his had found difficult to get right then 4 open strides to a parallel then round the corner and back across a x-pole oxer before going up the long side over a 2 stride double of verticals.  He did the firs bit fine and didn't struggle with the line off the corner but then did exactly what I did at Portman and tried to fire him into the first vertical, he chipped in and somehow cleared it.  Must wait for the fence to come to me.  However, there is a fine line between doing this and hooking him back into a nothingy canter.  Or there is in my brain!  Must learn to just sit and ride the powerful canter and let him back off and put the extra stride in if there is room, not chase him for non-existant ones!

Then did another course with a difficult line off the corner to the vertical then 4 big strides to the oxer.  He made the turn to the vertical nicely but did find the 4 strides long in the small arena.  He trusted me and went on it though.  Course was around 1.05m-1.10m and that looks normal to me now which is such a nice feeling.

Little video:

Have asked next time if we can jump on grass as be good to work on getting the balance in the bigger canter.