Chris Burton arena XC clinic - Coombelands. 01-02-15

Group of 4 of us.  We started with a quick warmup enjoying Coombeland's lovely big arena with fabulous surface.  Chris has done a fair bit of pole work with us in the past but in his arena only room for 2 poles and changing the striding between them.  At Coombelands we had 3 poles with 5 strides naturally between them.  Started with 5 and 5, then 6 and 6, then 7 and 7 followed by 5 and 7, each time changing the direction.  We got it right every time which I was very pleased with as wouldn't have managed that a year ago.  Only criticism was to make the adjustment quicker when going from 5 to 7 and have 7 equal strides rather than 2 bigger ones and 5 ever smaller ones.

Moved onto an extended version of Chris' favourite x-pole to oxer exercise.  This time it was trot placing pole, x-pole, 5 strides to vertical, 1 stride to vertical, 1 stride to vertical which quickly became an ever increasing oxer.  Made it big and square and Monts whacked it out in front and after that jumped brilliantly and didn't touch another pole.  Not sure why you always have to build him something decent and get him to whack it for him to decide to be careful but it always works.  Grid was perfect for thinking about position.  Chris likes soft, forwards, giving hands and a stable lower leg and it was good to work on this although I still need to improve over the bigger jumps as I tend to sit up too early - think it's from jumping too many dodgy jumps out hunting and being ready to stay on when they peck on landing!

Moved onto jumping the first part of a course which was ok apart from a complete miss at the first part of the double.  Just didn't keep the power up round the corner so he didn't have enough juice to go on the longer one and had to chip in.

Had another go and added in the grid and a final XC skinny brush with guide rails.  Really pleased with how he jumped this course.  Got in a little close to fence 2 as was on the wrong leg after first fence and got told off for not getting the correct lead quick enough after fence 5 but nice rhythmical round, although I did feel him just vaguely consider ducking out at the double despite a really nice stride this time round.  Little worrying how this left run out thing has really taken ahold in his head recently.  I must be super alert for it.

Didn't do as much work on skinnies and angles and general XC stuff as I had hoped but still really useful to do the poles and grid exercises and lovely to get Monty jumping up in the air and flying round a nice course in a big outdoor arena which is his favourite!

On the way home stopped off at Parwood gallops to meet a friend and have a bit of a blast!  Much fun!