 |  |  |
After 3 months off jumping (mix of giving Corky a break and also him tweaking his back playing in the field) it was time to get back into it and prepared for our first arena event of the year.
I planned three lessons at different venues to get us back into the swing of things – we don’t have the facilities to jump at home in the winter so it’s the only chance to practice.
We kicked things off with an early Sunday morning lesson (50/50 flatwork/jumping) with our regular instructor Aimee at a local yard called Pentland. They have a 20x40 indoor school which is great for flatwork but a little tight to jump in – or maybe it just felt small as we were so out of practice. We did lots of pole work and then progressed to small jumps with placing poles. Corky was chipping in to most of the jumps – I think this was a lack of confidence from both of us and being a little rusty.
The following Tuesday night we went over to Stobs Farm for a 30 min jumping lesson with David Harland – we usually see David once a month. We did lots of work improving the quality of the canter with half halts which seemed to fix the chipping in and by the end of the 30 mins we were happy popping round a small course of jumps.
Feeling a little more confident we went to our last lesson before the arena event – it was a shared lesson with my friend Sarah who was also competing at the weekend. We concentrated on the different styles of jumps we would face at the arena event – skinnies, bounces and combinations with different elements on different angles. The obstacles were quite challenging after having so long off but fortunately when they get more complicated, Corky concentrates more and jumped great. The only issue we had was the simple uprights as C was knocking them - even when I managed to get him on the perfect stride. I need to work on getting the canter a bit more uphill I think???
Anyway – on to the event. We arrived early to walk the course – thankfully as it was 20 jumps two phase, 10 SJ and 10 XC. The SJ looked straightforward and although it was BE90 none of the jumps seemed to be up to height. The XC was more complex but there was nothing that we hadn’t practiced in our lesson. We knocked two SJ fences – rider error both times. I had the wrong canter lead going into the second part of a dog’s leg, and chased into the last jump on the SJ course! The XC phase was better – he was more switched on and rushing less. I even managed to put him on the wrong stride to a corner and he got us out of trouble! He felt super keen and happy to be jumping again – more fun than stressage!
End result was 8 faults, no time faults so 30 out of 90. Not too shabby for our first time out jumping in so long. Photos and video below.
http://youtu.be/TnoKQgd38FI
RSS Feed
