Back to the drawing board… it’s almost official, it isn’t the horse, it’s me, riding like a numpty.
Cal’s scope is this Thursday. In the meantime, the weather has crapped out again, meaning that if Cal is suffering from an allergic lung inflammation like last year then the situation will be a bit better as the tree pollen count will be low for the next few days. This allows us the luxury of going back to the drawing board without necessarily waiting for the bronchoscopy results. Bradwall Horse Trials unfortunately abandoned, meaning David was free. David Llewellyn is brilliant at gridwork lessons and always seems to get us jumping from a really good canter so, in the spirit of going back to the drawing board, I seized the opportunity for some remedial training. I figured if Cal couldn’t breathe properly we could do canter poles and play around with cavaletti rather than jump, and if he really couldn’t breathe we could just stop and I could go to the pub!
I do have to confess that, on further consideration, our prep for Kelsall had been less than ideal. Flatwork has been coming on in leaps and bounds with Patrice and he is stronger and more connected and more uphill than ever before. He even bends his hocks now!
However over the last few weeks, work has been busy and the weather has been lousy. We have had a handful of jumping lessons over the last couple of months, two of which were on the same day! We haven’t managed to get out jumping a course in competition conditions since the Christmas holidays. I’ve been popping logs in the forest and cantering around the hills but apparently there is nothing like being match fit and sharp and prepared.
And the last weekend before Kelsall we went to Bold Heath for unaffiliated dressage practise when actually in retrospect a few rounds of semi-competitive show jumping would have been a much better scheme from an eventing point of view.
http://boldheathequestrian.co.uk/
Although he did win his first round Trailblazers class at Novice level so we got a nice red frilly and I need to work out what Trailblazers is all about.
http://www.trailblazerschampionships.com/information-dressage.php
If you can offer any opinions or potted guide to Trailblazers rules please do so 🙂
The pony jumps fab, when the jockey remembered to ride. He did lack his previous confidence when the grid got bigger and the angles got more interesting. Initially when he stopped and peeped at the fence I deflated and accepted the stop. However when I sat up and reacted positively and asked him to go when he had his little peep at the fence he went. And the canter felt easily big enough and bouncy enough for fences of 90cm.
So I am still going to have him scoped, not because I have Munchausen’s by proxy but because he really was quite unwell last year with minimal signs and I need to know that what I’m feeling now underneath me is properly better and not just a little bit better. He’s on turmeric and steroid inhalers which I can legally stop a few days before an event; I need to know if the medication is helping or masking symptoms.
Assuming he is well and his airways clean, then if there is any numptiness going on I can unashamedly kick myself to ride more positively and kick the horse on rather than worrying and ending up being too nicey nicey with him.
So there you have it- Back to the Drawing Board Lessons from the weekend
Make the canter responsive and adaptable.
Sit up and let the fence come to the horse on that good canter.
Do your prep properly in my case that obviously means jumping courses of showjumps regularly and having regular sessions with the right person to shout at me and remind me how to ride.
And just for the record we were jumping on a surface yesterday but his feet were definitely not causing him a problem 🙂
If this rain continues then the barefoot Irish bog pony will have the 4 dinner plate shaped mud flotation devices giving him an advantage again.
