XC Lesson
EEEEKKKKSSS!!! What was I thinking?! I signed Lyric and I up for BN at Chatt's schooling show this weekend. But... it's the freakin' BN olympics! Ha ha. I mean... probably. I'm assuming that they won't bother changing the course from the recognized show this past weekend since it's only a week apart. And my friend sent me photos of the course. And there's some big fences on there! That stupid stone wall.. the darn V wing fence... the giant wide low table... a big rolltop with grass on top... ACKKKKKK!! Just because we jumped the 3' stadium rounds..... does not mean we are ready for XC at BN. Heck, the last time we did XC she and I had a meltdown and we had to trot everything, even the amoeba stuff. Well.. the day before. The day of the show she cantered most of the course, but... it's unlikely I'll get up there to school before the show. Oh well. Guess I better make this XC lesson at Ashland count!
We got there early and went on a long hack with Kelli to warm up. It was a nice day and a good warm up. She even went in the lake again and splashed!! YAY!!!
So, I told Jacel that I was freakin out and she told me I would be fine. She did say we were going to push the envelope a little bit today. So I trotted and cantered around to warm up for real while her and Kelli chatted. I came back in and she was like "She looks super stressed"... I was like... "Oh man.. I was just thinking how nice and calm she was". Ha. Jacel was kidding and being sarcastic. Oh... ha, did I mention I was stressing about the show?! So we started off cantering over a baby log. And it was icky. She stopped. Jacel immediately called me out on why. She said that I had taken it for granted and just kind of went up to it, too fast... and she couldn't process it. So... we trotted it. And then we trotted the bigger log... and then cantered it. And then cantered the small coop. And then went to canter the cabin/coop thing and she stopped again. So... here's the thing. I have to balance her... so she's not just running at things... slow her down so she can balance and look and process... but ALSO be supportive and send her. I did a good job of telling her to wait... and balance... I just forgot the "AND GO" part. She needs me to say yes.... balance... slow your brain... but I also need you to go. Ah..... it's Balance AND go! So... I added the *and* and we did it. Okay... I can do this. It helped to balance her with some alternating half halts. I didn't want to just keep grabbing at her face. So that helped. And it also helped to balance her barrel around the turns in between the fences too.
So then Kelli left (sadly, no more videos after that) and we carried on. It did get better. I remembered how to ride... balance AND go. But not chasing. We did a few of the other jumps and then she sent us to the new brush staircase thingy. Eeeeks... she's never seen brush. And it was also a skinny. She ALMOST had it. She jumped sideways but did jump over the very corner of it. We circled and came again and she did it!!! Then we turned and came downhill and did it again! GOOD GIRL!!! So then we went to the bank and Jacel had us warm up over it and then we did a combo. She had us do the triple stack to the up bank to the cabin and then over the other coop/cabin thing. Then we did it backwards but instead of the triple stack I did the bigger hanging log thing. Which she hadn't jumped before. But she did it! All in stride. It was fantastic! So then we headed to the ditches and she was fine with those and the coop. And then we did the triple log stack at the edge of the water. She wanted us to try it. We both originally thought coming out of the water would be easier. Lyric almost had it but bailed at the last second and jumped sideways but sort of scrambled as she backed off enough she didn't have enough power. We tried a second and maybe third time but she just didn't understand the question. I think the fact that she had one stride of land between the water and the jump was confusing her. It was like she knew she could put her front feet down but didn't think she could put her hind feet down so she panicked. So... we decided to try it the other way.. and jump it and land one stride into the water. She did it!!! GOOD GIRL! It was sticky. Heck, a lot of the jumps were a hair sticky in the sense that she backed off just enough to process it. But we did some big things! We quit with that. I was tempted to jump the big scary novice table, but.. it was just a hair big. And on the hill at an angle, so I figured that wasn't fair. Plus she was starting to get tired and I felt her stifle slip a time or two. I didn't want to end on a bad note, so.. we quit while we were ahead.
I'm feeling a bit better about the show. Those weren't huge tables but they were tough questions and she did them without having to trot everything. She processed 4 jumps in a row that were fairly close together. She did the ditch, the bank, and the water in a combo! Good girl!! Jacel reminded me that just because it wasn't all pretty... didn't mean we weren't ready for the level. She said to not listen to the devil talking about stuff like that. Because that's what it was. We were ready! And we would do just fine at the show. Ahhhh, I so needed to hear that.
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