Learning to Love Mr. Fresh - Jump School 5/15/14

Yesterday I headed down the mountain, white knuckled (don't trust my truck yet), for another jump school.

Arrived safely and tacked up.  The weather has been a bit weird here in NJ.  When we arrived it was sunny, just really humid.  When we were walking out to the ring it turned very dark and the wind was whipping.  I could see Liam's eyes get a bit wide.  I hopped on and Liam turned into Liam the giraffe looking all around.  Warmed up.  Probably not the best warm up, I could have easily picked a fight with him about the left drift and listening to my left leg, but decided to not do that right before we start jumping, needless to say the left drift problem didn't just go away jumping.  He settled a little, but never completely relaxed flatting.

We started jumping circling the blue in each direction:

Liam was fresh and when he is fresh he likes to land and play rocking horse after the jumps.  It literally feels like a rocking horse.  Not once was I unseated, but geez... I do actually like the feel of him underneath me when he is fresh.  I feel like we have so much power to the jumps, but I can do without rocking horse Liam.

Next exercise was figure eights over the orange and lime green jump:

He was good, just more rocking horse nonsense...  I am strong enough now to ride it out and actually make him stop.  Thank you core training!  Our left drift was showing up here a bit.  He is a smart horse though.  As soon as I would really block the left he would go right, grrrr.  We did get some really good straight jumps though.

We moved on to our first short course:

Started out over the blue, with a right roll back to the lime green, with a left roll back to the orange bending line (6 or 7 depending on how you ride it) to the light grey (white).  Around the end of the ring up the 5 stride dark grey.  The first time around the blue came up beautiful with a lovely left to right change and then a big fat trip with more rocking horse after, really Liam...!  Had to circle before the lime.  Lime was good and the roll back to the orange was great really concentrating on blocking the left drift through the roll back all the way to the jump.  Bending line was great, I did it in 7 strides.  Landed and we had more rocking horse all the way turning to the 5 stride.  Decided to add in 6 instead of run in 5 strides.  What I noticed is when Liam is this much up and down our stride doesn't open up, it just goes up and down.  My friend said that he is just jumping the crap out of everything and landing really shallow and staying round and never really opening up.  So we need to figure out how to stay nice and round with power, the power I like to feel, but open our stride up.  Homework for home this coming week.  Only correction was I was to sit up better from the light grey to the dark gray line and hopefully that will correct the rocking horse a little.

Did the entire short course again.  1, 2, 3 to 4 came up beautiful.  I did a more direct 6 strides from 3 to 4 this time.  Really concentrated on sitting up after 4 and minimal rocking horse this time.  But because I was sitting up so nicely Liam really sat down and collected and we found a tighter (not chip) distance in to the grey line, so I decided not to run in 5 and just add up in 6 strides.  All in all it was better the second time around.

Final course was as followed:

Started out over the green vertical bending to the natural oxer in again 6 or 7 strides depending how you rode it.  Then up over the true 3 stride line bending to to blue.  I wanted 4 up the line to make sure I can bend nicely to the blue.  Then right into the short course from above with a right roll back to lime, left roll back to orange bending line to light gray.  Up the 5 stride dark gray.  1 to 2 was lovey in 7 strides, 3 to 4 was good, drifting a little left,  I really opened my inside left rein making a beautiful turn to the blue.  Roll back to lime was nice and roll back to orange was good.  Drifted out in the bending, so did the 7 to the light gray.  Sat up with leg on this time after the light grey to the dark grey line and just floated up the line in 5.

We finished with correcting jump 3 to 4 to 5 by just really blocking the left side and it came out great.

I am really please with Liam and my riding.  He was fresh, but I was able to ride through it.  I year ago the rocking horse would of turned into bucking and me hitting the dirt.   The rocking horse doesn't intimidate me anymore and I am strong enough to be able to sit up and correct it now.  What I took away from the lesson is that we need to work on forward power canter at home and left drift.  I love the fresh canter he gave me yesterday, I feel like I can jump the moon with it and I don't miss with it!

My friend was also saying when I was worried about the strides yesterday, she said that I am doing the jumpers, just ride the jumps and don't worry about the strides.  I really thought about that and when I just rode the jumps yesterday it was perfection, who cares about the numbers.  All the bending lines, I just rode what I had and it came out great each time.

Well this is my plan on Sunday at the horse show.  I am just going to ride the jumps and the horse I have. 

Liam will have off today as we are getting dumped on with rain.   I will give him a good flat tomorrow and HORSE SHOW Sunday!!! Wish me luck!