BSJA - improvement?? And help required, pretty pls. Vids & pics.

[catembi]

Following advice from here, I decided to try Adrian in a martingale & managed to find one in the depths of the tackroom, so off we went to Manor Farm to try it out

I stuck to the HHO recommended shorter warmup & only did 5 jumps before going into the British Novice - altho one of the warmup jumps was 1 m 15

. The boy can def jump if he feels like it - met it spot on & gave it a good foot.

Onto our round - pretty well foot perfect except that muppet here *cannot* see a stride to a // off a corner. Why not??? Any ideas?? That was also my weak spot with Catembi & I never did get to the bottom of it. So we had a stop in the BN.

He was well & truly up for it so put him in the 95 cm. He had no 2 down for no good reason - it felt to me as if he was on a perfect stride at the perfect speed & with the perfect amount of impulsion so I'm a bit

. And then couldn't see a stride to the same jump as in the BN & had another stop. Altho I was messing around with canter leads for too long which didn't help. But even so, it was only 95 cm, so no excuses really.

The only other prob was that he lit up after I rode him more strongly at the //, & altho you can't really see it in the video, he was absolutely pulling my arms out & I could only just about hold it together. He was having a fantastic time, but was way too fast & furious. Coming down to the last line, he *very* nearly jumped the red jump again by accident. So...

-how do I see a stride to a // off a corner? Or do I just practice at home?
-does he look better in the martingale? He *felt* better.
-the rope side part of his myler combi has rubbed a 10p sized bit of his face raw on the left side. In an ideal world, he'd be straight instead of hanging on the left rein, but for the time being, what could I put on the rope to stop it scraping his skin off? Bit of sheepskin? Would that be enough? The 'rope' is a nylon cord.

All advice gratefully received - we'll be going to Manor Farm again on Thurs to see if I can finally bin the dunce's hat.

British Novice

http://s154.photobucket.com/albums/s258/catembi/?action=view&current=VIDEO_008.flv

95 cm

Apologies - there's 30 secs of upsidedown filming & I'm not sure how to get rid of it.

http://s154.photobucket.com/albums/s258/catembi/?action=view&current=VIDEO_009-1.flv

http://www.situpandkick.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=173_305&products_id=11825

http://www.situpandkick.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=173_305&products_id=11826

http://www.situpandkick.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=173_305&products_id=11839

 

[kit279]

I thought it looked much more together this time - maybe martingale was helping? For a // generally you need to be bowling along a good pace and it's hard to keep that around the corner without the horse falling in/out and flattening. I find that it's very dispiriting for the horse to presented at a // without enough impulsion, jumping in good faith and still getting a pole in the back legs.. So my experience is that they tend to chuck in a stop if they aren't feeling confident that they'll make it over. Best thing is to make the corner as big as possible and line up as straight as you can and drive forward.

From the video, it's hard to tell why he had the second fence down but if the stride was right, he might just have been dangling a little in front as it looked like he clipped it with the fronts not the back.

Just wondering if you have an instructor and if so, who you go to? I'm quite near you (Cambridge) and know of a *very* straight talking lady who sorted my SJ out (but she was quite brutal)! Incidentally, I think I'm Manor Farm bound on Sunday so might see you about!

 

[KatB]

// off a corner is all about keeping the canter through the corner, so riding it off your outside leg, supporting with your inside leg and holding with your outside rein to keep the canter and maintain impulsion whilst "balancing" to actually turn!! You actually have to ride alot stronger than you think around corners, almost likeyou are using it to wind them up, then when you get straight, GO!!

SO its keeping the engine running but the speed down

Well done though, definitely an improvement, it is just frustrating when teh results dont show it isnt it?

 

[Jade2007]

I think you need a bit more impulsion for the //, and it looked like he was just being a little lazy with his feet in the 95cm.

I have the same problem with seeing strides to //'s off a corner, the thing is your horse sees the stride quite a way back and what I was doing was shortening him to give me more time to see a stride. However, this would ruin his stride so we would have stops.

Just keep the canter rolling round the corner and keep your leg on, after practise you will learn to see the strides!

Two lovely rounds apart from the stops though!

 

[Firewell]

hmmm, i think he looked a little on the forehand and he was falling in around the corners. Not that im a massive expert or anything!! Other than that you rode very well i thought.

 

[TableDancer]

Echo those who say you need more revs on the corner to an oxer. It's easy to get a bit precious round corners then try to create the energy on the straight - it should almost be the other way round: you should drive his inside hind leg underneath him on the turn then if you come out of it with a good powerful canter you can either keep that to the fence if the striding works out that way, or hold a little or let it out a little if necessary to get you to the correct take-off point (over that height he shouldn't need you to be too accurate anyway, the quality of the canter is far more important). I think you come around the turn a bit cautious then try to create energy but its too late by then all you will do is flatten him and, as you say, probably miss your spot.

A good exercise is to build oxers at home only a stride or two off the track (at an angle to it), so you can't really look for a spot after you turn, you have to have faith, build the canter, keep it round the turn, then you've jumped before you know it

Cindy Rawson used to do this to me ages ago, building HUGE oxers one stride off the wall and making me GALLOP round the school to them (well that's what it felt like

) it really helped me get the feeling I needed. Good luck!

 

[catembi]

Great - thank you people! More ideas to work on. Will def try the stronger canter on Thurs & report back. Now that it's been pointed out to me, I can see that I'm not really pushing on thru the corner, & I think I'm mentally not helping myself cos I'm thinking, oh no, // off a corner, going to make a mess of it... then of course I DO make a mess of it, which then reinforces the -ve feeling.

Now is the time to crack it while the jumps are still small as we're v nearly out of BN.