Adorable
Member
I usually lurk here, but just wanted to weigh in supporting a few things @BunnyDog said earlier, as a fellow North American. FWIW, I also compete and am a former FEI groom, having worked and toured with a member of my national team.
On this side of the pond a decent 1.40M horse with the brain to handle an amatuer's mistakes is easily a six-figure proposition. Heck, some of them LEASE for six figures a year! There are really no 1.40M school horses. The closest thing I've seen are a handful of former GP horses who burned out mentally and fry up going to a show, but can still physically do the job happily at home where there's no pressure. Even those are few and far between. And lessons on them are not cheap by any stretch. And their owners/trainers do not just let you come ride them in a one-off lesson. You're in the full program.
Our rated shows are typically five-day affairs. A general schedule for a 1.30 or 1.40 horse may involve a schooling trip, and two or three competitive classes over the span of the week. Each class is about 13 jumping efforts plus 8 in the jump off. Plus, of course, warm-up jumps. When you are jumping a course at 1.40, you can't just pop 'em over one or two small jumps in warm up and go in the ring. It's more typical to need 10 or 12 warm up jumps (of increasing height and width). So let's call it in the area of 25-30 jumps for each competitive class.
These horses have to be FIT, and accustomed to jumping more than a handful of jumps in a session, or we'd risk serious injury to the animal. Not what anyone wants.
Let's just remember that a typical modified GP or an open jumper class is 1.45-1.5M, with FEI getting to 1.5-1.6M. What we're looking at here with Cudo is a potential grand prix horse in the making. Horses do not achieve this by jumping five or six jumps in a typical schooling session. They need to be properly prepared -- mentally and physically -- for the task. And that takes practice.
Also, that crazy heat you guys are experiencing this week? That is NORMAL temperature in July/August in Kentucky, where Cudo will be competing. Heck, it's fully normal here in my part of Canada in the summertime. It is, in fact, 32*C outside my door at this precise moment. When I get on my horse to school tomorrow, it is forecast to be 36*C. Now, we are more used to it than y'all are. But it still requires a degree of fitness, along with extra management. Our good show venues, for example, have misters and fans for the horses ringside.
The flip side is that we have winter. And here, at least, we have winter in a big way. Most riders in North America who are not either professional trainers or independently wealthy amateurs who can afford to head to Florida, Arizona or California for the winter circuits, typically hibernate for large parts of November to March. Because even with an indoor, you are not riding when it's -40*C! We do a lot of flat work in the winter. Lots of caveletti and pole exercises. When we do jump, we usually jump under our usual competition height (at least in my program).
As for the single-rail (no groundlines) vertical, I have typically seen that used as a somewhat trappy test. It can help sharpen a not-so-careful horse, or can help back off one who gets a bit aggressive to the base. I've also used it to help a horse that tends to drop his eye down to look at the fill stay up off the forehand and get a better bascule. For the rider, it is a difficult accuracy test used to develop a better eye (that's why it can also be dangerous on cross country, where the jumps don't fall down if you miss).
Now, Em, forgive me if I am wrong, as I have not watched all your videos, but from what I can see here, Cudo is quite careful (hence big reaction when he does have a rail), and more apt to try to take over when he is not sure about the question (as opposed to falling behind your leg)? If so, do you find this kind of exercise helps? From the video, it looks like once he recovered his wavelegnth after the rail reaction earlier on, he got more and more rideable.
Also, thank you for not using PVC rails as ground lines. I've seen more than one horrific stitching job as a result of a horse stepping on one!
On this side of the pond a decent 1.40M horse with the brain to handle an amatuer's mistakes is easily a six-figure proposition. Heck, some of them LEASE for six figures a year! There are really no 1.40M school horses. The closest thing I've seen are a handful of former GP horses who burned out mentally and fry up going to a show, but can still physically do the job happily at home where there's no pressure. Even those are few and far between. And lessons on them are not cheap by any stretch. And their owners/trainers do not just let you come ride them in a one-off lesson. You're in the full program.
Our rated shows are typically five-day affairs. A general schedule for a 1.30 or 1.40 horse may involve a schooling trip, and two or three competitive classes over the span of the week. Each class is about 13 jumping efforts plus 8 in the jump off. Plus, of course, warm-up jumps. When you are jumping a course at 1.40, you can't just pop 'em over one or two small jumps in warm up and go in the ring. It's more typical to need 10 or 12 warm up jumps (of increasing height and width). So let's call it in the area of 25-30 jumps for each competitive class.
These horses have to be FIT, and accustomed to jumping more than a handful of jumps in a session, or we'd risk serious injury to the animal. Not what anyone wants.
Let's just remember that a typical modified GP or an open jumper class is 1.45-1.5M, with FEI getting to 1.5-1.6M. What we're looking at here with Cudo is a potential grand prix horse in the making. Horses do not achieve this by jumping five or six jumps in a typical schooling session. They need to be properly prepared -- mentally and physically -- for the task. And that takes practice.
Also, that crazy heat you guys are experiencing this week? That is NORMAL temperature in July/August in Kentucky, where Cudo will be competing. Heck, it's fully normal here in my part of Canada in the summertime. It is, in fact, 32*C outside my door at this precise moment. When I get on my horse to school tomorrow, it is forecast to be 36*C. Now, we are more used to it than y'all are. But it still requires a degree of fitness, along with extra management. Our good show venues, for example, have misters and fans for the horses ringside.
The flip side is that we have winter. And here, at least, we have winter in a big way. Most riders in North America who are not either professional trainers or independently wealthy amateurs who can afford to head to Florida, Arizona or California for the winter circuits, typically hibernate for large parts of November to March. Because even with an indoor, you are not riding when it's -40*C! We do a lot of flat work in the winter. Lots of caveletti and pole exercises. When we do jump, we usually jump under our usual competition height (at least in my program).
As for the single-rail (no groundlines) vertical, I have typically seen that used as a somewhat trappy test. It can help sharpen a not-so-careful horse, or can help back off one who gets a bit aggressive to the base. I've also used it to help a horse that tends to drop his eye down to look at the fill stay up off the forehand and get a better bascule. For the rider, it is a difficult accuracy test used to develop a better eye (that's why it can also be dangerous on cross country, where the jumps don't fall down if you miss).
Now, Em, forgive me if I am wrong, as I have not watched all your videos, but from what I can see here, Cudo is quite careful (hence big reaction when he does have a rail), and more apt to try to take over when he is not sure about the question (as opposed to falling behind your leg)? If so, do you find this kind of exercise helps? From the video, it looks like once he recovered his wavelegnth after the rail reaction earlier on, he got more and more rideable.
Also, thank you for not using PVC rails as ground lines. I've seen more than one horrific stitching job as a result of a horse stepping on one!
