pairs xc - explain about them pls

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posie_honey

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i'm entering craigie xc with a friend = it's her horse's first comp and she wants a lead
(although form my performance last night a xc practice she may need to give me a lead - oops!)

anyway - craigie says 1 min between each rider?! i thought pairs you go round together?

also - could i wait the other side of the line for a min to let her start?? or will that be frowned upon?!

and is that normal for pairs?? i've only done one other and they only had about 10 secs between the start....
 
I am pretty sure I saw people doing the "hang around on the other side of the start line" tactics and then riding around together, so sure you will be fine doing that. A good idea to ask to be sure though. :)

Have fun, would love to be doing Craigie again as always had good runs there, but falls inbetween Kirre & Scone, so Hopalong getting a quiet weekend in the middle.
 
thank you :)

it really was 8'C yesterday btw! and strathearn ground was good last night (shame i rode like a total idiot!) but anyway - fingers crossed for you at kirri but looking good - today is another warm and windy day = great for drying it up
 
In a pairs class you normally go around together and have a set number of 'dressing' fences where you have to jump upsides one another. You are then given penalty marks for these 'dressing' fences ie 10 for over 1 length apart, 5 for 1/2 length apart and 0 for together. This is besides any jumping penalties that you may get. However if it is your friend's horse's first time cross country it may be as well to go around non-competitively, one behind the other. Have a good time!
 
FigJam said:
Glad Strathearn was good, I'm sure you weren't riding like an idiot really, was pony feeling a little fresh?
Click to expand...

do you really want to know...?

ok - i supopse i can take my own thread off topic considering you answered all my queries anyway :D

i think the thing is i assumed we'd take off where we left last nov - where we were both more confident and getting round clear.... she's a v (too!) honest mare - will go if i kick - will stop if i don;t! she still took some riding then - but we went clear over kinnarid at teh end of the season....

but then i suppose that was our first year competing and we had started with a refusal at every fence at jx at 2foot last april when we started jumping....and i'd not thought how 4 months off would affect us both....

she lacks confidence jumping - surprisingly so considering she's a hunter =- but then out hunting she always has someone to follow....and thats is all she has done since she was backed - so prob 8 years of following over fences.... and i also lack confidence - so together we can be a nightmare!

also from her history there seems to be a point when something went wrong and she ended up very cheap at a dealers then cheap when i bought her - i suspect it's jumping based and somewhere along the lines she's lost all her confidence - when i bought her 2yrs ago this june she would shy at a pole on the ground! as my piccies show and as my RI's say - she can look very green and lacking condfidence...

so anyway - we ended up with quite a few refusals - i'd thought at the end of last season that i was holding her too much so made mistake of having longer rein - which i soon found out was a mistake!! she had also gone back to being pretty scared of it all and jumping v green and then that scared me... but by the end we cleared everything.....

onwards and upwards eh?!
 
Haniki said:
In a pairs class you normally go around together and have a set number of 'dressing' fences where you have to jump upsides one another. You are then given penalty marks for these 'dressing' fences ie 10 for over 1 length apart, 5 for 1/2 length apart and 0 for together. This is besides any jumping penalties that you may get. However if it is your friend's horse's first time cross country it may be as well to go around non-competitively, one behind the other. Have a good time!
Click to expand...

thank you - that was my understanding of pairs - craige obviously just run it differently!

and yup - we;re def going non competativly! ;)
 
Craigie definitely doesn't have any dressing fences or penalties/points for jumping together!

That's really interesting to hear her back story. Sounds like you have come a long way, so hopefully you were keeping that in mind at any point where you were feeling disheartened. :)

Although Hopalong is the most confident SJ-er, literally point and shoot, when it comes to XC she is spookier and less confident and definitely needs me to back her up more. If I just ride the same as when we're SJ we would definitely clock up refusals. If I am more assertive and make sure my legs are on and I am riding positively, she will go.

Mr FigJam came up with a great theory after watching us at our first XC lesson (Strathearn last March!)- "ride every fence as if you've just had a refusal at it"! He noticed that I was much more positive and determined after having a silly refusal that we rode the fence much better second time around and jumped it nicely. So I now keep that in mind when riding XC and it seems to have worked so far! (annoyingly, I poo-pooed his comment originally and then read almost word-for-word the same thing a month later written by Tanya Kyle! :p Now he thinks he's the next Yogi Breisner...! :rolleyes: ;) )

It will take a little time to get back in the swing of things, but sure you will be fine after a couple of outings. :) We were much stickier at Montrave last weekend than we had been at the end of last year at Gleneagles/Kinnaird, but hopefully that rust will wear off quickly. :)
 
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