Peaks and Valleys

Well, another Rolex has come and gone. Now the Olympics seem very close. Jersey and Bromont are the only 3* competitions left before the games!  I LOVE the summer Olympics!!!

I was able to get in two more lessons with Jan and having her here right after the 3* was perfect timing. If Jan told me once this weekend, she told me 10 times to "let Fair Hill go." She's so right... No harm was done and now I know what feeling I cannot have in terms of gallop and contact when I am in xc warm up and leaving the box. Still... Ugh.  It seems in eventing you're either on a peak, waiting for a valley, or in a valley climbing to the peak.

Jan was able to watch us go all spring and knew exactly what she wanted to work on when our lessons began this week. Since I already blogged about day one, I'll start with the dressage lesson we had on day two. We started out leg yielding down the rail and in that exercise we worked on having the correct angle and focused on my position. Once we did this a few times around the area, incorporating straight steps now and then, I already felt a difference in her trot. By tweaking my position and Frankie leg yielding down the rail correctly, she was really working through her back! It felt very correct.

 From there we went to canter. Actually, we went to counter canter and lots of it! Jan seriously addressed Frankie's swinging haunches in the transition as well as my position through the transition. We did about 50 trot counter canter transition along the rail. I think I cantered on the true lead once each direction and we used it to 1/2 circle back into the counter canter. By the end of all of this work, Frankie was truly up in the bridle, carrying herself, and not tense at all. Needless to say, she felt great. From that work, the 1/2 pass felt rhythmic and flowing.

Yesterday we jumped again starting with the same exercises that we did on Thursday. I am happy that I only had to do it about 15 times instead of the million it felt like I had to do it on Thursday! We continued to work on Frankie carrying the bit so I could have a supporting feel, not a dragging me, running through the bridle feel- also not to be confused with no feel where she has slipped behind me.

By the end of the lesson, Jan had us jump a 4'- 4'3" course where we actually ADDED between an oxer and a vertical that walked 5 strides.  Jan had us do the six and I cannot believe how slow, balanced, and confident she felt.  She gave me such a collected and powerful jump and by adding the stride to get the six, early, the last three strides to the vertical were the same, she was not pulling, and she did not jump past her distance like we so often do!

It was really unbelievable that Frankie jumped so well out of that canter!  Jan and I discussed that in some cases in SJ, I may want to add on a 5,6,7 stride line so that when I jump in and she sees it, she does not run down to it and jump past her distance.  The key is deciding BEFORE I land that I want to add!  It cannot happen 1/2 way there because then I am just pulling to the next jump.  I told Jan that had we not worked so hard on our canter and had the exercises to build us up to a big course, there was NO WAY I would have believed that canter was possible to those jumps!  Jan laughed and said, "Yeah, I know.  I watched you SJ."  HAHA!  I think this is funny because at Pine Top I wanted to go around a jump to have more time to "fix" my canter and she said to me, "Sometimes I think you think you are fixing your canter but in really you are just going faster."  It's pretty amazing what she sees and remembers!

Luckily I will get to see Jan again this summer when Frankie and I go to Surefire for a week and then again when she's here for Young Riders.  We were able to discuss what my schedule with Frankie should be and I am looking forward to a great run at Chatt Hills next month!