Gallop....GALLOP!!!!!!!! Karen O'Connor on XC Day

Now it was cross country day!!!!!! Unfortunately the lovely weather we had the day before was a fleeting moment bc a tropical storm rolled in on Sunday. It started out ok, misty with a few gentle showers. In order to attempt to to beat the bad part of the storm everyone's lesson time got bumped forward and the plan was to power through the 3 groups (BN, Novice, Training/Prelim) and hope for the best. As long as it wasn't thundering and lightening the clinic was on go and the storm wasn't suppose to arrive until later that afternoon. Karen had another theory lesson at 8 am and talked about riding XC. I have notes and will try to write those down later but the basic gist was there are 3 positions on XC (Galloping, Prepping, and Jumping) with a 4th position for Drop Fences. Ride with a bridge in your reins, and your angles in your body change the speed of your horse (increased angles= go faster, more open angles =slow down) and keep your leg perpendicular to sea level.

(sorry for the large pictures, for some reason Blogger isn't letting me adjust the size today)

The BN group warming up around the bank complex

BN was the first group to go and I was able to watch most of that lesson. She was really into fitness and had the group canter around for 5 minutes without stopping in their various XC positions (she would call out Galloping! Prepping! Galloping!) and the riders had to either speed up or slow down by changing their positions. She did spend a lot of time working on their positions before moving on to banks. A lot of the BN horses or riders were very green so they stuck to fairly simple exercises and worked on jumping off the bank and turning left or right to the verticals she had set up on a bending line after the down bank. After they got that they headed over to the ditch and worked on jumping a ditch and then adding the coop after and making it into a half coffin. I had to leave at that point to go get Joe so I missed the end  and the Training/ Prelim group.

As soon as Joe arrive at the clinic the bottom fell out and it was serious torrential rain falling. The poor Training/Prelim group was still out there riding during the rain and I heard that they stopped when the riders were struggling to stay in their tack (it was at the end of their lesson anyways so they got a lot done) The footing held up really well so the horses were fine but not so much the riders! Our lesson was temporarily postponed bc the weather map was showing the rain stopping around 1:30/2. And sure enough the rain stopped and we were able to have a lovely lesson. 

Gives you an idea how steep the hill was that we had to canter down. Bank complex is to the right just out of the picture

As soon as we all got out there it was time to work on our XC positions. While our horses were warming up at the trot we were practicing our different positions and learning how to balance correctly. We were on the side of a hill so we had to practice going up and down and making sure our horses were balanced. The footing was pretty torn up from the earlier groups and the rain so part of the lesson was being aware of the footing and changing our track to be on better footing. Though all in all I was really surprised how well the footing was holding up. None of the horses slipped going downhill even when we started to canter. We continued to work on our XC positions in the canter and we would stretch up and balance down the hill and close our angles and press down on the withers and gallop up the hill. It was awesome for really finding your balance and I thought to bad I’m not getting a time right now bc this would be a beastly 2pointober time right now!!!!!

This was the bank we dropped off of and did a bending line to a vertical and then circled back to another vertical and back up the bank

After that we went straight into banks and course work. She had us jump down a bank 2/3 stride bending line to a vertical, loop around to another vertical, up the bank, turn right up another bank, 2 strides down a bank landing on a downhill decline and 2 strides to a skinny chevron. Joe was so good until the skinny chevron and I think I froze and he said nope! You're not with me so I won't do it! Karen asked if I was nervous about the skinny and I said yes and she very calmly said channel that nervousness into determination and ride forward to the skinny. So I did. And guess what? WE JUMPED THE SKINNY DOWNHILL JUMP OF DOOM!!!!!! I wish I had it on video b/c it was probably the most nerve racking jump (for me) that we did at the clinic. I'm not a fan of skinnies and downhill jumps when it's been raining but I really had nothing to fear with Joe. He knows where his feet are and isn't going to slip b/c he bolted down a hill or anything. He's to clever to do something stupid like that :) I didn't get the bank complex on video but some nice spectators I guess felt bad for me and took some videos of the next thing we worked on, ditches and water.

So now it was time for ditches!!! We ended up struggling a bit with the ditch and when we started to string together a little coffin exercise I almost fell off. But I was in my trainer's Devecoux that had grippy calfskin leather and omg I get it!!!! I lost my left stirrup and never felt like I was going to fall off b/c my pants were stuck to the leather (and Joe's back is about as wide as a bus so yeah, wasn't going anywhere) and if I ever need a new saddle calfskin might be in my future... (I love you grippy wonderfulness!) But either way we finally got our act together and strung together the coop, trakener, skinny, water, vertical together! I had to overly exaggerate my elbows b/c I kept locking them and thats when Joe would stop. The final question of the day with the vertical in the water and we only had to do it once b/c I remembered to stay soft in my elbows and Joe was like "FINALLY!!!! OK lets do this!!!!!" So many smiles and pats afterwards!!!!!!!

After we were done Karen asked us if we had any questions and I really couldn't think of anything. I was so happy with the clinic as a whole and loved that my weakness were highlighted the entire clinic so I could work on them. My riding was far from perfect but I felt like I progressed and actually improved. I know what I need to work on and felt like I was given tools to do it. I know my overall fitness is at an all time low right now and that makes me a less confident rider. My confidence is related to my fitness and in the past I wouldn't of blinked at the downhill bank to the skinny but right now I'm not there. So this winter needs to be dedication to getting myself back on board so I can give Chimi the ride he deserves and we can come out swinging this spring!!!!!