Saturday, Lincomb, Mandy Kent show jumping clinic.
The good news was that for a bunch of reasons I didn’t know about, there were only two of us in the clinic for the first half-hour.
The bad news was that the sky was jammed on ‘open’ and the rain was pouring down.
Rebecca – who has organised the two training events I’ve attended (Matt Ryan, Mandy Kent- and a bunch more that I haven’t been to… yet!) looked very cheery when she apologised for the poor weather. More on Rebecca in a minute or two.
I’ve never seen Mandy Kent before so we were starting from cold.
She watched us work in.
Then she put us over a grid of poles on the ground.
Then she put a cross-pole fence at the end of the grid.
Then she pulled me up, told me where I was going wrong and told me – directly – how to change things around.
Then we spent the rest of the session working on this one thing.
Over the grid – which changed to two fences.
Then a bigish upright fence set five canter strides away from another bigish upright – working at this on both reins.
Then the bigish upright fence, five canter strides, then the other bigish upright then a 180-degree turn to another bigish (but narrower) upright.
And that’s it.
For an hour she had Vin and I work on this one thing in my psychological zone which altered my physical posture which encouraged Vin to ramp on in a very forwards manner yet which allowed me to collect him up underneath me so that he wasn’t able to jump long and flat.
In a word… Brilliant.
So it all boils down to this:
Jo has got our flatwork up together.
Our improved flatwork has taken us to a level from which our show jumping can be tweaked (because it is only tweaking it needs to get it competition perfect), and
Our new and improved balance in the flat and jumping disciplines coupled with Vin’s boldness across country allows me to relax, be more trusting and give him more trust than I’m used to giving.
For the first time in years (since my accident with Ash!) I finally feel that everything is clicking in to place.
I’m now optimistic about starting our One Day Eventing season towards the end of May or beginning of June.
Yay!
🙂
B.
p.s. I did say I’d mention Rebecca later? Here it is.
I understand from people in the riding club (by the way, that’s Worcester and District Riding Club folks) that Rebecca has just got on and organised these training events by herself.
Pretty amazing.
So, Rebecca, as you were foolish enough to let on that you read this drivel I would like to give you a very public ‘thank you’ for all of your hard work in laying these events on. Thanks!
p.p.s. I should add that Vin came out of his box sound as a pound on Saturday morning, despite his DIY shoe-removal and the farrier’s subsequent refitting the evening before.