Well, wouldn’t you know it. Of course Murphy has ended up with a slightly swollen knee this very week, which means that although he’s doing lessons this week, he’s not jumping. So, I ended up with Fleur today and Fleur for the competition on Thursday. Argh. I am glad he should be fine soon again, but the timing really sucks. Fleur is in some ways easier to ride, but last time I had her for a dressage competition she just died once she got inside of the arena all on her own. Since I don’t tend to ride with spurs, she lost all interest in moving forward at a good pace as soon as I put my whip aside. Also, since the jumping will be outside, I’ll be nervous about her being flighty if it is as windy as it has been the last days.
Today, however, she was quite co-operative and easy to work with. We had setup a small course with quite a few turns and we were instructed to focus on getting the turns right and on keeping a good, even pace throughout the course. We were also told not to worry too much about getting the right leading leg in the canter following each obstacle.
From the start, Fleur showed herself quite willing to go forward at a good, balanced pace, and I was able to work quite a bit on fairly tight turns even at a canter during the warm-up. I was trying to get a good sense for how to use the outside rein to facilitate the turns (by making sure that her outside was kept short and that her outside shoulder didn’t drift away) instead of making the mistake of half pulling, half leading her around with the inner rein. She had enough momentum today that I was quite pleased with how things turned out.
The actual jumping, once we got started, also worked pretty well. She’s got a very short stride, and sometimes it feels like she’ll not take off in time, but for the most part I managed to keep still and wait for her to initiate the jump. The main issue was that, contrary to what our instructor had said, she did not do a flying change of leading leg when she ended up landing on the wrong one. Not even when ridden through fairly tight corners and being asked to gallop on quite a bit. Clearly, she’s very good at getting around with the wrong leading leg. Other than that, though, I was pretty pleased with it.
Once we had jumped the course once, we also go to pick out two obstacles to redo, either because we had done them well or because we wanted to improve on things. I did the two diagonal jumps, to see if I could get the right leading leg, and I think I managed. I am hopeless at telling when its right, without staring down at the horse’s legs for a minute or so.
For the competition (if I do go; I may skip it if the weather is too unpleasant) I will try for a similar result to today. That’d be pretty good. But since I’ll be a lot more nervous, we’ll see how that goes.