Cross Country Camp Day 3: Knocking the Rust Off

Day two started out well with Flounder thinking he was the BEST at cross country and being annoyed at me that I wasn't letting him gallop out all his feelings about how amazing he was. 

It was honestly so absurd to have him squeal every time I asked him to go forward and to feel mildly out of control while cantering around in warm up.

We finally started to jump and Flounder was insulted that we weren't schooling all the Prelim and that he had to jump a tiny intro log. He would land and do his version of exploding which is just to toss his head and squeal. I just love him so much. 

Didn't get as many pictures from the second day

Once we moved onto the BN line, he was much more interested in getting serious. Apparently the difference between intro and BN is enough to get him to calm down. 

We worked on this long, unrelated bending line for a bit. I was for some reason wanting to jump up his neck on takeoff and get too much into my stirrup on landing, which was frustrating but probably due to me being kind of tired and sore from the day before. 

That led me into so many realizations about the adults I used to work with when I was the assistant trainer to an event trainer. I laughed to think of how many times I didn't understand when the adults would be tired from the day before or when they'd feel like it was too hot out or when they'd say that a N fence looked big. And there I was being like "oh no I don't want to school the novice corner no thank you" and "my seat bones are sore but I'm also tired so I am not comfortable sitting or being up in half seat, I need to lay down" and "I know it's not *that* hot out but it's *really* hot out" 

But we made it through! For the most part! 

Flounder thought he was king of the
world at first

After our first few lines, we moved onto yet another pimple fence. If you approached it toward the barns, you had a flat bit right before jumping but you landed on the downhill slope. If you approached it the other way, you jumped from the uphill but you had a flat bit to land on before going downhill. 

We schooled it the way that was more horse friendly (landing on the flat bit) and Flounder reiterated that I wasn't good at jumping pimple jumps so he stopped. When we came back to it again, we made it over and it was much better. I really got the feeling of landing in my thigh on that fence and tried to commit that to memory. 

After that, Kate had us do a little course! We were to do the first two beginner novice fences, then come to the pimple fence (also on the BN course), do the first line we did (BN) and then go through the water and up the hill to a line we'd done the day before. We had some options for intro fences if we were having issues so I felt confident heading out. 

We started in the start box which was SO fun and Flounder was solid over the first fence. Then he started playing a bit and surged toward the next fence. I should have half halted earlier on but instead just let him go and thought he'd launch over the long spot. Well, Flounder isn't *that* athletic and so chipped hard and I had to slip my reins to let him figure out how to get over it. Sorry buddy! Thought you were more athletic than that given how you were acting. 

The next fence, the pimple, rode beautifully and so did the original line we had started with.  

The best fish!

We weren't that far into the course and my body was like "you know what, fuck you for this, I thought we were dressage riders" so I kept having to sit back down into full seat as we cantered to the upper field. 

This tiredness definitely made me look at the next fence so we had two stops there. That sucked because it had been a no-brainer the day before, but that's okay because it's all a learning experience and this is exactly the information I need: I need to ride in half seat WAY more if I want to do this sport again. 

We did get over that roll top and then opted for the last fence to be an intro fence to end on a good note. 

He's so cute and he made himself so
dirty the whole weekend lol!

That concluded our cross country weekend! I'm so glad it worked out for me to go. I learned a ton and had a lot of fun with both horses (more on TC tomorrow). 

My main takeaways were: 

- I need to do more work in half seat to get stronger/fitter for the gallop stretches on cross country

- I need to land in my thigh vs my stirrup to help Flounder balance better after the fences (and set him up for any related lines)

- I need to keep my hip back in the air/wait for him to jump

- I need to work on my down banks

- I also need to work on pimple jumps!

Overall it was a fabulous weekend! I can't wait for the next cross country schooling and in the mean time, it's all half seat all the time for me. Sunny is finally feeling better from his eye issue (long story but he is apparently allergic to something that made one of his eyes blow up and so he got himself a hospital stay recently, he hasn't been ridden much since then) so I think I'm going to start riding him again to practice my jumping work. 

I might try to pick up a saddle for him that isn't awful. Just something cheap that I can practice half seat in and do some small jumps at home in between my lessons on Flounder.