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Nov. 8th, 2009 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe weather this weekend was unseasonably warm. Saturday was about sixty and Sunday was pushing sixty-five or so. Both days were sunny. On Saturday, I took Nick to a jumping clinic at Bonnie's in Everett. That was educational. I like going on horse outings because they illustrate where the huge gaps in our clue are.
Nick did well with the indoor arena, which was on the smallish side. (It'd be good for one or two horses but it was kind of crowded with four.) She didn't get goofy or strange (much) with the indoor arena or the traffic or the people sitting along the side in folding chairs or the random cats bounding about underfoot. All of that, apparently, we can do without acting like an ass.
She rated well enough at the walk and the trot -- clinician said "Your pony has a huge walk!" and she totally does so there had to be rating at the walk or we'd have run over everyone in front of us. Nick doesn't really LIKE walking slowly and trotting more slowly than usual, so she was getting kind of frustrated but still listening. We've done a lot of work at the walk and trot with rating and different stride lengths and stuff so she's got the chops to work it out -- if we're behind the big thoroughbred mare (16hh and rangy) or if we're behind lazy-ass Cracker who thinks he's a western pleasure pony, we can make it work and keep a respectable distance at the walk and at the trot.
The rating was necessary because the clinician didn't want us taking a circle to make more room between us and the horse in front of us. She wanted us to space out and use rating to not bunch up or run over the person in front of us. It's a different way of making the ring space work than most people are used to (the "take a circle" method is way more common) but if you're there at the clinic on your own horse, you should probably have enough chops to work it out with rating your horse.
Then, we cantered. That did not go so well. Nick does not have the slow, relaxed, non-going-places canter that ring work builds in horses. She has not (I am a bad owner) been asked to canter enough times to have a canter departure that looks any better than "trot 'em into it at ninety miles an hour" nor has she cantered enough in group settings to be less-than-frantic about the situation. Her canter does not have a hell of a lot of rate, either. We lapped the other horses, round and round and round fast enough that I was getting dizzy. *sigh* Needs Work, that does. On the plus side, she was on the correct lead... bombing around at ninety miles an hour, yes, but we were on the correct lead.
Because the ring space was kind of dinky, we then did some smallish fences, set as cross rails, in a pretty dinky figure-eight pattern. (This part was one at a time.) We had some fail (one run-out, three refusals, and some screech-halt-jump stuff that didn't look very good. Oh, and an overjumping episode that made clinician lady worried that I would fall off. I didn't. I'm okay with overjumping -- Nick does that when she's facing new material.) at the jumping stuff, but I am not terribly upset with how she did. Thing is, we're both pretty new at the whole jumping thing, so the very tight turns and very short distances (necessitated by the small indoor we were working in) were a bit much for our n00b jumping skills. Nick never did get as fluid and relaxed as she is at home but she did do better with each effort. I think it went well for the circumstances.
Today, after breakfast, I got Nick out of the field and we warmed up and did some canter departures (Need Work, O S A Do!) and then hit our little fences for some guided practice. La took Mariah along for more exposure. We have kind of minimal jump materials, so we're working with what we've got. Someone (has red hair, name starts with "T") has misplaced the second set of 2'3" standards, so we only have three sets of standards -- two at 18" or so, one at 2'3". We also have two straw bales, for a fourth jump -- they're about 18" high if you stand 'em on the rough ends.
We built four trot-over poles (4' apart) and then quite a ways and then an 18" vertical and then 24' (I need a bigger tape measure) to another 18" vertical (using the straw bales) and we did that. Wow, did that go well. Seriously. Horses freaking loved it. They trotted the poles, they looked to the first jump, they jumped the jump, they took a stride, they jumped the second jump. They were enthusiastic, seemed absolutely chuffed about the whole thing. Nick liked it. Mariah liked it. Both of them seemed very enthused. Also, omg, it was fun. You don't have time to get out of position as a rider and there's rhythm and stuff (from the trot-over poles) and the horse is paying attention and it's like autopilot. Yay for the gymnastic line!
So, we added two more fences going the other way, so that you could trot the poles, jump the first two jumps, circle around big, and then jump two more little fences going the other way. We used the 2'3" standards to make a cross rail and then put in the last 18" vertical. They didn't like heading for the second set of fences, probably because we (rider error) didn't turn big enough. Nick did the whole thing nicely once I figured that out and let her see those two jumps *by themselves, both ways* before putting them into a four-jump routine. Mariah never did get nice about it. *sigh* Turning Is Hard. :( Maybe we're not ready for steering.
Then we took down one of the second set of jumps to add a bounce at the end of the line of successful fences. At this point, the setup was trot four poles, go a ways, jump first jump, take one stride, jump second jump, land/takeoff, jump third jump. Distance between jump 1 and jump 2 was 24 feet (both horses did that in one stride, like the book says they should do). Distance between jump 2 and jump 3 was 12 feet (book says bounce is 12' so that's what we used). Jump 3 was a cross rail and not a vertical like the other two because we wanted to make it easy. (In retrospect, I think leaving it 18" would probably have worked better... or setting it another 24 feet away, like the distance from jump 1 to jump 2. Ah, well.)
Anyway, Mariah had no trouble with this setup. She did it quite well. Nick was somewhat confused, though -- like she didn't really know what we wanted her to do. First time, she got through the first jump and then halted at the second jump to see what the *hell* that was, there, with the changeup. (La said she looked like she wasn't sure what she was supposed to jump. Was this one jump, or two?) She went forward with encouragement and kind of managed it but it wasn't pretty. Second time through, she put two itty-bitty *in place* strides between fence 2 and fence 3, where you are supposed to not have any strides at all. That was weird. Third time through, she put one itty-bitty stride in there where you haven't any room at all to put a stride. She felt a lot better about it, though, more foreward and confident and stuff. Since we'd been working over fences for a while at that point, I called it a day with the one itty-bitty stride and the confident, forward approach.
I need to build more jump standards. I also need to shop for jump cups because we would now like to have *adjustable* jump standards. (What happened to "Oh, we will only ever need to jump 18" and 2'3"?" I seem to recall hearing that somewhere along the line. Now, it's all "We need adjustable jumps with *real* standards like they have At Fair." Bugger all.)
I need to wrangle a piece of carpet for a carpet jump from our scrap carpet. Someone thinks jumping carpet hanging on a pole will be funny. (I reckon it might be, for spectators!) All our scrap carpet is beige. Can horses even see beige? Why are we doing this? The fair doesn't have jumps with carpet on them.
I need to build Trysta's triangle brick wall thing out of plywood. (I have a plan for that. In my head.) She really, really liked the one down at her lesson in MD, to the point where I need to construct one so that we, too, will have a triangle brick wall. Never mind that the only obstacles these horses will see in a ring are plain white rails with plain white standards. No. We need oxers and stuff that looks *interesting*. I need to build boxes to hold our "evergreen" plastic xmas tree stuff for jump fill. Christ Almighty, I did not get into this so that I could spend quality time using power tools. Every time I think we have "enough" stuff for jumps, we decide that we need more stuff. Note to self: bring miter saw home from work for jump construction this coming week.
Before someone asks: No, we cannot afford "real" jumps. We do not have that kind of money for this project. One pair of jump blocks (three-way, plastic, shown here) costs $76.00 -- I can't do that. I don't have a budget of $76.00 for the whole damn project.
Nick did well with the indoor arena, which was on the smallish side. (It'd be good for one or two horses but it was kind of crowded with four.) She didn't get goofy or strange (much) with the indoor arena or the traffic or the people sitting along the side in folding chairs or the random cats bounding about underfoot. All of that, apparently, we can do without acting like an ass.
She rated well enough at the walk and the trot -- clinician said "Your pony has a huge walk!" and she totally does so there had to be rating at the walk or we'd have run over everyone in front of us. Nick doesn't really LIKE walking slowly and trotting more slowly than usual, so she was getting kind of frustrated but still listening. We've done a lot of work at the walk and trot with rating and different stride lengths and stuff so she's got the chops to work it out -- if we're behind the big thoroughbred mare (16hh and rangy) or if we're behind lazy-ass Cracker who thinks he's a western pleasure pony, we can make it work and keep a respectable distance at the walk and at the trot.
The rating was necessary because the clinician didn't want us taking a circle to make more room between us and the horse in front of us. She wanted us to space out and use rating to not bunch up or run over the person in front of us. It's a different way of making the ring space work than most people are used to (the "take a circle" method is way more common) but if you're there at the clinic on your own horse, you should probably have enough chops to work it out with rating your horse.
Then, we cantered. That did not go so well. Nick does not have the slow, relaxed, non-going-places canter that ring work builds in horses. She has not (I am a bad owner) been asked to canter enough times to have a canter departure that looks any better than "trot 'em into it at ninety miles an hour" nor has she cantered enough in group settings to be less-than-frantic about the situation. Her canter does not have a hell of a lot of rate, either. We lapped the other horses, round and round and round fast enough that I was getting dizzy. *sigh* Needs Work, that does. On the plus side, she was on the correct lead... bombing around at ninety miles an hour, yes, but we were on the correct lead.
Because the ring space was kind of dinky, we then did some smallish fences, set as cross rails, in a pretty dinky figure-eight pattern. (This part was one at a time.) We had some fail (one run-out, three refusals, and some screech-halt-jump stuff that didn't look very good. Oh, and an overjumping episode that made clinician lady worried that I would fall off. I didn't. I'm okay with overjumping -- Nick does that when she's facing new material.) at the jumping stuff, but I am not terribly upset with how she did. Thing is, we're both pretty new at the whole jumping thing, so the very tight turns and very short distances (necessitated by the small indoor we were working in) were a bit much for our n00b jumping skills. Nick never did get as fluid and relaxed as she is at home but she did do better with each effort. I think it went well for the circumstances.
Today, after breakfast, I got Nick out of the field and we warmed up and did some canter departures (Need Work, O S A Do!) and then hit our little fences for some guided practice. La took Mariah along for more exposure. We have kind of minimal jump materials, so we're working with what we've got. Someone (has red hair, name starts with "T") has misplaced the second set of 2'3" standards, so we only have three sets of standards -- two at 18" or so, one at 2'3". We also have two straw bales, for a fourth jump -- they're about 18" high if you stand 'em on the rough ends.
We built four trot-over poles (4' apart) and then quite a ways and then an 18" vertical and then 24' (I need a bigger tape measure) to another 18" vertical (using the straw bales) and we did that. Wow, did that go well. Seriously. Horses freaking loved it. They trotted the poles, they looked to the first jump, they jumped the jump, they took a stride, they jumped the second jump. They were enthusiastic, seemed absolutely chuffed about the whole thing. Nick liked it. Mariah liked it. Both of them seemed very enthused. Also, omg, it was fun. You don't have time to get out of position as a rider and there's rhythm and stuff (from the trot-over poles) and the horse is paying attention and it's like autopilot. Yay for the gymnastic line!
So, we added two more fences going the other way, so that you could trot the poles, jump the first two jumps, circle around big, and then jump two more little fences going the other way. We used the 2'3" standards to make a cross rail and then put in the last 18" vertical. They didn't like heading for the second set of fences, probably because we (rider error) didn't turn big enough. Nick did the whole thing nicely once I figured that out and let her see those two jumps *by themselves, both ways* before putting them into a four-jump routine. Mariah never did get nice about it. *sigh* Turning Is Hard. :( Maybe we're not ready for steering.
Then we took down one of the second set of jumps to add a bounce at the end of the line of successful fences. At this point, the setup was trot four poles, go a ways, jump first jump, take one stride, jump second jump, land/takeoff, jump third jump. Distance between jump 1 and jump 2 was 24 feet (both horses did that in one stride, like the book says they should do). Distance between jump 2 and jump 3 was 12 feet (book says bounce is 12' so that's what we used). Jump 3 was a cross rail and not a vertical like the other two because we wanted to make it easy. (In retrospect, I think leaving it 18" would probably have worked better... or setting it another 24 feet away, like the distance from jump 1 to jump 2. Ah, well.)
Anyway, Mariah had no trouble with this setup. She did it quite well. Nick was somewhat confused, though -- like she didn't really know what we wanted her to do. First time, she got through the first jump and then halted at the second jump to see what the *hell* that was, there, with the changeup. (La said she looked like she wasn't sure what she was supposed to jump. Was this one jump, or two?) She went forward with encouragement and kind of managed it but it wasn't pretty. Second time through, she put two itty-bitty *in place* strides between fence 2 and fence 3, where you are supposed to not have any strides at all. That was weird. Third time through, she put one itty-bitty stride in there where you haven't any room at all to put a stride. She felt a lot better about it, though, more foreward and confident and stuff. Since we'd been working over fences for a while at that point, I called it a day with the one itty-bitty stride and the confident, forward approach.
I need to build more jump standards. I also need to shop for jump cups because we would now like to have *adjustable* jump standards. (What happened to "Oh, we will only ever need to jump 18" and 2'3"?" I seem to recall hearing that somewhere along the line. Now, it's all "We need adjustable jumps with *real* standards like they have At Fair." Bugger all.)
I need to wrangle a piece of carpet for a carpet jump from our scrap carpet. Someone thinks jumping carpet hanging on a pole will be funny. (I reckon it might be, for spectators!) All our scrap carpet is beige. Can horses even see beige? Why are we doing this? The fair doesn't have jumps with carpet on them.
I need to build Trysta's triangle brick wall thing out of plywood. (I have a plan for that. In my head.) She really, really liked the one down at her lesson in MD, to the point where I need to construct one so that we, too, will have a triangle brick wall. Never mind that the only obstacles these horses will see in a ring are plain white rails with plain white standards. No. We need oxers and stuff that looks *interesting*. I need to build boxes to hold our "evergreen" plastic xmas tree stuff for jump fill. Christ Almighty, I did not get into this so that I could spend quality time using power tools. Every time I think we have "enough" stuff for jumps, we decide that we need more stuff. Note to self: bring miter saw home from work for jump construction this coming week.
Before someone asks: No, we cannot afford "real" jumps. We do not have that kind of money for this project. One pair of jump blocks (three-way, plastic, shown here) costs $76.00 -- I can't do that. I don't have a budget of $76.00 for the whole damn project.
