In which a former hunter rider-turned eventer learns to ride like a hunter again.

It turned out that maybe scratching from Foxtrack wasn't such a bad thing after all. To recap, we had a monsoon that Saturday so I did dressage and scratched from the rest. I had a lesson with Gina today, and it started off pretty shaky. Gina had us start over a crossrail with placing poles on either side, and Oliver was quite blase' about it, especially when it came to jumping it as a vertical. Gina told me not to "help" him over it by kicking, so he basically crashed through it. He jumped the snot out of it the next time, which shows that he is, at least, a quick learner. We cantered over it next, and Gina knows how much I hate doing an exercise like this because of the "sea of poles" feeling I get. What I need to do is to keep my leg on to the placing pole, instead of trying to hold him to the placing pole. After jumping it out of a forward stride, Gina told me to jump it "normally", which meant not to ride it like a XC jump. This worked on the first try because he was in front of my leg and straight to the jump.

Gina then set a little course for me. Start by cantering over the vertical/placing pole exercise, turn left and go down over the black barrel vertical, then canter aaaaalll the way down the field and then back up over the rolltop, right bending line over the blue oxer set parallel along the fenceline, back down to the right over the white 3' panel, gallop down and circle back to a 3' gate, bending line to the right (about 3-4 strides) up over another Novice size vertical, and then another 3-4 strides to a funky looking oxer (a diagonal pole set behind and in front, at a different angle), also Novice sized. That line made me nervous. From where I was standing near the mounting block, that line looked huge. I knew then that Gina was trying to stretch my comfort zone. So, the vertical was fine, of course, and then he was uncharacteristically spooky over the black vertical barrel - Gina said that the horses had been spooking at it all day - and then was fine over the rolltop, got buried at the blue oxer, and then then ran out over the panel. Gina asked me why I was pulling on the left rein, and I realized it was because I was holding on to the neckstrap with my left hand. Either I had to hold on with either my right hand or with both hands, or I had to just let go. Holding on with the right hand felt awkward, and with both hands even more so, so I let go. It worked. He jumped it beautifully, and even rode the bending line well - the first one at least, because I didn't realize that the vertical came up that quickly, so I missed it. I came around again, jumped the first two, and then got a little too deep to the last oxer and got a sticky jump. Gina said that i was going right-left-right-left to it because there was a tree in the way, which confused poor Oliver and caused him to be crooked. She told me to go left around the tree and to try it again. This time, I focused on keeping the rein soft and light, keeping my leg on, and not fuss with the balance too much, and then it rode perfectly and he jumped it very well. A lightbulb went off in my head. I have been so focused on riding the balance that I haven't been riding forward to the jump. It worked fine when the jumps were BN size, but not at Novice size. I have to ride him like a hunter- I have to float the rein and ride him forward. If I am insecure about the distance, I need to ride forward to it instead of trying to compress his stride in an effort to get a better distance. Kicking him forward helps him get more confidence in me, and when he jumps better as a result, I gain confidence in him. We had such a great ride up the line once I figured this out that I went on and finished off over the blue oxer on the fenceline. We did it several more times, doing it better and better each time, so I quit on that.

I thought that I was being soft in the rein, but I think that I wasn't comfortable with riding forward to the fence and mistaking it for being on the forehand, so I tried to fix it by holding the canter smaller and smaller and then I would bury Oliver at the jump. He would get sick of being put in an impossible place to jump and then start stopping, because he was getting scared with me. His canter is so much better and balanced than it used to be, more like a Warmblood who just ticks along, so I can just let him jump and not micro-manage everything. Can't wait until my next lesson!