Oliver and I are moving up to Novice at Foxtract this weekend. I know, I know - it's FOXTRACK, so the XC will be on the easy side but the stadium will be regular Novice height. For some reason, I get a little nervous thinking about it, which makes no sense as I regularly school Novice at Gina's with absolutely no issues.
I've jacked the jumps up in the field to Novice height (well, one I think was actually Training height) to practice for the weekend to come. We've been jumping quite well these days, so I thought I was safe practicing on my own. Plus, Gina was supposed to come and give me a lesson, but she spaced it and left me hanging out there in the sun, so I decided to jump anyway. Couldn't hurt, right? Wrong. For some reason, I tend to start worrying about all sorts of stupid things. Yesterday, Oliver was in his Micklem bridle, which is giving me a fabulous feel in the rein (for once!) but with the clips, it seems to be too little bit for him. He was tanking around, getting all sorts of stupid spots and either getting too deep to the base or going for the long one, which left him standing on his head (leaning on the bit and falling on the forehand) on the landing side. A tug of war ensues, which I lose, and today I can feel the strain in my shoulders and biceps - not good. In fact, I kept buying him to the base because I couldn't seem to get a good balance to the fence, and the one I jacked up accidentally to 3'3 is the one he stopped. Three times in all, I think. I probably should have just quit while I was behind, but being the mule-headed idiot that I am, I plugged away and we finally had some good fences over that damn gate, but we were both quite unhappy about it, and not liking each other too terribly much. Poor Oliver. I know that I wasn't giving him the best ride to the jump, but to be fair to me, he wasn't trying terribly hard, either.
Enter Gina, the WonderWorker. Because she was feeling sorry that she had forgotten about me and I begged, she consented to give me a lesson today (thank God it was cooler - only - ONLY! - 95, but there was a nice breeze blowing) before she headed off to Maryland with Caroline. She found the problem immediately - I wasn't riding him when we got to the base - I was sort of giving up. I have this issue that when I get him to the base and I dig my spurs in and make him go over it, we have this horribly awkward jump and then I feel that that is taking away his confidence in me. Of course, the alternative is to either 1) be perfect so that doesn't happen, ever, or 2) let him stop or run out. Option 1 is never, ever going to happen unless I can somehow channel Mark Todd in my riding, and Option 2 will make me lose confidence in him and him in me. Of course, I couldn't figure this out on my own- Gina had to be my sounding board for this. So, as I rode, I had to count out loud, and I mean LOUD (counting softly to myself really doesn't work for some weird reason), and then when I saw an icky spot, I had to sit back, dig in, and really ride him over the jump. Gina said that when I did that, he would know that he would always get to the other side and gain confidence in me when he did safely, however awkward it may be. That worked fairly well, but the distances still stucked, until Gina started yelling at me for not riding him through the turn. Ah-ha! I was letting him fall behind my leg in the turn, and not really turning him so that he was straight to the jump, which is why we had such weird distances. Gina said that I can't allow him to get his head down in the turn, because he pinwheels then on his head and he's still turning as we get to the jump, which throws off our distance. I have to turn, and raise my hands and kick him up, and then I can soften and ride forward to the jump. At last, success. I have to set up the turn early enough so that I can put my hands back down (another weakness of mine - high hands to the jump), and then use my hand to grab the neckstrap and then kick him to the fence, and then, even if he gets a long spot, he still lands in balance because he approached in balance and then jumped in balance.
So, what seemed to happen yesterday was that I was allowing him to pinwheel through the turn, which caused him to run toward the fence on his head (and in my hands), and because I didn't fix it soon enough, he would pull and I would pull to the jump, and because I was worried about giving him an awkward jump, I wouldn't ride assertively enough ACROSS the fence, which resulted in terrible spots. Gina said that because Oliver has gotten so careful he doesn't want to hit the jump, so that if I get to a bad distance (read: deep) and don't ride my way across, he freezes and reverts back to thinking that I'm going to pull, and then doesn't want anymore of it and opts out. Gina says that we know each other too well, and don't entirely trust each other to do the right thing, so it tends to snowball downhill. She says that she and Errol are the same way, so I feel a bit better about that. Maybe, after Five Points, it might be nice to have Gina ride Oliver for me for a couple of weeks so that we can break this cycle. I hate to do it, because I like to do the work myself, but I also know how busy the beginning of the school year can be and it won't do to have Oliver sitting around, getting fat (a visitor at the barn today thought he was a pregnant brood mare! :^O).
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