Today I took Jack for a cross country schooling clinic at a local college. They have a nice little course and I've wanted to go for a while as I thought it would be a good place to build both our confidence levels. Last time we had done any xc had been the first time in nearly 3years and was on camp, Jack had not been easy on that occasion so I was feeling a little nervous but I was hoping his out of character behaviour was down to the sheep that had been in the field and that he would be calmer this time! Luckily I was right and actually Jack was very calm and chilled out, he seemed more interested in trying to eat the long grass! We had a walk round and a chance to look at the course which had a bit of everything but all nice and small and I felt everything was within our capabilities. After a chat with the instructor and a trot and canter round we started with a walk through the water, I went first and I let Jack pause and have a look and sniff the first time but as soon as I gave him a squeeze through he went. We then went on to trotting and cantering through before adding a log on the way out and Jack was brilliant, the only problem was he wasn't very forward going so I popped on some spurs and that livened him up a bit! From the water we went on to steps and started with just a very small step up followed by a step down, Jack was a little hesitant on the down step and looked to go round it instead of down but I held him straight and gave him a little kick and off he popped easy enough. We did various step combinations and Jack was soon cantering up and down happily so we put the steps and water together with a small ditch and a little roll top, I was thrilled with how well Jack did the ditch as that was what I was most worried about and we had not even looked at it before jumping it but he jumped up and down the steps well, flew through and out the water and was in a lovely forward rhythm, we hit it on a perfect stride and he never even looked at it! We finished with another lovely jump over the roll top. Next we strung together some more jumps we had not looked at, starting with tyres to a house, a sheep feeder, then step up and down and finishing over the ditch. Both other people had stops but Jack jumped everything first attempt no problems and I could feel we were both starting to gain confidence and trust each other and enjoy ourselves! The session continued like this and we even managed steps out and into water!! I was absolutely thrilled with how well Jack went. He far exceeded my expectations and we have both come away with a massive confidence boost. I'm looking a possible competitions to enter now! No pics as I was on my own 😔
Also over the last few weeks we have had a session with a natural horsemanship trainer where we worked on building jacks trust in me. It was really interesting and very beneficial. We started with join up and in just a few minutes Jack was following me around the menage like a puppy! We then did lots of ground work over various obstacles including tarpaulin, wooden boards, hoops etc all of which Jack tackled without hesitation. I don't know for sure but I'm pretty sure it was so easy because we had join up! Next session we are going to work on loading and then look at transferring the ground work skills into our ridden work!
We've also enjoyed some nice long hacks and we've actually had company a couple of times this week which makes a nice change! Jack is definitely feeling stronger! We've got our big field free for riding in from this weekend as the hay has finally been cut so I will be able to go for some good fittening canters/gallops round there in the next few weeks and hopefully we can get a few jumps out there too.
Schooling is still going well and I did some grid work with Jack last week where I set up a bounce to a stride to a bounce, it was a pretty intense question, although I kept it small, but Jack did great and it really helped get him sitting back on his hocks.
He also done some lunging over poles which has got him picking up his toes and flexing his hocks.
With all this work he's looking a great condition!
Hopefully we can transfer all this good training into good competition results!
