A new trail

A friend came up last night, and is keen to come riding with me. So this morning we set off super early, keen to explore a new trail.

I feel Crownie didn't enjoy yesterday's session, so I focus on keeping my heels down, stirrups on the ball of my foot, and letting her have as much free rein as possible. We will be doing sufficient hill work today, that she will come on the aids when she is ready.

We trot, canter and gallop up to the start of the trail. Then we walk. The trail weaves up and down, rather than following the ridge. I didn't bring the map, so we are doomed to staying on the trail. It's good for the horses though, which get a lot of nice hill work this way. The ruts left by the motor bikes are annoying, and definitely slow our progress in places. Every now and then we need to bush bash to get around a deeper rut, or a bog hole. Eventually we descend into a creek crossing, where I actually have to get off, scout the route, and move some logs and branches. The creek crossing is so rutted we have to walk the horses across it, and half way up the next hill. But when we hop on again, the track opens up beautifully and we can trot and canter as long as we slow down at the slippery parts. When we get back to the main trail, we canter and gallop all the way home.

It's a great fitness ride. Firstly, we were out for just over 2 hours. Then my idea to let Crownie have a long rein pays big dividends. She starts collecting before we even hit the trail under investigation. It allows me to focus on my heels, and I discover that my heels are not the problem. It's more that I am being lazy with my thigh and back muscles. As we weave up and down the trail, I repeatedly lose my balance. Eventually it hits home that I need to rely on a strong body core for balance. Once this happens, the feet stay in the stirrups all by themselves, and Crownie becomes more balanced as well. As my posture improves, so does Crownie, so does her collection. The final canter is excellent.

Of heels and transitions

I got two things out of last weekend - I need to work on keeping my heels down, and I need to practice transitions to get Crownie more collected and balanced. In my dressage session this morning I try to focus on both.

I do a very standard warm up - walk, trot, canter. Change rein and repeat. Throughout the warm up I focus on my heels. Somehow, I seem capable of losing my stirrups in rising trot. In canter they are dangling somewhere around my ankle, with my foot still in the stirrup. I consider getting rid of them altogether.

We start the workout with walk/trot transitions. Crownie lacks energy and balance. It takes about a circle for her to get balanced after an upward transition. Once she is balanced, I ask for a downward transition - when it feels like I lose my balance as well. We persist with this exercise for about 20 minutes. Upward transitions to canter are poor, although she actually is more balanced in the canter. But the transition itself is difficult to achieve. Downward transitions (canter to trot) are probably the best of a bad bunch. The heels have gone out the window. And on top of that, Crownie is falling out on the left rein.

I decide to focus on correcting the falling out. The temptation is to ask for more bend with the left rein. But the correction must come from a stronger, more consistent right rein, and a strong right leg. In the first two circles I try to just master the reins. Then on the third circle I apply the leg. And it works - she stops falling out. We go into canter, Crownie starts fallling out, and I repeat the strong right rein, and firm leg. I can feel her whole backside shift into gear, as she straightens. The canter is balanced and confident.

Showjumping at Tonimbuk

Amazing Dawn

It seems to me that all horse events require you to get up at dawn. Or earlier. Luckily, today's dawn is perfect. Fog lies low in the valley. As the sun rays creep over the mountains, the clear sky takes on amazing shades of yellow, orange and blue - like the intense colours seen on those Australian outback vases.

Crownie comes in for a feed, the kookaburras laugh, laugh and laugh.

The Drive

We get away about half an hour late. Where did the time go? Next time I'll get up before dawn. I am calm. We have time up our sleeve. I settle into a weird feeling of relaxed and apprehensive. Then I notice the country side. We are driving through a white wonderland. I flick the temperature button in my car - it's zero degrees C outside. Wow! No, it's not snow. All the rolling hills, all the paddocks, the entire roadside is covered in white, glittering frost. I am fascinated by sparkling gates and signs, by twinkling wisps of grass at the edge of the road, by white furry fence posts. The perfect morning.

The Lesson

We manage five minutes of walking as a warm up (I would have preferred 30, but we know where that went), then we go into the indoor arena. The jumps are tiny, even I could trot over them. I relax and focus on the walk, trot and canter, as indicated by the instructor. We warm up on both reins, then we start with a grid. The grid progresses from a single cross rail, to three cross rails - with a bounce and two strides in between. Crownie keeps trotting over them without a fuss. That's the problem. Trotting. There is no jump. This might be fine at one foot high, but it isn't going to cut it as the rails go up. The instructor gets me to collect her a bit, and then she attempts to duck out. I correct her immediately, and we still make the entire grid. This is good. This is what I have been waiting for - to see how serious she will get about refusing. Not very serious. Good horse. The instructor adds two straight jumps (about one foot high), and we have a course. I am told (repeatedly) to hold my hands down and still and to collect, collect, collect. Crownie responds well, she goes around the course, no refusals, but also no real jump. At the end of the lesson the instructor suggests that she is ready for much more collection, and that we need to do heaps of transitions.

Showjumping warm-up

I do about 30 minutes of warm-up. Serious warm-up. I ask for Crownie to be on the aids and we do walk, trot and canter. Circles. Rein changes. She feels amazingly supple. This is a very different horse to the one I started with six weeks ago. She's like a concertina. I can bend her sideways, I can collect her, and I can extend her. I can't extend too much, or she just gets flat, but a little bit is ok. Same with collection. I am getting some good, solid working paces. Then we relax for the next 40 minutes as we wait our turn to jump. Every 10 minutes or so we do a few circles, get into a nice working trot, and pop over a couple of cross rails. Then we have another break.

The course

Mounted, we walk around the course. It's a nice course. 10 jumps, one double, two or three oxers, a couple of cross rails, two changes of rein. Both the first and last jump towards the arena exit - good. Inviting.

Showjumping - 45cm

We are over the first jump and away. After the second, Crownie considers heading straight for the exit, so the corner (tightish) is very unbalanced, but we manage to jump (yes, jump) three and four. The next jumps just flow, and before I know it I'm heading into jump 10. My biggest problem is to do an elegant turn after the last, without knocking over the organisers. Overall, a very nice clear round. It is obvious that the tight turns need more work.

Showjumping - 60cm

This looks high to me. I know Crownie is capable of jumping it in principle, but, she is untested. We start off in trot, she jumps the first and goes into canter. The corner takes us off balance, we go back to trot, and have a rail down. Next jump, one more rail. Then we're back in canter and the course starts flowing again. Next tight corner - loss of balance, trot, canter, jump. Pop, pop, pop, the jumps feel tiny. Last jump, I get a bit unseated, but we're over and careering into the organisers ... whoa! ... well almost. Overall three rails down, and a smiling rider.

Afterthoughts

I can't believe it. We've survived the day. I am ecstatic. I am shaking. I know, I know, we've only jumped a 60cm freshman's round, and we had rails down, but to me, we've won the Olympics. On the way home I shed a private tear. Cross country, here we come.

Packing for Tonimbuk

We gather up the dinner dishes, and I tell my husband that I am off to feed the horses and pack for tomorrow. He nods with indifference, and returns to bath preparations with our daughter. To him it's just another night. To me, this is the night before the day of reckoning.

Up till now, I have trotted my horse six times over a cross rail, and tomorrow we will do a jumping lesson, followed by two rounds of freshman's showjumping: 45cm high, and 60cm high. Am I mad? Is my horse ready for this? Am I ready for this? Do I really know what I am doing? Every wise horseperson I have listened to, every book I have read, tells me that what I am doing is right. But I have a sinking feeling of despair, a loss of faith, a feeling that I am standing at the gates of doom.

I focus all this energy into packing, as though I was preparing for the end of the world. Bridle, spare bridle. Extra spare reins. Girth, spare girth. Morning feed, lunchtime feed. Hay, hay and more hay. Magnesium orotate, hydrogen peroxide. With a suspicious calmness all items take a logical place in the car, and I feel I have everything. I am not "ready". I am just "prepared". Prepared to face the demons I have created.

Lull before the storm

I wake up, but I really can't be bothered getting up. Tomorrow we're going to Tonimbuk for a jumping lesson and freshman's showjumping. I feel sick. I don't want to go to Tonimbuk. I don't want to do eventing any more. I don't want to get up. This is terrible.

Outside, the sunrise is breathtaking, and heavy fog rolls around in the valleys like a lazy polar bear. We ride out, but it's heard to follow our usual relaxed warm-up when mists fleet across the path like little ghosts, and sometimes you can't see more than 10 metres in front of you. As we trot on in these mists, I am impressed at how trusting Crownie is. We try to stay on high ground to get as much visibility as possible.

I don't want to tire Crownie out too much, because tomorrow could be a big day. At the same time, I don't want her to lose fitness. So we do a lot of trotting (much safer in the fog), and some short stretches of canter. We ride into the valley and then canter up the hill to Dead Cow. Within the hour we are home.

Scenic route to the cross rail

The paddock has been drying out for a whole day, and then more rain came overnight. So we're doing our warm up in the park.


We go into trot pretty much immediately. I make sure I change diagonals every now and again. Then we walk into the valley, and from there do a fast canter up the winding road. It takes us about 2 minutes, and Crownie is happy to slow down at the top. Then it's more walk into the next valley, trot out of the valley, and all the way until the returning track. This is a steep 1km climb - we gallop. Crownie comes back to walk before we reach the top. I'm starting to push the limits of her fitness now. This is good. We walk down into the valley again, and do one last gallop on the way home. Crownie is still blowing at the gate.

We walk down to the cross rail I have set up. It's a place pole, then 12ft to cross rail, then 12ft to place pole. So you can do it in either direction. I do a couple of circles. The quality of the trot is surprisingly good. Crownie eyes the setup with suspicion, but trots over it without a fuss. Two more times and I am happy. We circle on the right rein, do the cross rail three times and we're done.

Dressage on the trails

We are supposed to be doing dressage today, but the paddock is so wet, that I feel sorry for it, for the horse, and for myself. We go out.

It's still dressage out there. We're just going down the long side most of the time. Serpentines and 20m circles are out of the question. The warm up is quite good, with Crownie trotting actively forward - although she is not on the bit. The canters feel like they lack balance.

We do a lot of walking as we explore a new track, and spot a kangaroo hopping along ahead of us. He must be doing jumping. The walking pays off. When I ask for trot, it's nice and smooth and on the bit. The canter is pure velvet. That's on the left rein - Crownie's preferred side. I ask for canter on the right rein, and, to my great disbelief I get it (remember, we're on the long side here). This side leaves a lot to be desired. And then there are the transitions. We walk the last kilometre home, while thinking about them.

Grid work, take 1

We have four trot poles set up. I hop on Crownie and we do a little warm up. Initially we walk over the trot poles in both directions, then we trot over them. Crownie's walk is nice, but at the trot we are getting a lot of tripping, and some slipping. I vary the workout between some walk, and trot. We do some voltes (5 meter circles), and we keep trotting over the poles. Crownie actually goes over them really well. There is no hesitation, and her rythm doesn't change. That's really good. That's all I'm looking for at this point in time.

I consider putting up a cross rail, but given how wet it is (it's actually pouring with rain while I'm riding), I think it wouldn't be any good for the horse, and no good for the ground either. Next time.

Grid work preparation

Today's activity is dressage, and grid work. In my mind I am thinking: place pole, bounce, bounce, one stride, then bounce. In reality I look at the bare paddock. There are heaps of poles on the property, but they are the length of fully grown pine trees, and it took two men to move these out of the paddock. I look around, and hey presto there are some treated pine posts lying on the ground; the perfect lenght for jumping poles, just not painted. I look up to the sky, and nod a thank you. Then I proceed to move some poles into the paddock. By the end of the process I have 4 trot poles on the ground, and two 44 gallon drums on either side so I can make a cross rail. This is a far cry from what I had imagined, but it means that today's session can get classified as grid work.

Crownie's July Training Schedule

This is Crownie's proposed training schedule for July.
This is Crownie's actual training schedule. The dressage and jumping sessions didn't eventuate due to the paddock being too wet.

The first dressage session

Having done 4 religious weeks of roads and tracks - twice per week, at least 1 hour per session - I feel ready to try Crownie in dressage. Now, out on the road she has just achieved self carriage in the walk, with her head nice and long and low (well, not too low, ears level with wither). Any self carriage is good, and long and low at this early phase is just fine with me.

In the arena, the self carriage in the walk is definitely there. But the trot ... oh disaster. Crownie has no balance, keeps tripping, dropping the stifle and every now and then she slips. The trips are huge - it's amazing I can stay on, and the slipping gets me very worried.

We do some decreasing/increasing circles to try and work on the balance, and we do some more walking. We also go for a nice medium trot to the top of the hill as a bit of a reward. But overall I feel really lost. How do I get those back muscles stronger, without causing injury through slipping at the same time?

I finish the workout after about 40 minutes. An hour of work would have been ideal, but I just feel too lost to keep persisting.

The Dressage Arena

I don't have access to a dressage arena. So a piece of nearly flat paddock is a good substitute in the meantime. The paddock itself is about 5 acres (1 hectare), with a hill at one end. This is actually great for training - when your horse gets a bit bored you can go for a nice trot or canter up the hill. At the top of the hill there is a flat area, about the size of an arena. So, in a way, I have two arenas.

It has been raining heaps, and the paddock (or should that be, "the two arenas"?) is pretty wet.