Showjumping clinic

I took Dingo to a showjumping clinic today.  It was supposed to be a cross country clinic, but either due to lack of interest, or wetness of the cross country course, it ended up being a showjumping clinic.  Never mind.  If the pony is to compete, then any clinic is a good clinic.

Well we arrived without any issues, I saddled up and then I looked at our arena.  It was indoors.  Dingo had never been in an indoor before.  (Well, he actually had.  Back in February when I took him to a dressage day.  But we only did a short warm up in there.)  He took it all in his stride, though.

The instructor made some interesting points in the lesson.  Some to which I nodded wisely, and some which were quite new. 

Firstly - confidence is everything.

Secondly - if you feel things are not going right, and you do nothing, then your worst fears will come true.  Do something.  As long as you do something, chances are you will change the situation for better.  But, never, ever, do nothing.

Thirdly (and this was the new one to me, and my favourite) - do not jump from a standstill.  If your horse stops at a jump then show your displeasure, then take him around again and make him do it from canter, and make him jump it.  In fact, the coach went as far as saying that you don't jump from a trot either.  Nor from a walk.  The reasoning being that in a competition you will be jumping from a canter, so train your horse to jump from the canter always.  If they sometimes stop, then you will never know whether they will stop or whether they will jump, and so you can't be confident.  See first point.

Fourthly - if something goes wrong, then it's your horse's fault.  But you have to correct it.  Which might not look pretty.  When you've finished your jumping round, you might want realise that it was actually your fault, and you might want to apologise to your horse.  But while you're jumping - it's your horse's fault.

We jumped a warmup jump.  Then we did a little course - a mixture of grade 5 and 4.  Then he added a second part of the course at grade 3.  Dingo did the first part of the course, and we had fun doing it.  He did a great job of it.

I skipped the grade 3 part though.  I have every confidence that Dingo can do the height.  But to me, he just wasn't travelling well enough on the day.  And I kept thinking that if he jumps funny, then there is just not enough neck to land on.

It took me all afternoon to work out that what I should have done is sat back more, and looked up more and treated the upcoming grade 3 jump as though it was a grade 1 jump.  Next time.

The instructor was really happy with Dingo and with my riding.  He really thought I should have done the second part of the course.