Perception

I had just bought some new jump stands.  A set of red, blue and yellow ones.  This is the first set of professionally made jump stands I have ever purchased.  Up until now I have used tyres, or aluminium brackets mounted on plastic drums at best.

My aluminium brackets have a maximum height of about 1.2m, so by the time you are jumping 80cm you feel like you are rapidly running out of room.  In comparison my new jump stands are 1.6m tall.  When we start running out of room I'll be very pleased indeed.

So I setup my new jump stands, put up a couple of cross rails in a grid, and a straight bar separately, and proceeded to jump Dingo.  We played around with the grid for a while, and then I eyed off the straight bar.  I had no idea what height it was set at, but I perceived it to be about grade 4 - 60cm or so.  I jumped it.  Dingo just touched it.  I jumped it again.  It felt good.  It felt smooth.  It felt "right".

When the jumping session was finished, I wandered out into the jumping paddock and admired my new stands again.  Out of habit. I measured the straight bar.  Whoa!  It was set at about 75cm.  I had been jumping grade 3, not grade 4.  The higher jump stands made the jump look smaller.

Had I known that this jump was 75cm tall I would have been biting my lip on approach, overriding in a thousand ways, and gnawing at myself inside with trepidation at stepping into the unknown.  But, because I perceived the jump to be 60cm tall, I rode it in the same way that I have ridden numerous courses, calm and confident that Dingo can easily nail this.  And easily nail it he did.

Perception is everything.