Still coming down.
Oooooooooooooh, well I’m still on cloud nine. I just didn’t expect her to attack the course like that. I’ve only ridden BIG horses that have done that, and it was such a thrill to be on a smaller short striding horse who was so gymnastic.
The course was fantastic. Fence three was very big and causing lots of refusals and more than a couple of total eliminations. It was a hay wain, a metre wide on the top, but with a pair of straw bales on the floor with a pole in front of them. So it was a good 5 feet wide. She popped it like it was nothing, from an unbroken rolling stride, and at that point I knew that we had a clear if I kept my mind focussed.
Fence 7 was light into dark with a dark top pole which you couldn't see against the darkness of the woods we were jumping into. She went big and early, as she does when there is any doubt about a fence. The "out" at fence 8 was very big and she got far too close but popped it fine.
Fence 11 was AMAZING. Picture this - Draycott house is a huge Georgian country house, four stories high, ornate chimneys, arched windows, set on a rise overlooking acres of its own country park. And right in front of it - another Draycott House - eight feet high but in all respects identical!! With a line of stables with horses in on each side. The Intro fence was the left hand set, the PreNovice on the right. It was the best fence I have ever seen!
The water was a fantastic complex (she trotted through for the first time), and the last three fences were all huge table things, the last one full of fruit and veg. Thankfully she is not scared by melons :-)
The showjumping is a slight issue, but it is not the height, it is just hesitation starting off the course. I'm sure that we can cure that in a week or two. Then I think we will have to put her up a height, because she really did make it feel quite small, and I don't want her to get cocky and start telling me what to do, which is the risk if we don't increase the challenge at just the right moment. Of course we don't want to scare her either, it's a fine balance. I think six weeks will be about right, and there is an easy PN course at Malpas in mid July. Our next is an Intro at Marchington, over Derby way again, on June 24th or 25th.
Meanwhile, having not seen Tetley move yesterday, he is definitely sounder today than he was on Friday. Not sound, but better. Very happy, and compared to his normal summer weight (eventing fit in other years) he is FAT! I took him for a walk today to try to keep his weight down a bit.
Tia is as sound as a bell and very happy. The ground was very hard yesterday and there were landings on the fences made out of compacted stone. She does not seem to have noticed at all and there is absolutely no sign of concussion in her feet. I am such a fan of barefoot eventing - I would not have expected a horse with so little exposure to hard going to have finished yesterday with not a single sign that she has been hammering her legs. If she had shoes on I'm sure that there would be a bit of puffiness somewhere!
Caddy is getting a bit of character - looking very bright and alert and calling for attention when I come in sight. It is now clear that he is a fair bit bigger horse than Tia, especially when viewed from above. No pix from yesterday yet, sorry, but here is the view from my bedroom window this morning:
You aren't imagining things, Tia is the darkest one, and given how much sheer substance she has put on lately, I'm beginning to think I was mad to have ever thought she was a full TB!!! She looks 3/4 bred now, and she is hard fit, with ribs that show when she breaths. What a mystery her background is!! Could a TB have gained so much substance? If not, how could a non-TB have had such muscle tone when she arrived and behave so much like a racer does? Theories please!
C.
posted by cptrayes @ 3:14 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
I will have to post pictures of my guys somewhere. PJ, the old fellow, was a raced Thoroughbred. He looks like a heavy breed warmblood. Toby, the middle guy is more Thoroughbred, and not all muscled up right now. When he was, he too had plenty of substance. Tucker keeps getting mistaken for a Hanovarian.
So, the answer, is...absolutely. Feed them well and change the pattern of their lives to concentrate on a different kind of muscling from the lean runner muscle to the more bulky gymnastic muscle and yes, they can gain substance. As well, Tia is still young enough to have matured a bit since you got her.
That course sounds like so much fun.
Now, the dressage lecture. I trained my event horse with a short listed Olympic rider (her horse broke his foot, so she never rode in the Olympics) Everything we did, including the jumping was predicated on dressage. This is especially true of show jumping. We would not even approach a fence in lessons unless the horse was obedient, supple and correct on the flat.
My horse was (aside from ditches) so reliable over fences I could let a kid ride him. (One did and promptly won all her classes.) All the flatwork was the key. Courage mattered, yes, but the secret to a good fence was in the approach.
Rode with another international trainer who used to say, "You have to get them to the fence first. The jumping's not the big deal." Again, he advocated the flat work.
I also rode with another international trainer who took a bit more of your approach, so I do understand. We had a flatwork clinic first to establish all the basics, then went on to the jumping. What startled me was that I was on a totally non-jumped horse (Toby, my middle guy.) and by the end of the first session, we were tackling fences of about a meter in height.
Rode with another trainer on my now old guy in his first ever experience cross country--he had only done a few cross rails at home--and we ended up doing some meter fences too. Of course I got dumped off early on in the process, but the horse sure could handle it.
Personally, I prefer the first trainer's approach as I found it produced a far more solid, reliable and clever jumper in the end. That horse could get himself out of most any mess I put him in. I could almost hear him say, "Ok, Mom, so you made another mistake. It's Ok, I can take care of us."
Maybe you could add a bit of dressage into your show jumping training with a few gymnastics and Tia's confidence will improve??
Dressge "queen's" lecture over. *G*
///Could a TB have gained so much substance?///
Yes. The ex-racehorse that I rode a couple of times was chunkier than Saff, probably about the same as Tia is now. I think he was about 16.1hh and could easily have been mistaken for a warmblood! So I'd agree with Jean that it's quite possible she is full TB.
And don't forget all the different bloodlines that go to make up the TB we know today. Some top TB's are ponies, for goodness sake, in height, and they go up to e.g. Party Politics who I seem to recall was 17HH 2" or thereabouts - certainly a big bugger!
awe you can see your guys from your bedroom window......I am sooo jealous, do you want to adopt me and my guys?
Glad to hear Tia has gone so well. I just wish I had the bottle to do what you do. I was duty day today at the riding club and I saw several fallers through quite minor 'stops'. which just reminded me why I concentrate on dressage. Perhaps I'm not daft after all..... Leave it to other people. (yes
Hey Jean I'll forgive you for the lecture :-)
But you mistake me! We do plenty of flatwork and I do insist on it being right. We haven't done showjump training because the cross country had been more of a problem but that's changed now. But schooling for balance and athleticism is always a priority.
It's just that in competition, I do not want to take the energy out of her warming up, so she goes into the ring still fairly stiff. But right now, the dressage score is just not the issue, the jumping experience is what we are there for. Flat work is for home.
Soon that will change, when she has the strength to do a full warm-up and then jump twice. And when I can be **sed to plait!!!!!
C
Great to hear that things went well and she is so brave to tackle all those strange fences.
The show jumping will come with practice, after all how many show jumps has she seen? Off to the clear round show jumping!
Haven't any theories about parentage, other than saying that TBs do vary, and in eventing they are using all sorts of muscles, not just being asked to run in a straight line so they end up looking rounder than the average race horse anyway.
Well done you.
Judith
ooops. might have upset Jean, but I hope not! She had been warning me that she was about to nag me about dressage and my comment was supposed to be lighthearted and I'm a bit afraid she has taken it more seriously. Sorry Jean!
Just in case anyone is in doubt I totally believe in dressage being the basis of all good work.
C
Looks nice! Awesome content. Good job guys.
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