On stadium jumping day the Prelim/Intermediate group turned out to be………

well…………

Somehow this didn’t really surprise me……and yes, Bad Eventer was one of the guilty parties.

I think the gutsier ammies can often be the least………… prepared.

We spent the better part of our 90 minute session getting completely driven over by a handful of trot poles.

We started out with 4 poles in a circle. Two were set on a 20 meter circle and 2 on a 10 meter circle. The exercise was pretty simple……. canter the 20 meter poles then spiral in over the 10 meter poles……..

It turned out to be harder than it sounds.

If you listen, you’ll hear Doug say, “It looks like it would be stupid easy………but…..”

While cantering the poles on the circle he also did a fun exercise where he stood in the middle of the circle & held up different numbers of fingers. The point was that once you “see it” there is no point in continuing to look at the pole you’re going over. Instead you can be looking to the next pole/jump, which will save time and help you set up for it quicker. Here he had the rider set themselves up for the pole & call out how many fingers he was holding up.

The next TROT POLE exercise………..pretty much whooped all of us.

Another seemingly simple exercise.

Canter over 3 poles that are 66′ feet apart, and put in 5 strides between the 1st two poles and 6 strides between the 2nd two.

Um.

NOT SO MUCH.

Rider after rider………….just didn’t get it done.

I couldn’t believe how hard this turned out to be. One horse was sooooo NOT interested in changing his pace that Doug got on him to sort it out.

Once we all had FINALLY gotten the 5 & then 6 stride pole exercise, he raised the middle pole about 18″………. and that proved to make the exercise once again………… impossible.

Here’s Bad Eventer giving it a try!! or TWO!!

I think all of us walked away with several pages of homework. And while our group hardly jumped anything besides trot poles……. it was a pretty big eye opener on what everyone needed to get a solid handle on!

The other groups nailed the trot poles earlier on and moved on to course work incorporating the same adjustability exercises……….

When we spent time tackling a 5 to 6 stride cross country combination the next day………

 …….the METHOD TO THE MADNESS BECAME CRYSTAL CLEAR!!

Doug definitely knows his stuff & I finished the day with a long list of…………..must master this next……………