Cavaletti Arithmetic

I've had 2 lessons in the past 3 days - a new record for me. The second was a private 45-minute lesson and my muscles may not have been entirely up to the task.

In any case, the first lesson was a group lesson and we jumped three low jumps positioned on a circle. The last jump was eventually brought up to 2'9". I had a lot of trouble getting the path to the jump right, but got it eventually, if not gracefully.

The second lesson we actually worked on a lower jump (and on a different horse) and focused on my position. Thank god. It's fun to say, "I've jumped 2'9"!", but what's the point if you can't do it well, let along string more than one together? If I can work up to smoothly completing a 2'6" course over the next few months, I'll be very happy.

To be honest, I still have some steering issues, depending on what horse I'm riding and if said horse is hungry/tired/had it for the day. It's funny to feel like you're making progress and then struggle to get the horse back on the track and not cutting corners at the canter. It's funny how on one horse, you can do it all easily, and then another horse reminds you that you still need to fine-tune your aids.

Snaaaaake ...or whatever you'd call it

We fixed my falling off problem, more or less.

In some ways it was obvious - do more of those 2'6" jumps heading into a corner where I have little time to sit up and decide for the horse where he should go. As mentioned before, it came down to staying up right as much as possible, and it also helped to focus on going slooower after the jump. My instructor had a lot to say about "checking the breaks" before a jump, especially on this thoroughbred, because he will gets faster and faster unchecked. It was a lot easier when I focused on rhythm all the way from beginning to end ("end" being a few strides out from the jump until we're ready to break into a trot).

Being in a group lesson with people of different levels, we worked on a little more than that.

1-minute diagram of the jump setup

We did this weird snake-shape where we had to find the center of each next jump with 2 strides in between, ending heading into the corner. She built up the jumps over time. First pass, they were all 9", but then it was built up so that only the first was at 9"and the last one was 2'6". The ones in the middle were set uneven, so one side was 2'6" and the other was 15" (I guess I just take the average?).

A fun activity that focused on broken lines, getting the the middle of jumps and keeping a good rhythm!