Eyes Wide Shut
Destello has been oddly sluggish lately, and Trainer T has been trying to brainstorm why. Mustangs in general tend to be more conservative and behind the leg, but this has been a new development for him. Like, I literally had to beg him to canter. She tried him on an energizing supplement that she's had success with on other horses, but both Destello and Vali (the other mustang at our barn) showed no change on it. I personally feel that it might be a metabolic thing for wild horses. Would be interesting to see if others have had similar experiences.
Besides earning the award of least motivated horse of the century, Trainer T commented that the flatwork looked pretty nice. He was soft and amicable. The lack of momentum tho came back with a vengeance over fences. Riding Destello means that I can both jump higher and do more complex courses with rollbacks and bending lines. Fuego has gone through a couple of the short, bending lines, but I don't even know the last time I did a rollback.
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| Jumping pretty well for a horse that bit me a few weeks ago |
The course was a bending line, to a rollback, to another bending line, to another rollback. It took me a bit to remember the course itself, but I eventually got it. The attempts got better as we went. The initial approach was to leg Destello through the whole thing in an attempt to get a decent pace, but that was just not happening. So, Trainer T had me back off and let him set his pace for most of the course, but add leg about 3-5 strides out so we had enough momentum to get over the fences. It's how he's trained anyways, so even tho watching us in between the fences was like watching paint dry, he committed to moving up on the approach, which I appreciated.
We did have a slight miscommunication on one of the later attempts. As I was getting over the first fence, Trainer T said, "Don't be in a hurry," which I interpreted as me needing to leave him alone. This resulted in me taking leg off in the middle of the first line and bludgeoning the second fence. She had me stop.
"Did you take your leg off?"
"Yes?"
"I meant not to hurry with your body."
We laughed at the language barrier, and I started over. By this point, I was sweating bullets. My helmet is way beyond its usable years and does not absorb sweat as well as it used to. Combine that with me being chronically dehydrated (not, like, a medical thing, I just make poor life choices), my eyes were burning through the entire course. The whole time, I was swapping off which eye was open due to how bad it felt. There were certain points where I just closed both eyes because it hurt that much, and then I'd open one so I could see my distance. Surprisingly, the last round was my absolute best for the day. This also isn't the first time that sweat has interfered on course and led to me somehow jumping better than if I had full vision.
I was really happy with that lesson. The only fence that I even came close to hitting was the one that we fully knocked down. Everything else stayed up, we made it over some oxers. Basically jumped around at 2'-3" to 2'-6" like it was nothing. If you're struggling with jumping, take the eyes wide shut approach. It might just work.
pictures look great - Destello reminds me of an overgrown version of a prettttty cool pony we have at our farm. curious (maybe i missed it somewhere), why doesn't fuego jump higher or do the more complicated course work? is he just greener or is there like an injury history or something?
ReplyDeleteHe was making good progress post track, then had an incident while tied, and since then he became a more difficult ride. If I bend too quickly or too hard in a bending line, he gets very upset. I think it'll take some time before he's comfortable with a rollback. He's making progress, and there's a new adult who's riding him and seems capable, so things might move forward faster in the next couple of months.
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