Holly Payne & Santino into the one stride combination
The final day of Training Sessions dawned chilly but clear yesterday, and I was eager to see what kind of jumping exercises Coach O’Connor had created for the team of participants. I have to apologize for my lack of video, my camera froze up on me several times and made it almost impossible to catch the rides when I needed to, but I did take pictures! I got to Stable View in time for the last half of Holly Payne & Santino along with Susan Beebee and Wolf. I’ve seen Sunny go quite a few times, and I watched Holly’s dressage lesson on the first day, but I’ve never seen Wolf in person at all, so it was a good mix.
Holly and Sunny worked on basically the same exercise that they did during the flatwork, except this time with jumps in between. David had her working on short, sharp half halts accompanied with lengthens coming towards the turn so that his hind end became quicker. Coach wanted Sunny’s energy level to get some extra oomph so that when he gets deep to a jump, he is able to pop out of it easily. Sunny is an incredible jumper, but he tends to get lazy behind, and simply jumps straight up in the air. Holly also mentioned to David that she wants to get him more energized, but she finds that when he goes into the ring at a show all fired up, he will have quite a few rails, whereas when she goes into the ring very relaxed, he jumps clear. Coach O’Connor then explained that there is a distinct difference between the energy associated with galloping straight out and the short bursts of energy controlled by short sharp half-halts that he was looking for, and asked Holly to try this different method next time she competes.
Holly was nice enough to do a quick video interview with me after her ride:
In the same lesson was Susan Beebee and Wolf, whom we all know from his fabulous performances in dressage, and his obvious athleticism. Wolf looked very excited to be jumping, and a bit unruly. Whenever Susan used a half-halt, he would throw his head in the air and more or less ignore her. Her seat was also acting as a jet engine at times, so David used the age-old tactic of counting to help her slow down her mind and her rhythm on the way to the jumps. The two of them worked on simply staying consistent in their pace, balance, and rhythm, as well as Susan staying even in her body position throughout all of the antics that Wolf was throwing around.
Susan Beebee and Wolf over the oxer
After the lunch break, Phillip with Mighty Nice and Jennie Brannigan with Cambalda were grouped together in a lesson. Once again, I’ve seen Mighty Nice before, but never watched Cambalda in person at all. Happy was amazing on the flat, and very quiet and obedient, so it was entertaining to see how feisty he was over the jumps! I think a lot of the horses are still knocking the rust off from the winter and still quite thrilled to be jumping. The other thing that I noticed is that Phillip’s stirrups seem to get shorter and shorter every year, and this year they were extreme. I wonder if he’s planning on trying his hand at racing soon?
Phillip explained that the horse gets quite nervous and tight in show jumping, and he slides into a defensive, backwards ride sometimes which is not beneficial for either one of them. He says he frequently has the first jump down on this horse. As we watched him warm up, I was impressed once again with Happy’s athleticism, and I think I speak for everyone when I say a horse that can jump Phillip out of the tack a few times is a pretty darn good jumper. Coach O’Connor worked with Phillip on riding towards the front of his saddle to combat the tendency to become defensive, and also was asking him to push his feet against the stirrups dashboard style right in the takeoff zone to help stay with the explosive jump.
Phillip & Mighty Nice out of the one stride
Jennie talked at the beginning of the lesson about how Cambalda, or Ping, was quite a nappy horse, and she had to work to get him energized. She says he is freaky careful, but not always going forward the way she wants. Before they started anything else, Coach O’Connor had her go to the end of the ring, with plenty of space in front of her, halt, cluck, and smack him one really good time behind the saddle. This sent Ping off galloping! However, the idea is that you’d rather make a really big deal out of responding to the “cluck” once, over hitting him in a mediocre way over and over throughout the lesson. Once this was settled, they worked on the same type of exercise as Holly, with getting the short bursts of energy and making the hind end move faster, but not increasing the pace. Coach O’Connor encouraged Jennie to push Ping a little past his comfort zone and choose a deeper distance that actually makes the horse use his whole body, instead of simply hunting down and taking a flyer but relying on his natural athleticism. The horse is an incredible jumper, and I look forward to seeing him back in action this year.
Jennie Brannigan & Cambalda jump the low-wide oxer
While the exercises that Coach O’Connor had them work on weren’t anything from outer space that we haven’t seen before, they were all carefully designed to test different skill sets in both horses and riders. I think that as an introduction to each of his potential team members for the future, it was well organized as such. The riders had to start over a simple vertical, and then Coach rolled some rails out on either side and progressively raised the vertical, testing their ability to get that perfect deep distance to a sizeable jump and sit chilly. They also worked on a low-wide oxer off some shorter turns, which made sure they had the correct energy, but not speed for that type of jump. The combination that they used was the same wide oxer to a bending seven strides to a regular one stride oxer to vertical, and while it seems like a simple question, it surely tested quite a few controls and more than a few riders had problems with maintaining their balance and energy properly through the whole thing. I was pleased with David’s simple, but effective suggestions to each pair, and I intend to go home and try a lot of the tactics on my own horse!
Holly and Sunny through the final exercise (sorry about the bad lighting)
