It's vaguely corner shaped. It counts.
In our lesson last week I jumped my first (very small) corner. Granted, it probably shouldn’t count as a real corner because it was made of poles and standards and a barrel, but I’m going to count it for now until I find one in the wild that is just my size (read: tiny, with good footing and great lighting for an awesome photo). I was a bit surprised that I wasn’t all that anxious about it. I’ve jumped fans, triple bars and hogbacks in the ring before, so I suspect that any anxiety was kept in check from that past experience. Also, my horse is super game, honest and keen, which doesn’t hurt.
As we were putting our horses and gear away for the night, I got to thinking about what it is about certain types of fence that causes me to take issue with them. For example, I still have a lingering distrust of down-banks, but I can suck it up and throw myself off of one without having to psych myself up every single time. On the other hand I’ve never worried too much about oxers. I find them easier to ride to simply because there’s “more” fence there. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that the fences that I feel sketchy about are fences that can’t easily be simulated in the arena.
With this realization, I think I’ve inadvertently addressed at least part of my worry about another type of fence that historically has troubled me – the trakehner. I can deal with logs propped up with blocks with no problem, it’s when there’s a proper ditch dug underneath it that I begin to question the necessity of jumping that specific fence. I have a very vivid memory of the one event I rode in as a teenager, and the trip we took to school cross-country the day before the course closed. The short version of the story is that it was suggested that I jump a very large log, suspended over an abyss of death and I declined, very loudly in the colorful language of youth.
In thinking about some of the ways I have seen ditches and trakehner simulated in the ring, I could hear my seventeen year old self working through that moment “…so maybe I spazzed out about nothing. A lot of them really just look like… beefed up liverpools, right? It probably won’t ride the same, but maybe you don’t have to worry about those quite as much as you have been.”
There was something freeing in my little series of “duh” moments – perhaps adult sensibility and logic winning over my internal teenager’s hubris. Granted, I don’t have to worry about a real corner or any major trakehners out on course for a good long while, but there’s a satisfaction in practicing the technique well before I’d ever need it and recognizing the boogie man lurking in the closet as nothing more than an awkward lump of clothing. Sometimes it’s one little victory that turns the tide.
Go Team DF. Go Corners. Go Eventing.
