Max Coran returns this morning with a recap of yesterday’s jump schools at the Ocala Training Sessions. I’m going to sound like a broken record, but group course setting, lectures by experts, and go cart racing–the US program has completely different vibe this year. Thanks so much for writing this Max and thank you for reading!
—-
From Max:
Putting practice to the test yesterday – the crew got to put a few learned techniques together and practiced over a jump course.
The riders started the morning setting a course and walking lines. The goal was to get very comfortable with their eye on the ground to determine related distances.
Like Groundhog Day – each group followed the same pattern. They would warm up over a few single fences and then jumped few of the lines. From there they put the entire course together. Each rider jumped the course at least once, some jumped a few times to solidify what they have ben working on. The jumps then got a bit bigger and all had another turn.
David’s main points were:
· Keep the rhythm of the canter
· Don’t turn their nose to the jump until you know where you are
· Keep a contact, but not too much – horses need to be able to use their head and neck to jump the jump
· Keeping your mind calm
The improvements throughout the week have been outstanding and the quality of these horses and riders is very exciting.
Today the riders are putting it all together again, this time in the dressage ring. Riders are choosing from the CCI** or the CCI*** test. David will judge and the riders will also help judge each other. They have been thinking about the geometry of the movements – we’ll see how they implement it.
Today there will also be lectures from Randy Powlak (farrier), Dr. Jill Copenhagen (vet), and potentially an outing to the go-cart track…
More soon…
