Yes we can ride – but can we really RIDE?

Hands up if you have ever had a refusal or run out and you have felt it coming 5 strides out but didn’t do anything? Yep me, MULTIPLE times. And it happened last week

Similarly to a dressage warm up, I struggle in an show jumping warm up too. Basically, I struggle in warm ups! They’re odd places aren’t they? In an SJ warm up I don’t ride properly at all. For some reason I spend far too long walking around aimlessly and wondering when I should jump a cross pole. In an ideal world my warm up would be that I walk for 5 minutes (he needs a bit more time to loosen up these days), trot and canter for 5 minutes, play with the canter a bit for a couple of minutes – bringing him back and forward and winding him up, and only then would I jump a cross pole and progress to an oxer. I like to go into the ring at optimal time, and for me that would be just as I have jumped a final vertical. I hate hanging around, and Pep gets stiff and bored. In the real world I tend to extend that 10 minutes of walking and trotting, re arranging my saddle/general faffing, and by this time we are bored and it takes me longer to get him in jumping mode.

Pepsi can be spooky, and over the years I have learnt to expect a stop at most fences, and at all fences if we are somewhere particularly scary! So the warm up for me is where I need to get focused and make sure he is listening to my leg, to really drive him forwards if he is looking at something. When we first got Pep all those years ago we had numerous eliminations and ‘bad’ days where I couldn’t get him near a fence or around a full course. As a result we have had so many lessons from multiple instructors and I like to think we have grown into a much more capable and effective pair. I actually once had my Pony Club DC tell my very shy 16-year-old self that I was “not a very effective rider”. I like to think I have proved her wrong!!! (This has, by the way, been stuck in my head throughout my whole life). I purposely used to do 2 rounds at a competition because I knew the first round would be a complete shambles, and I could pick myself up and get going again for the second with some determination. I’m not saying that these issues were just because Pepsi was spooky – in fact quite the opposite. If I could, I would sit merrily on top without a care in the world expecting him to glide over the fences. When actually I needed to RIDE! What are all those lessons and time spent at home worth when you go out and don’t put what you have learnt into practice! I do need reminding this a lot, why should it take a stop or a run out to make me ride and be determined? The better rider I became, and the better partnership we grew, we managed to crack these issues and our confidence and determination has taken us to some amazing competitions, which I doubt I had even dreamt were possible right back at the beginning.

I don’t want people to think I am writing this post because I want some sort of self certification or I want people to think that I have ‘turned this horse around’ because I most definitely haven’t and anyone who knows me in real life knows I am not one for ‘bigging myself up’. I wanted to write this post as I came away from my competition on Tuesday totally understanding why I had the stops that I did, and I was proud of myself for that. I was proud of myself that I knew what went wrong and knew how to fix it. That’s something in itself – knowing when to accept that you have not ridden the way you wanted to, and acknowledging the way to perform better next time around.

Now I don’t want to dwell on last week too much as this was our first time in an indoor arena since back in March, and this year has not been one for getting out and about practicing. I also had a riding accident (on another pony) in September which effected my confidence and took me a while to get back to where I had been. So I wanted to go and have fun, with no pressure. Excuses aside, here is how it went…

We warmed up fine, I probably had too much time walking around (hello paragraph 1), and in turn probably spent too long in that dreaded warm up. But he felt good. I was nervous yes – probably more nervous than I should have been (it was only a clear round competition), but I felt those nerves all the same. I don’t know why, but I avoided the oxer in the warm up. For some reason I had this hang up about it (sorry mum if you’re reading this – I know you would have made me jump it). Instead I jumped a couple of cross poles, and a couple of straights and that was it. Would I have felt better if I had jumped that oxer – who knows. We still had a couple of people before we went in, so I meandered around a bit and tried to remember the course.

We went into the arena confidently, he felt spookier than I thought he would, but we had jumped in this arena hundreds of times – surely he would be fine. There were no scary jumps, no ghastly fillers and no water trays (our ultimate nemesis) – surely we would be fine. Oh how naïve I was. Somehow the nerve took hold of me and again I was that rider that wasn’t riding! We jumped 1 and 2 fine, if a little sticky, but they were OK. Fence 3 was off the corner, I felt my canter round and off the corner was almost 4 time it was so slow and disconnected, he was not in front of my leg at all and I was not sitting in my seat and driving him forward. All the perfect signs for a stop if there were any. The fence wasn’t particularly spooky, it was big for the course I was jumping, but not the biggest. He needed me to give him a nudge and reassure him, when I was just not in that mindset.

2 stops later and a talking to from the wonderfully positive and ever-helpful Jane at Solihull, I got my ducks in a line and started riding like I knew I could. We flew round the rest of the course, if a little bit hairy, but we did it. I was exhausted but it felt amazing!

I had paid for 2 rounds, and the next round I was not letting this fence beat us. We had a 2 minute break and went again. This time it was the old Sophie and Pepsi, and we went round that course in tune with each other. I rode to fence 3 with determination and drive, perfect 5 strides to the following fence, and rode each corner like it was our last. I’m so proud of us for cracking it!

The reason why I went to the clear round on Tuesday was because I wanted a practice for the Trailblazers Combined Training qualifier in 2 weeks time which was going to be in that same arena. However due to the current situation, that wont be going ahead. A part of me on Monday felt like we shouldn’t bother going on Tuesday, it was going to be a late night and was it worth being knackered at the start of the week when I wasn’t even going to benefit from my practice? I am SO glad I went now, we benefitted more from doing that than I could have imagined, and I didn’t even need the thought of another competition to get me through it. I wanted to do well, and get back to where we were at the beginning of the year - I needed those 2 stops to get me riding like I know I can, and for me, that's OK.