Sunday, August 9, 2015

Crossrails for Life

I was in Salt Lake on Friday when I saw a text from Ali, our asst. trainer, pop up and my stomach dropped. It's always far more likely to receive bad news than good. This time though, it was the latter, that Ellie had gotten an A+ for the day with a balanced right lead, no inverted transitions, no rushing to fences, and clean changes.
That text made me all the more excited for our lessons over the weekend. Yes- I get excited for lessons now, not nervous.

We're still very much in crossrail mode with an emphasis on confidence building along with focusing on the 4 pillars- pace, track, balance, straightness.

I know I've mentioned it on the blog before- that I fall into the "small fence" cycle of doom- whereas I don't see distances to smaller fences, panic, and spook myself. That's why I think we're having so much fun at the moment. These crossrails are just not intimidating and I can really focus on Ellie's pace, track, balance, and straightness. You know what's happening? When the nervous factor is removed I am actually able to ride to those objectives and the distances just come up.

At some point the fences will become bigger and I think that we'll find ourselves successful due to the foundational work that we're laying now!


5 comments:

  1. The last pic looks great. I like how excited she looks in the pictures; ears pricked to the jumps.

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  2. Looking great! I love that you're excited versus nervous right now.

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  3. That's so awesome! :) I am a member of the small fences club too!

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  4. yay for being excited about lessons!!!! and i'm pretty sure i have a pic of my little arab mare doing the same exact thing over a cavalletti that Ellie is doing in that first pic. very enthusiastic haha

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  5. i totally get it! we showed xrails for almost 3 years!

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