First Cross Country Clinic: The Addiction Grows

Giraffe is good at this.

So, what is the next best thing to competing in an event derby? Why doing a cross country clinic of course! Bacon, nor myself, have never had an official jump lesson. And the sprinklerbandit and Linds told me not to tell our clinician that, so I wouldn't be stuck doing ground poles. And I was cool with that.

Spider giraffe warms up.

Our clinic was at the same place where our event derby from the previous weekend had taken place. Bacon came off of the trailer quite a bit calmer, but was still posing dramatically as a giraffe. So many things for her to look at! They grazed, I tried to calm myself, and soon we tacked up.

Good learners stay hydrated.

Warming up, I got a little worried about how our ride was going to go. Bacon was in racehorse mode and trying to pull my arms out of their little arm holes. She wasn't bending nicely, she was tense, she was uneven, I was thinking about pooping my pants. She relaxed a little bit, and then the clinician came over and asked to see our horses canter around. We basically began to enter full on race mode. He called us back over and asked about our horses. And then it was onto some ground pole work.

Ground poles? Ok mom!

It was Bacon's first time with ground poles. And I thought she did pretty well. She didn't run through them, or try to leap them or avoid them. We worked on straightness and calmness coming towards the poles, maintaining our rhythm to, through, and out. We were a bit messy at first, but we worked on my position and relaxing, and it soon went well. First homework to work on.

I'll even throw in some hock action.

Second was jumping a small log. Same concept, working through a nice rhythm towards the jump, and keeping her straight and forward after. He wanted me to stop her at a walk before the jump to let her look at it. I was interested to see what her reaction would be, because the most solid thing she has jumped was a blue barrel. She didn't even bother looking. So we went to jump, and over she went. And again. And again. Yay pony! She also had to learn how to stand and wait for others in our group to go too.

Ears up. Happy horse.

I just don't bend at the hips. Ever.

Next was the next pasture over with more jumps and bigger logs. Same thing, different jumps. Same results out of my horse. I felt great. Not because of my position, which seemed to be the main thing holding us back, but because it felt like my horse might jump whatever I pointed her towards. I was so proud of the Bacon. The clinician seemed to like her too, and asked about her bloodlines. Which ran right out of my head as soon as he asked. Our future as noob eventers seems promising though. And all I want to do is MORE.

We just lope over the pile of logs. That's what spider giraffes do.