Nemesis, thy name is Barrel

Teaching Cappy to jump at JS's meant making do with the materials at hand. We had standard, large, and truly ginormous telephone poles surrounding the dressage ring. There were some plain ground poles, a few white plastic barrels, and some cinder blocks and other odds and ends I could sort of use to elevate some ground poles into crossrails or whatnot. Not ideal, but a place to start.

I trained Cappy much the way I had trained Jones, only with less equipment available... see list above. He learned how to negotiate a series of ground poles at trot. We followed that by introducing a crossrail 9 feet from the final ground pole. Sometimes I used the barrels as standards, the barrels on their sides and the rails resting into a crossrail, sometimes cinder blocks. I didn't like something that could move easily if he hit it, but Cappy was in no way inclined to hit anything.

I occasionally used the telephone poles of the arena fence, but didn't want him to think it was OK to leave the arena just any ol' time (I always had a fear of being eliminated in dressage), so we only did those near the end of our ride, often jumping in to but not out of the arena.

Cappy did fine over these small efforts, but as the weeks went on, I wanted MORE. Something bigger... more progress.

I set the barrels on their sides and approached at a trot. Something like this, sort of, but three barrels long...

Photo pilfered from the internet

He apparently saw them more like this: 

Cappy stopped.


Ah, I realized my tactical error. I had broken one of my cardinal rules: do NOT use a non adjustable jump for a green horse that is too high for them to step over. It's always (in my feeble mind) more important that they learn they MUST go over the obstacle. If you need to lower it, you do, but they have to go over.

So now I am faced with a reluctant horse and some seemingly enormous barrels that Cappy had decided were insurmountable. I, however, having already jumped him over as big of an effort before, knew he was able to do it.

I did not get mad, but I was focused and determined. His efforts to spin away from the jump were thwarted. His half rears in protest that he just couldn't go forward were met with more leg. He finally crawled over the barrels, thumping them with one leg and skittering away on the other side.

Bahhh... Do I insist he try again? Ennnh...

I presented him again at trot. He sucked back, he wiggled, but he leapt over the barrels after hesitation.

Better.

I jumped him over the crossrail I had still set up from earlier, then trotted him over the two-wide telephone poles into the arena, and we quit for the day. We had ended on a good note with the other fences, but I was irritated no end with myself, my impatience, and my lack of useful jumps.

Another girl who'd ridden at JS's in the past had come home and started working with Klaus. She was talking about moving him to a boarding barn for the winter, so she could keep him going with the indoor. I didn't know if I wanted to spend that much money for board ~ I was still making my living cleaning stalls.

While I was out of town for a few weeks, working the Keeneland sale and then visiting J out at her eventing guru's place, Cappy helped make the decision to move for me.