Our eventing training begins

6 February 2011 3 Comments

My goals in life are simple.

Fame? I hate being the center of attention. No fame for me. Fortune? I wouldn’t know what to do with lots of money.

No, all I ask from life is to one day be the Supreme World Grand Champion of Wave at the Jumps as You Pass By Eventing.

I like the idea of eventing, you see. I’m less sure about the actual, you know, jumps and stuff.

Of course, even at the most basic levels of eventing, you have to have a horse. I don’t think there’s a Stick Horse division or a Lead Your Horse on Course division… yet. I can always hope.

So I have started Ro’s Someday Eventer training.

I don’t know much about eventing, but I know water is involved.

Last week, the arena had puddles in it. Perfect! After a hard lunging session, when I needed to walk her out anyway, I took her into the arena and marched boldly up to the puddle. I figured I would walk right on the edge, and she could walk through the water.

Ro walked up to it, looked at it, and sidestepped neatly behind me and followed me along the edge.

She could die if her hooves get wet and muddy. She knows it. She’s not sure why I don’t know that, but she’ll walk around puddles all day long until I get a clue.

Eventually, I gave in and walked across the widest part of the puddle. Eventually, she followed me across, although she thought it was a pretty stupid thing to do.

I’m not sure what we learned there. Let’s hope it was “water doesn’t actually kill you” and not “stupid tricks you can get your human to do, #67.”

Let’s hope that at the wanna-be eventing level water is optional. We clearly have a ways to go on that.

However, I am pretty sure that even at the wanna-be level, you have to at least go over poles on the ground.

So this past week I also pulled out a cavalleti and lunged her over it, just to see what she’d do with it.

First, as a pole on the ground. After kicking it a few times, she figured out that she could pick up her feet over it.

Then I raised it just a little. She didn’t quite jump it, but she did take big, bounding strides over it. Unfortunately, she has no idea whatsoever of distance. She went over it however she got to it.

The next day, I pulled the cavalleti out again while I was riding. I figured that I could rate her to the pole a little and help introduce her to the concept of distance.

Here’s what we learned: Cantering Poles is Fun.

Galloping Poles Is Even More Fun.

I see a lot of walking and trotting over poles in our future. A lot.

But the promising thing is that she likes them. She’s till figuring out what to do with them, but she thinks poles are very exciting.

Through all of this, she wasn’t really jumping anything. Big, bounding canter strides, sure, but not really jumping. I’m not worried about this; I’ve seen her jump shadows before, so I know she can jump. The rest will come.

Then today—today I got on just to walk and trot her around. She’s had a few days off, so I figured a light hack would be good.

It was more like: walk… walk… walk… tro—- canter… canter… canter… I’m tired and want to walk… walk… walk… tro—-canter, canter, canter, canter, whoa I’m out of shape… walk… tro—would you stop asking for the trot? I want to canter, canter, canter….

We like the canter. It’s fun.

We did trot eventually, but first we had to canter around. And jump a depression where a puddle used to be.

Ah ha! See? My pony jumps. She jumps things that aren’t there.

That’s talent.

So, here is what we’ve learned from all of this: we can be eventers one day.

As long as no trotting is required, no water is involved, and the jumps are invisible.

Horses and Riding, Progress and Training, Training the Horse, Horses I Have Known, Ro

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