Jumping Fun at Ashland

Saturday I joined in on a Mini-clinic with Kerry! It was fun. It was me, Judy, and Gail. We had fun and Kerry set up a good exercise. Especially for Fleck. Only he jumped through it like a pro. Either he's a lot more adjustable and a better reader than he used to be, or... Kerry can't walk strides properly. hee hee. The grid was built up to this, but ended with two bounces to a slightly longer two stride, to a shorter two stride. Fleck went on through like it was nothing. I was expecting him to get longer and longer and then have to scramble. But nope. Good boy! Then we jumped a few related lines. Another two stride and then a 5 or 6 stride. Fleck and I just kept getting to the lines at slightly awkward distances. Or so I thought. Kerry pointed out that...it wasn't that the spot was that off. It just wasn't deep to the base. And who cares! Didn't the great JW say something along the lines of "There are 7 feet of good take off spots within the ideal take off spot". Or something along those lines. Point is... As long as the canter is right, the right take off spot grows. And Kerry was saying that we train so hard to get deep to the base that we don't remember to let them jump out of stride. And for Fleck, that deep spot is that much harder for him. So... perhaps I should learn to not freak when we get to the decent spot that's not the exact deep spot. And let him jump out of stride.

The caveat is that... I have to help him. I can't just take my leg off and let it fizzle to a icky take off. I need to close my leg and support him and let him jump out of stride. :) 

So we had another trip and while it still wasn't the perfect distance, it was out of stride and it was okay. :)

Fun day!