XC Exercises

With just 3 weeks until our first event of the season, the conditions were finally good enough outside to allow Gamble and me to do some schooling over some XC fences.

After a good warm up of trot and canter work, I trotted some 2’6″ and 3′ verticals. Then I gradually added more fences — an oxer, an angled coop, some rails — and then put it all together to do a 1 m. vertical with 1 stride to a 1.1 m. oxer to a 1 m. angled coop to some rails on an angle followed by 4 strides to a (skinny) corner fence. Gamble did everything I asked of him and appeared actually excited to be jumping outside again. Then we did the log-to-4′ ditch-to-skinny combination and he was foot perfect. Finally, the triple steps up and down, followed by the 3’6″ drop and then double 3’6″ bounce-drop.

The only fences in our repertoire we didn’t do was the maximum height/width table, the 4’6 drop and something into / within water. But with 3 weeks left, we still have lots of time.


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