Well here I am, once again feeling like I’m starting from scratch all over again. Except this time it’s a little different…
Every owner of a young horse goes through their ups and downs, its all just part in parcel of what we’ve chosen to take on. A lot of the time when we experience our downs, we feel its because there’s an issue with the horse. They suddenly start to act up for no obvious reason, or they’ve been over-faced and have suffered a confidence set back or they’ve injured themselves in the field. But what about when the down is all due to the rider? Well, this is what happened with me and my recent set back…
The Fall
Before I start explaining what happened, I think it’s important for you to see the full video from that day. I’ll be honest, this is pretty hard to share because I know how bad of a rider this makes me look but mistakes happen and as riders we need to learn to accept our mistakes and learn from them which is what I’m planning on doing.
As you can see, I made an absolute BALLS of those first two jumps. The first one I placed Coco completely arseways and the second one she threw in an extra stride. If I had any sense, I should have stopped, regrouped and started again. As soon as I sat up after falling I knew exactly what had happened. As I had made such a mess of those first two jumps, by the time we got to the oxer Coco’s confidence was completely shattered and unless she was on the perfect stride, she was not going to jump. You can also see in the last stride I dropped the contact which gave Coco her out. And I don’t blame her. So the cause of the fall? 1. My crushing inability to see a stride and 2. I dropped the contact at the base of the fence.
How I plan to avoid it happening again?
Well, now that I’m back in the saddle, the first order of business is lots and lots..and LOTS of polework. Its the only way I’m ever going to get a handle on my eye for a stride. But in saying that, what I learned from my lesson this week is that with the right canter I shouldn’t need to be able to see a stride. This is something that applies to most horses and I’m sure any decent showjumper knows all about it. Yet in all my years of riding and taking lessons, it’s something I’m only just learning. For those who aren’t too sure what I’m on about, let me explain…
The key to a good clean round of showjumping is the right canter. If you achieve the correct balance between impulsion and speed and are capable of maintaining the rhythm that balance makes, then your horse will be able to jump out of nearly any stride they are on.
With Coco, it won’t matter if she goes for the long one as with the correct impulsion, she’s more than capable of taking on a long distance. And similarly with a shorter distance, she’s agile enough to get her legs out of the way. My problem comes from my nerves. I have this reflex where I panic on the approach and start messing around with the canter, whether its speeding up or holding too much. When I do this, it completely throws Coco’s rhythm off and destroys the canter she needs to comfortably clear a fence. God how she must hate me sometimes!
In my lesson this week, along with building back my confidence with jumping, we focussed on getting the right canter and then getting rid of my panic mode setting. It took a fair few “oh shit” moments but we definitely got there in the end. Of course it’s going to take more than just one lesson to get rid of that voice in my head that says “Just put loads of leg on and pray!” but now I know how it should feel when we have the right canter. Once I have that all I need to do is keep my leg on and maintain a consistent contact.
While falling was definitely not fun, I do feel like I’ve learned so much from it. I’m actually really happy I got it on camera too because while I had a good idea of how it happened, it was great to be able to show my trainer and have him confirm that I was right in what I first thought. I’ve always said “If you’re going to fall, you may as well get it on video so you can see where you went wrong”.
So here’s to learning from your mistakes. I think this whole ordeal is going to make me a better rider overall..but sure, only time will tell!
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I promise from now on I’m going to stop going on about that bloody fall.
Orla & Coco
You don’t look like a bad rider at all xx
Thank you, you’re very kind!!
I absolutely love your honesty, and how you always try to troubleshoot your mistakes. BTW, I don’t see any evidence of you being a bad rider xx
Thank you! I got really down in myself after this fall and I felt the best way to get over it was to understand why it happened in the first place and what I could do to avoid it happening again. It’s turned into quite the learning experience.
We have to make mistakes to learn from them. That’s what makes a GOOD rider! You could very easily blame the horse, and you didn’t. Great to see you back at it!
So very true, its just unfortunate we sometimes need to learn it the hard way! I definitely feel like it’s been a great learning experience though. Think we’ve definitely come out of it for the better 🙂
That doesn’t say anything about your riding at all! It’s our job to get the horse to the fence and it is their job to jump it. (Trust me I am told this on a regular basis as I try to control everything!) A slightly wonky line to the first but that’s fine. Coco’s mistake at the second and 3rd it just looked like she had lost her confidence after the mistake at the 2nd. Yes you could have gone over the second again first. But most horses aren’t too worried about making a mistake like that so most riders would have just cracked on with the 3rd.
Scottie can refuse a pole on the floor if he makes a mistake over the jump before. It’s so easy for me to find a reason to blame myself for that but in all reality, he made a mistake and we both learn from that.
This is something my instructor has been trying to get into my head. We can only do our best to get the horse to the fence, after that its up to them. There was definitely errors on both our part but it is mostly mine as I didn’t set her up the way she needed to be…but in saying that she has jumped from that stride very comfortably before so it was frustrating that her confidence got knocked so much that she didn’t feel comfortable going for it.
But you live and learn and I think this has been one of our best lessons to date!
I also don’t think you look like a bad rider. Either way at least you are trying to figure out what is happening and now you know where you need to put the work in.
Absolutely, its been a massive learning experience and now I feel like we can only get better again from here!
Love a bit of honesty! Don’t worry, you will get there, it is all part of the journey x
Thank you 🙂 I do my best to keep it real haha!
What a brilliantly honest blog post Orla!! Flatwork is the key to everything so your plan sounds great to put you right back on track! 🙂
Thanks Sophie – we’re definitely back to flying form and amazingly all the better after the fall. Its been a big learning experience but turns out it could be one I’m grateful for!