I did my first ever actual cross country schooling on an actual British Eventing course! Not a sentence I thought I’d ever say but some of the most enjoyable 2hrs on a horse I’ve had in a while.
In a bid to give Estrid as much variation in experience as possible, I’ve been venturing out of my endurance comfort zone. One of the biggest achievements of this outing was that she didn’t shake at the venue at all, not even once.
She was quite sharp initially with a few high speed sideways getaways, jig jogging and head throwing but nothing too dramatic. Considering we were also sharing the course with what looked like a hundred pony clubbers I think she did very well to settle. I would be interested to find out the etiquette of cross country schooling, in endurance it’s the responsibility of the overtaker to pass safely not the person in front to get out of the way. Considering we had two youngsters out for their first time in our group, I was very surprised when on two occasions we were yelled at from behind to get out the way as someone cantered at speed past us. Fortunately, all our horses were quite relaxed about it but I found it strange that when we were showing our horses a feature that another person could come from behind between our horses and jump.
I had no expectations that we’d actually leave the floor, I wanted her to just walk around the jumps without being terrified of them, anything else was a bonus. Our strategy was to boop each jump with her nose so she could have a good sniff and then step over them and then trot over if possible. We were only aiming at the 50cm mini course to give the horses confidence.
They all did very well and I was super proud of Estrid, I really want to get some coaching so I feel like I know at least a little bit about what I’m meant to be doing. I can’t wait to keep building her confidence, the goal is to be able to canter and pop over the full 50cm mini course and if we keep having fun then maybe progress up the heights.
Beth Endurance 