Since Belvedere has been back in work after his post event season holiday we have been concentrating on our show jumping. This is our weakest phase and is very hit and miss and so, as I am looking to go Intermediate next year, we felt it really needed some serious improvement.
We have been having regular lessons with Brian Smith, and he has revolutionised our canter and the way I ride, thus improving our show jumping beyond belief. When I first started having lessons with Brian, we kept it small and simple. Just concentrating on improving the canter and helping me to get Belvedere to the right take off point every time. Once we had begun to establish these basics we moved onto some special grid work, designed to make Belvedere become more elevated in his canter strides and not change his rhythm as he got close to the fence. In order to do this, we used two raised canter poles a stride apart, and then had an upright/spread at a one stride distance. Whilst doing this my confidence grew and my ability to get Belvedere to the right take off point time after time improved dramatically, therefore we have begun to train over bigger fences. I am currently regularly jumping 1m20 in my sessions with Brian, and have even tackled some short courses at 1m25-1m30. So far the training has been very encouraging, and I hope to compete is some BSJA Foxhunters/1m20’s soon, in order to prepare for the coming event season.
Here are some videos of recent training sessions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4vYsAUEUD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXVjk2sy4kI
In between our show jumping I have enjoyed hunting Belvedere. He loves his hunting and if ever his career in Eventing doesn’t work out, our field master has bagsied him as her hunt horse. A few weeks ago the Horse and Hound came out with us and their report has just been published in this week’s Horse and Hound. On page 28 there is a lovely photograph of Dawn (the field master), myself and Kevin (Dawn’s husband) trotting along. I also received two small mentions in the report which was nice, one of these was as a ‘’young thrusters’’ for the NHH!!
Finally, just to add that my Weston Park JRN CCIJ* Championships Cross Country DVD arrived a few weeks ago, and it can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKv1bNY77bI
Furthermore, if you would like to follow my progress and keep up to date with what is happening, then please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/KBEventing and visit my website www.katherinebegley.com
