XC Lesson at Coatesville

I organised a lesson with Karley today & Vanessa VS came as well - man what fun we had!!

Started off doing some SJ with bounces, corners etc and then Karley made a SJ look like a trakenher & a pallisade so that was great practice.

When we went over to start the XC we warmed up over some nice roll tops and then a roll top onto a narrow fence. We started off doing the pre-training height fences but after a few times I felt confident enough to do the training ones. Cobs jumped great over these fences - was good to finally do some XC jumps at training height as we haven't done many before.

Then went & practiced a corner which was also good as the only times I have done them in XC is at a comp. Cobs did that really well & we got our line each time.

We then went & did a small pipe, cantered round to a log down hill and then up some banks. Was surprised at how well Cobs did this actually as he doesn't jump up banks very well but he did this combination quite nicely.

Went down to the water jump next which had no water in it so just practiced jumping in/out etc.

Then went down to the ditch....this ditch is yuck. Downhill, in the dark, not a very good line to it. Yuck. Cobs didn't want a bar of it at first but went over about the third attempt - by over it I mean he sproinged and landed on the other side on all four feet LOL! We decided to do it again and he just didn't want to go over it at all! Snot. Eventually he did it and we left it at that. Totally my fault as he did such a horrible jump over it the first time I think I just got a bit worried and by then it was an issue so we had to just get over it. Blurgh.

Then went onto some logs on a related line - we did the training ones of them too so that was good.

Off to the trakenher....I hate these jumps. Always have. I stopped riding the first time we came into it so Cobs stopped....funny that. Then I got my game face on and he did it really, really well after that. Was super happy with him. Didn't try the training one as it was u.g.l.y. I finished after that as Cobs was stuffed & the ground is so damn hard.

Super happy with him - its great that training doesn't terrify me as much as it did but I will leave him in pre-training for the rest of the season.