Lesson with Kirstin Kelly 28th October

After Woodhill I knew I needed help with our jumping before Mangere ODE - if I had gone there without a lesson I think we probably would have been eliminated fairly quickly as I was beginning to wonder if I should just become a DQ.....nah LOL!

So I took the day off work and went out to Kirstin Kelly in Pukekohe. Man what a trip!! I went in convoy with another friend of mine and it seemed to take AGES to get there! My friend had two horses so she had the first & last lesson.

Kirstin warmed us up and first thing she did was put my stirrups up a hole. Felt extremely short to begin with! She liked Cobs rhythmical paces so that was nice feedback.

Then we went onto the jumping - first jump same thing happened as it did at Woodhill - I got left behind. Kirstin asked where I was looking & I said up and she said how are you going to know where the jump is if you aren't looking?? True!

She suggests that you look at the ground rail coming into the jump & count out your strides. As I can normally only see my strides about three out I started really early until I become comfortable with the whole thing.

WOW what a difference! I can honestly say that we didn't stuff up the strides once. It felt SO good - I was absolutely beaming!

After doing some related lines & roll backs we moved onto the double knowing that this was our sticky point on Monday. Came into it & I had the perfect stride & Cobs stopped dead at it. Kirstin said I did everything right so he got a whack for that. After that he didn't even think about stopping - it was a long stride double and he got it right every time.

Well by then I was so stoked with how things were going! It made such a HUGE difference - now I just need to pratice heaps so it becomes second nature for me to count the strides out and actually look at what I am doing.

Well worth the day off :)