XC Schooling at Somerford Park

YEEEEE HAAAAAAAAA!!! Finally after a long winter of jumping nothing but coloured fences we were able to get the advanced horses out xc schooling! I’m not sure who was more excited them or me!! Both horses felt absolutely fantastic and really enjoyed themselves. I think the pictures say it all really!

After having a good trot and a canter round to warm up I started to jump some smaller more

straightforward fences like logs, rails, tables, houses etc. After that I jumped some slightly bigger fences

with ditches in front and started to incorporate some steps and drops, as well as some skinnies and corners.

From there I moved on to the coffin type fences, at Somerford you are very spoilt as there are five different coffins to choose from. Some with skinny single barrels on each side of the ditch, some with steep slopes down into the ditch and some with more inviting logs on either side. I did each one once or twice so that I can go to my fisrt event knowing that I practised everything I possibly could.!

Lastly I moved on to the water. Because they hadn’t been through a water jumped for a few months I just let them walk through first to ‘get their feet wet’.

It would be unfair to ask them to jump straight into water, even though they are both experinced horses. Agian I gradually built up the difficulty, starting by jumping down a little step, working my way up to a small bounce into water. I always made sure that I jumped something on the way out though as I think it trains them to always ‘look’ for a fence coming out of the water.