Hammie and I took the majority of last summer off after I broke my elbow as I’m sure most of you know. Therefore, I was out of the loop on most phases of eventing. I just took Hammie cross-country, one of the three eventing phases, the other day, accompanied by my mom, two other people, and Sue Berrill, my trainer for my first time since my broken elbow.
Cross country jumping traditionally has been my forte but I was out of practice, so to say it was less than stellar was under rating how bad it was. I was rough and completely out of it in the beginning. Hammie wasn’t well behaved either which didn’t help. He refused obstacles he ordinarily was okay with. I had (shall we say), a rousing talk with Sue. Okay, more like a lecture! After that I was improved. I needed that wakeup call. We had a lot more fun and success after that.
I need to get off his back more and Sue noticed that I was bouncing all over the place. Sue advised I stay in a half seat for canter always, no matter what, pardoning dressage. I also need to press my leg against Hammie and maintain physical contact with him. I achieved this by focusing on it and keeping my leg pressed right behind the girth. I realized that when I do this I do not pump as much or drive with my seat, which is a terrible habit of mine. Being out of practice has brought back many bad habits. Hammie also likes it much better, overall because I’m in better balance and he is really lets me know when I’m not doing the right thing. I also need to ride him with more contact to keep him from lunging at the fences; I do this by closing my hands and keeping a tighter with constant half halts and to keep him in line and more balanced. We were tending to run too much to the XC jumps and although Hammie is a good jumper, that’s not the way to jump XC jumps.
I had a good start to my cross-country this year. Sure, I had a couple rough patches but Hammie seems ready to go. He just needed a kick in the pants as did I. Sue kindly provided that kick and made me a better rider for it.