Jump Arena Setup: Week of May 17th

Nicky has been traveling a lot recently so I've taken over changing the jumps in the arena. I stupidly did not document all the exercises Dan and Kaitlin setup over the years (face palm here), but I do have a little notebook of exercises from clinics I've been to, as well as, jumping exercises from my Horse & Hound TV subscription. 

Last Friday, I took inspiration from a Boyd Martin clinic I attended 10+ years ago. Nicky mentioned I should start introducing skinnies and angles to Vino and this configuration is pretty great for that. It's a pretty basic setup but there are a lot of different options depending on what you need to work on in a given day. Plus, everything can be ridden in every direction so you can work both sides of the horse evenly. 

Last Friday I wanted to work on Vino's straightness so I set up the 1-stride/2-stride/1-stride grid with large cross rails on both ends so I could ride it in both directions and focus on straightness. Today, I wanted to work on angles and carving my bending lines so I set up the 1-stride/2-stride/1-stride as small verticals. Gotta love that.

The skinny in my ring is set up with a stone wall. I started by trotting it back and forth both directions and then cantering back and forth both directions, then cantering on a shorter approach from both directions. Just lots of repetition. I haven't ridden the 3 stride line yet - working up to that step by step!

The distances are flexible. I set everything one step shorter - so instead of 36 ft for a 2 stride, I set it to 32/33 ft which makes Vino a little sharper with his feet.