Why is a competition stadium course so challenging?

I have always found stadium significantly harder than xc - from Training on up. I don't know why starting at 1 meter, show jumping is so damn hard, but it is. It presents challenges from every direction:

• The Canter: Can you develop the right canter and maintain it through the course?
• Your Eye: Can you see a distance? Are you paying attention to the lines and straightness?
• Your Reactions: So you didn't get the best distance to the fence, or the canter is changing, are you reacting in the right way to correct the problem before the next fence becomes an issue?

Time is compressed during stadium; the fences come up quicker and there is a stronger domino effect of good and bad riding.

I think as adult amateurs we focus a lot on the height vs skills. If I routinely jump competition height at home, I'll be successful in the ring, right? I wish. The fact that we can jump the height or higher at home is largely irrelevant. At home we are not jumping a professionally designed course by a professional course designer. We aren't under the pressure of competition. We are not riding in front of strangers and competitive peers. We didn't pay a couple hundred of dollars of entry fees. We aren't jumping fully set show jumps. I could go on, but you get it. A training environment is very different than a competition one. 

Course designers don't want you to jump clear. As Waylon says, when you jump clear, you've beat the course designer. It is not a trivial task. 

Prior to Pine Top, I went to 3 clear round jumping schooling days: 1 at Stable View and 2 at Bruce's Field. Both of those venues set competition level courses midweek and allow riders to come school them. We didn't go to compete. We went to train. 

I jumped 2 rounds at each. Waylon would critique the first round and I would have to correct the mistakes from round 1 in round 2. This almost always resulted in me screwing up something that went fine in the first round. But the point was to practice the 3 points above: get/feel the correct canter, practice my eye, and practice reacting and responding to things happening midcourse. 

Until Waylon, I don't think I ever appreciate how much time you need to spend riding competition-level courses. I rarely went to jumper shows. I can only think of one time in Maryland I went to Swan Lake and did a couple of jumper rounds, but mostly, the only time I rode at competition-level course was at a competition. 

At Pine Top, Flora jumped clear but I don't feel like I beat the course designer. I fell into his trap: I was tentative over a course that required a forward ride. I was reacting - but not quite in the right way. I added strides that didn't need to be added and often got gappy distances because my canter wasn't covering the ground the way it should. Flora's careful and bold - she made up for my mistakes and we jumped a clear, but I likely wouldn't have had the same result with a lesser horse. 

Good news is, after 30 yrs of riding, I'm finally learning that with the right approach, stadium doesn't have to be so intimidating. :) 

Jan 31: Bruce's Field, Aiken, Training Show Jumping, Round 1 

Waylon's critique: I let Flora's canter get away from my in the lines and I need to even it out in the second round. Land, rebalance (aka half halt) and then ride forward. I need to be able to ride forward out of the line, not tug all the way down to the second fence - which will cut off the canter on the backside of that fence. 

Jan 31: Bruce's Field, Aiken, Training Show Jumping, Round 2

Waylon's critique: Better in the lines, but I'm not staying straight when I ask for the flying change. I'm asking on the turn and with far too much inside bend. Similar to the canter in the lines, I need to ride more actively after the fence. I can't take 5 strides after the jump, letting Flora coast around on her own. I need to land and get organized by the second or third stride. I also shouldn't worry about the tight distances - those will happen. I just need to support with my leg, stay tall in my body, and let Flora work it out. 

Feb 11, Pine Top 

Waylon's critique: It was a "pleasant" round but he thought I was going to get time faults. I was just a bit tentative throughout. I cut the turn too tight to Fence 2 and I need to plan a little better than that. I added a stride in each of the related lines for 8 instead of 7. He wasn't too concerned, but would have preferred me to have ridden more positively in the last line to get 7. I should have ridden through the rollback turn with more power and instead of waiting out of the turn, kept riding forward. My waiting led to an under-powered jump at the oxer and then resulted in the waiting 8 to the in-and-out.