Back with Sally

I love Sally! She is so damn down-to-earth. I think I like her so much because her personality is a lot like Jane's.

I explained that Leo and I were still struggling with turning/steering (accuracy) and maintaining our composure through triple combinations. Sally's approach naturally deals with the first and she just so happened to have a triple combo set up in the ring.

We practiced lots of rollback turns, jumping at angles and of course cantering into the triple. Leo was jumping me out of the saddle, as usual. My new saddle can't get here soon enough (it's literally on the way via UPS!)

Interesting Sally tidbits from my lesson and others:

• Meeting a fence at a half stride is normally an indication that the quality of the canter isn't there
• In a competition setting, take extra care in show jumping to square your turns on an approach to a fence. This ensures that your horse is straight (not bulging) and you'll be less likely to have any unlucky rail down.
• Sally said her hot, fast horses are rarely forward. They (ex: Sue and Joule) go side-to-side, up-and-down, backwards with ease, but it's extremely difficult to get them to move forward on the aides. 
• Once I'm in a triple, the only thing I should try to change with the reins is Leo's straightness. Anything else is too much information for him. It's my job to get him in properly and he needs to get himself out. I need to have more trust in him and allow him to learn and make better decisions. When the strides get tight; I try and half-halt. This is a mistake with him. Instead, I need to sit quiet and let the combination happen. He's athletic and careful enough that he can get himself out of it when it gets tight. I just need to stay with him (and add leg if I need it). 
• Practice, practice, practice! Anytime there is a triple combination set up I should jump it. Leo's education has progressed enough that we no longer build the combination as he goes. He warms up over other fences and when we move on to the triple, we jump the whole thing at once. 
• There are 2 types of horses: horses that jump and horses that step. One is not better than the other; they are just 2 different styles of jumpers. Leo is a horse that jumps. The way he hits the ground at take off and snaps his back cause the jump to feel completely separate from the canter stride before and after. Horses that step are more fluid in their motion and are easier to maintain a position on. (Sally was talking about this in relation to how Leo gets me out of the saddle so easily in comparison to others horses I've ridden.)
• Patience and discipline are the keys to success. Sally didn't say this,  but I infer it from her instruction. She said when looking at the competition schedule, not to worry about the speed. (Many of the training level events up here are 470 mom). She said not to worry about the time right now. Good news is she does coach training level riders at events (yay! I wasn't sure if you needed to be riding at prelim or above to get coaching). I just need to figure out how to get to the events.