Comments

• justin hull said:
  

  Dear Chris,

  I just got done listening to show 175 and I loved it. It is enjoyable listening to Lucinda and Jimmie, but also was refreshing to here from Ian and Derek and their views from the designer.

  While I am in no way talented enough, or experienced enough to really have a serious comment, I’d like to say that overall I did agree with the views expressed. From listening to more experienced riders, from talking with my own trainer, and just observation, it does feel like the emphasis for Eventing has been shaped away from the “out in the country” experience and more geared towards the closer in, dressagy/show jumpy environment.

  My trainer and I recently talked about the need to teach the horse to “figure it out” at times, and that’s hard to do when the focus is more on being so exact. I understand the conversation focused on the UL courses, but in some respects, the good riding Lucinda talked about begins down at the BN and even lower stages. I would love to ride a “mini Burhley” if it meant I was training both my horse and me to better handle more bold, complex questions later in life. I also feel it helps build better the confidence of both horse and rider then just, as she said, going over another roll top. Even though I am barely BN, one day Amy sent me off to do the same question the other students had done, a log down a gully and up to another log…”You got to be kidding” I thought, but just trusted her judgement and went on. It was not pretty, and Sterling threw a small buck on the second round (“Make it pretty she said…right), but we did it and I was thrilled. Though the logs weren’t big, the question was more then a typical BN question at a show and it really bumped up my confidence.

  Sadly, I feel the cost of the sport it self is wearing on the ability to keep the essence of eventing true to its roots. Their talk about portable jumps, land space, heck, just the cost of getting an Ian or Derek to design effects what we as riders will see in the future. In my future I would love a more bold, is our horse (and you) fit type of course instead the stadium in a field approach dominate today. I felt I had a taste of that (bold) with my Jumping Branch run (though its called a soft course), at Tadpole/BN you’re jumping between trees onto a road (we fell there, but later schooled it and nailed it) and a ditch to a hay fence combination (rolled right over both). There are good places to just roll along, yet still need to get attention back and make good jumps.

  Thank you again for a great show. The more I listen to Lucinda (and now Jimmy) the more I am glad I found a trainer that reflects their views, styles and concerns in eventing. As much as I would love to learn from them directly, I at least have a proxy close by that I can afford (lol). Looking forward to the next show, take care,

  Justin

  -January 5th, 2012 at 3:07 pm

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