videos of Annie's first try at gridwork

joosie

lifelong sufferer of restless brain syndrome
Oct 28, 2004
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New Zealand
My boss has been doing a lot of gridwork this week, and since there was a line already set up I thought I might as well have a go at it with Annie. My friend was around yesterday evening and offered to film us. We warmed up over some individual fences first -


The grid set up was 3 bounces followed by one stride to the 4th jump and another one stride to the 5th. To start with I put the last jump to a small upright, and left the others raised at alternate ends, so that she could work out what to do with her feet without actually having to jump. On the first attempt we trotted through it and I was impressed how quickly she worked it out and how straight she was -


The second attempt was good and I pushed her into canter for the one-stride distances. Annie found the distance a bit long for one stride - makes sense as my boss's horses are big sports horse types and Annie is just an overgrown pony! - so we shortened them up a little bit. You can see in the video she could have almost fit two strides in.

 
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Then we built the grid up, putting the ends of the poles up one by one until all 5 were uprights. I was so impressed with Annie, once she'd got the hang of the line the first time she found it all a little bit easy! She was naturally forward without needing much leg, and kept herself nice and straight with very little input from me.


When the three bounces started becoming uprights I found Annie a little difficult to sit to, looking at the clips I can see it was because I was staying too upright, and should have had my upper body more forwards to help absorb the bounce. That's the value of getting your riding filmed - shame there isn't usually anyone to film me though as my boss and I usually school at the same time. Annie really pleased me though, she is a quick learner and so willing, I thought she did great for her first time!
 
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My broadband is running slow! so just watched the last video, you can really see her thinking ! what a star
 
That looked really great, it was nice to see the videos progress and how she coped with changes to height and the stride distance from trot to canter. Clever pony
 
Awww she is just gorgeous! She did really, really well for her first grid. No wonder you are proud!
 
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