Not having ridden cross country for about five years (having made
my
friend and my daughter do the honours) I was a little apprehensive
about
trying it all again - from memory the fences were big at Strathearn
and
I was bound to fall in a ditch and get carted off to Perth Infirmary
-
yes, the memories came flooding back! To add to the 'butterflies
in the
stomach' feeling, the day of the lesson dawned with a huge downpour
-
would we even make it on to the course?
Luckily, the weather was not so wet on the east coast and we were
able
to tack up and warm up without incident although conditions underfoot
were a little deep at the start. There were four of us from
Strathendrick Riding Club plus another rider - all of different
abilities. Once we'd warmed up we started by popping round some
of the
smaller fences in the field by the carpark. Our trainer was David
Gatherer and he was on his usual good form. Rather than trying to
make
the whole lesson conform to one type of riding, David is very talented
at picking up just what's going right and what maybe needs work
on
within each horse and rider partnership and so we all went on to
the
main course with different things to think about. We started down
by the
water - and, yes the river was deep, and played around until we
all
managed to jump a fence followed by a drop into water and out up
a bank.
The exercises all made us concentrate, ride with leg on and yet
be
balanced and ready for the next element.
As our confidence rose so did the difficulty of the fences but we
were
never overfaced and, even when we maybe got the speed or line wrong,
David set us right and we had the chance to do it again until we
got it
right. Strathearn is very good as it has so many jumping options
now,
there's something suitable for everyone. We ended up with a mini
course
back down to our starting place and everyone jumped brilliantly.
Big
smiles all round.
It was a marvellous experience and I would recommend it to anyone.
On
behalf of the riders from Strathendrick I would like to thank our
club
committee for subsidising the lesson - my only question is when's
the
next one?
Report by Amanda Wilson.
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