O'Connor Camp Day 4

This morning started like every morning- the bull, the stool and a lecture.
Today Amy talked with us about CPR and First Aid. She said it was something like the 8 hour class required by the ICP in about 20mins. During her lecture David got to die- the dogs were terribly concerned. She taught us the ABC's, all about choking, and bleeding. Kind of the basics but we got to practice on each other so it was really good. (We all got to die.)
Then we moved to more of the the ground work on the line. We ran through the yields pretty quick and then worked over a ground rail. It was really cool to see the "line of pressure" and how slight a movement can change it. Some of us got the opportunity to move to the next exercise and have our horses stop half way over the rail (front legs in front of the rail, back legs in back of the rail). Wesman did it. With some help... from Karen.
Then we broke up into our groups and went off to do some more SJ work. My group rode with David. The tennis balls were back out and like magic we all could ride a circle- so then one set was substituted for a ground pole. After we all could handle it we moved on to a jump. Figure eight over a vertical in the center of the ring. Most everyone was allowed to canter though the whole exercise- but I had to trot immediately after the jump for like 5 seconds then canter on. It made such a difference!! We went on to do a 5 stride line- vertical in, oxer out- I had to trot in the middle. Fun times. Wesman was so much better at paying attention when we had to trot and canter on- we eventually got to canter through the exercises and eventually put 6 jumps together on a number of different bending lines. Wesman was so good!
After we rode we cooled out and went to lunch. There were keishes? I don't know they were eggy and gross and Karen made me eat PB&J. But more importantly we talked about cross country. We went over the 4 different positions and the different variables that matter when jumping cross country. Karen got wicked excited during all of this and made us all watch that scene from Man from Snowy River like 8 times. Amy fell asleep and it was great.
So after talking all about cross country we went out there. We moved from our four groups down to two and went out to the cross country course. Our super huge group got Karen and Cathy and at first we worked on galloping position. Wes was good, I was good. Then we went to see how fast we were actually going. They had measured off 450m and put people at 350m and 400m. We went out on the track and they told us when we hit a minute and thus how fast we were going. Wes went a lovely 400mpm and was very good about the whole thing. After all the position timing stuff we went up to the top of a super huge hill and got to play Man from Snowy River. We walked it, then trotted it, then cantered it. It was wicked fun. THEN WE GOT TO JUMP!! It was only a tiny little coop. We were suppose to show the three main positions and that was it. Tomorrow we do real cross country. And I would like my horse to be bad. He has been so good this whole time- one tiny little something yesterday that didn't even count. Seriously, slam on the breaks and flip it in reverse! I want them to see it! Never thought I would be upset with my horse for being good but its driving me crazy!
Cross country took forever so we didn't get an afternoon lecture. However we did have a cook out at the top of the hill. The cookout was fun- Karen's mom and dad came and they were super adorable as always. After eating we played Jeopardy. I guess the groups we were put in were unfair so they had North vs. South. (Apparently we're in some big deal civil war area where they went up one mountain and then up the other in this valley or something and hey look civil war- Stonewall Jackson the whole deal- David gave us a history lesson... it was like school.) And for the record the North won... again. We won by I think 600 points... Karen GAVE the South 500 to make it seem even, but seriously.
Then there was a little bit of wine, some IPOD-- Dancing. OHBOY. The party was cut short when Cathy's IPOD froze...

(Sorry I don't have pictures for today, dad fell asleep and I don't know where the camera is...)

-Caroline