5 Steps to Remember Jump Courses and Dressage Tests

News flash: I'm way out of practice at remembering courses.

Me, watching a couple of riders go the other weekend, while I was supposed to be gathering intel for our riders hacking over for stadium:

-"That's a nice saddle pad. Wonder where she got it?"

-"Riders are consistently getting in too close to the red jump."

-"The grey horse is gorgeous!"

-"OOHH PONY!"

-"Love her coat. Does it come in adult sizing?"

-"Are those thunderstorms coming?"

-"I'd like to build a jump like that at home..."*mentally calculating supplies required*

-"Ohh look, there's where the courses are posted" *gets distracted talking to show photographer*

Yeah, not such a great success rate on learning the course if left to my own devices.

This should have been a great picture, but I had the photographer crop my face out because I was SO STRESSED looking...and it was all because I thought I might forget the course :D

So, if you're like me and are directionally challenged and have the attention span of a gnat, here's some tricks I use that work for me:

1. Get the picture ahead of time. I'm not the type of person that can look at the course diagram posted on the fence and remember it. If I take a picture with my phone and walk away somewhere quiet to study it, it's much easier. Dressage tests are my jam because I know what they'll be weeks in advance. On the day, I often find it helpful to get a visual by watching people go before me. I always walk my jump or xc courses, and have been known to walk my dressage tests in my living room too.

2. Know my start inside and out. On a stadium or XC course: where it is, where I approach from, what kind of canter I'd like to have. In dressage, this equates to knowing what bend I'd like to enter on and what happens after x. I find I'm most nervous and apt to forget things as I'm riding in, so if I can visualize and nail down a great start, my brain freeze melts and the rest usually flows more easily.

After that:

3. I mentally group lines of jumps or dressage movements. I try not to focus on looking for individual jumps one at a time and will often group dressage tests by changes in gait. So, the trot work at the start is one part, the walk another, canter another, change rein trot work another, etc. In jumping, it's 'outside line' or 'down the hill' or ' the yellow farm themed ones' etc. Keep your groups of things to 4 or less - most people can remember a sequence of 4 things fairly easily.

4. Remembering turns or changes in the pattern, by giving myself a visual place marker of where I want to turn and what towards. In dressage this is easy, there are markers for that purpose. In jumping, I help myself out by picking something permanent, like a tree or the stables as a visual reminder of what direction to go. ie, I might plan 'after the blue line of jumps if I turn towards the maple tree, that will line me up perfectly for the next group of jumps'. My lizard brain then only needs to know to go to the maple tree after the last blue jump, and the next part of course will appear before me  :)

5. Noting where the finish line is. Probably not a problem for most of you, but I've been caught out before on jump and XC courses, giving myself unneeded worry by mentally checking out after the last jump and then having to look for the timer. Remember to ride that course all the way to the finish line, everyone!

Bonus: Practice at home. Remembering patterns can be a learned skill...ask me how I know. My coach purposely used to set twisty complicated courses at home and then mess with me by telling me the course once and having me immediately go do it.