{"id":7596,"date":"2012-04-12T01:39:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T01:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=7596"},"modified":"2015-01-22T07:34:52","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:34:52","slug":"megan-jones-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2012\/04\/megan-jones-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Megan Jones \u2013 Teaching at Camperdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Story \u2013 Chris Hector & Photos \u2013 Roz Neave and Peter Orr<\/h3>\n

Megan Jones is not just a top international competitor, she is also building a solid reputation as a coach and mentor to promising up-and-coming riders, like the New Zealander Abby Lawrence. Although \u2018coach and mentor\u2019 sounds way more formal than the friendly laughing relationship Megan has with the young Kiwi.<\/p>\n

Megan was at the Lakes and Craters Three Day Event, helping Abby and Pseudonym as they saddled up for their first ever Three Star, Three Day event.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We started with Megan to analysing Abby\u2019s dressage test \u2013 a test that produced a 60.6 penalty total to leave them in 4th place going into the cross country. As you might expect, Meges\u2019 dressage critique is a little more blunt than you might expect from a dressage dressage coach. She doesn\u2019t pull punches:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s really stiff to the right, so we tried to get him a fraction softer there so we could do something that resembled a half pass right \u2013 normally he just goes sideways across the arena. That worked quite well.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dealing with super fit eventers requires a certain amount of tact:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t do any changes outside the arena because the changes get him quite excited, so we did a lot of counter canter with him, a lot of leg yielding in the counter canter \u2013 pushing him around lots so he doesn\u2019t change. In the last couple of tests he\u2019s done he changed early and got excited in the counter canters – and stiff. This time around he really stayed quite calm in the canter, the counter canter was good, and the changes were rough but clean. His hard side is the first change, and that was actually quite good, normally he is late with that, and takes off. The changes were actually a bit like in two parts, but clean in two parts and he stayed quite calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shoulder-ins didn\u2019t really happen because he got strong across the short side, then he has the tendency to grab the bit and want to go, and Abby couldn\u2019t get him into the corner properly to get the shoulder in. But they did get an okay half pass. Then he did his trot thing, when he turns on the centre line and trots on his face. We\u2019d done quite a lot of work on that, but he still fell on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still Abby is relieved to get the dressage over…<\/p>\n

The dressage was the hardest part?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely \u2013 for me and him.\u201d<\/p>\n

You do full time horses?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ve been doing it for almost three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you were a terrible disappointment to your parents\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Mum loves horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Megan is quite pleased with the combination\u2019s progress:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really is still a work in progress, he\u2019s really fancy, he goes forward, he has lovely paces but he is really stiff. Two years ago Abby\u2019s brother was riding him and he was really wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we are blaming the brother?<\/em><\/p>\n

Abby comes to his defence: \u201cNo we are not blaming the brother, the horse has always been like that. He was bred in the Waikato, he is owned by Jane and Alice Collins. He is by Hahndorf, Nicola Fyffe\u2019s stallion. He was bought as a six-year-old for my brother. When he got really busy with work, I took him over, that was three years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s your first three-star horse?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYes. I have been in Australia for the past three months, just to stalk Megan basically, it\u2019s the second time I have worked with her, but the first time, I didn\u2019t have a horse. My aim is the three-star World Cup at Kiki, three-star at Taupo, and ideally, the four-star in Adelaide next year. We\u2019ll just have to see how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it like working with Megan?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHard work, but it is very rewarding. I\u2019m learning new stuff every day. Megan puts things in an easy way to understand, she puts it in your language.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many times have you walked the cross-country course with her?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cJust once. I\u2019ll walk it again by myself later. It\u2019s good, there are a couple of good questions, it\u2019s a challenge but very rideable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once again, Megan was keeping her instructions simple and to the point:<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t fall off, and jump all the fences! That\u2019s in her language. He\u2019s a galloping jumping machine that horse. He is one of the fastest horses I\u2019ve seen. He gallops like a galloping Warmblood, not like a Thoroughbred \u2013 he\u2019s beautiful \u2013 he covers the ground and makes time on tracks where you can\u2019t make time, and without ever looking fast. He jumps well, sometimes too well, Abby did her first three star, a CNC***, and got jumped off goinginto the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did Reynella before he did Adelaide, and that was a really tough track, it had some really good open apexes, a real Wayne Copping track, curved, skinnies on mounds, and he cantered over it, and came third. I feel really confident about her on this Camperdown track, she just has to get every line right\u2026 but he is nice to ride cross country, he looks nice to ride, I\u2019d hop on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did the four-star prep with my guys, when we went to the beach to gallop them, it was too hard to separate them, so he did the four-star prep, and he loved it. He\u2019s probably fitter than my horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Above photo by Peter Orr<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Abby is full of admiration for her horse after the cross-country run \u2013 they came in clear with the second fastest time of the day:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs per usual, he was amazing. He is such a cross-country machine, he looks after me so well. He knows his job and he goes out there and gets it done every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scary \u2013 first to go?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNot really. I had a plan and I stuck to it. It is always nice to have people go first and know if there is any trouble on the track but I have faith in him, I trust him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The water was difficult?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI probably didn\u2019t ride it as well as I could have, but he is honest, and he did the job again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was there anywhere the plan came unstuck?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNot really\u2026 and he pulled up as good as gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Megan is happy too:<\/p>\n

\u201cVery satisfied. She was fast enough and not too fast, brought him home sound. They had a really good rhythm, jumped the fences well, they both looked really confident. She was worried about the brush to the apex on the hill but she rode that really well, it was the one fence I was hoping she would really nail it, and she did. It was a really good round.\u201d<\/p>\n

And is she going to go clear in the showjumping, no last fence down\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNot like me!\u201d (Megan missed out on an individual medal at Beijing when she had the last fence down.)<\/p>\n

Well Abby did have one rail down but she finished in second place \u2013 behind Aussie star, Sonja Johnson and her newcomer, Belfast Mojito\u2026 not bad for your first three-star three day.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megan Jones coaches Abby Lawrence at Camperdown 3DE for Abby’s first Three Star Competition. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[490,491,1244,476],"class_list":["post-7596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eventing","tag-abby-lawrence","tag-camperdown-3de","tag-eventing","tag-megan-jones"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7596"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20766,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7596\/revisions\/20766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}