One Out of Two Isn't Bad

Last night, Belle and I went to the Quad Cities for a run-thru.  I wanted to see how her running contacts were coming along, but  I only have video from the first run.  I was quite pleased with her running dogwalk.  There was a split second of hesitation on Belle's part, but she ran completely through the yellow--she didn't jump off at the end.

The A-frame was an entirely different matter.  Belle failed to run over the apex and she missed the yellow completely.  I don't know if the problem was height (5'6" vs 4'8"), slats, or the presence of 16" jumps on the course.  I also made the really bad handling choice of trying to call Belle over the A-frame and failing to support her path to the jump before it.

I was surprised when we had several off-courses on this basically simple course.  Since I can work on the handling glitches at home, I used the bulk of our course time last night practicing the two running contacts.  I think the A-frame improved, but it still was not the flow over the apex and two strides on the down side that I'm hoping to eventually achieve with Belle.

I designed a short course based on this one that will allow us to practice lines as well as running contacts.  Here's the map with several opening sequences indicated.  I want to give Belle a day or two of rest, so hopefully, the weather will hold and we can try this out Saturday or Sunday.