Video: If At First You Don’t Succeed…

… grab some mane and hope for the best.

Cross-training is much lauded for its benefits for athletes — human as well as equine, such as a soccer player hitting the pool for a different sort of workout.

Some equestrian disciplines have it easier than others — eventers often cross-compete in pure dressage or show jumping, which we suppose you could argue isn’t “cross training” so much as just shifting the focus. But hunters play in the jumpers and vice-versa; reiners work cattle to remind their horses of the real-world application of all those fancy maneuvers.

One famous example of cross-training broke the internet a few months ago when Charlotte Dujardin shared a photo of Blueberry, known to the world as Valegro, clearing a jump with apparent ease and great form. Jumping and gymnastics have long been respected as good cross-training exercises for dressage horses… but that doesn’t mean it comes this easy to everyone.

This video has been making the viral rounds, featuring a pair of dressage horses that perhaps do not have that natural “hop”:

Okay, in their defense, I think they got a lot better as they progressed, don’t you agree? I’m not sure I’d take either one of them into the jumper ring full-time, but they seemed to figure out the game with each progressive fence.

Go cross training! And go riding.