All of last week, I taught lessons on showing your horse in hand. "In hand" means that the rider leads the horse through it's paces from the ground, rather than riding on top. There are two types of in-hand classes, halter and showmanship. Halter classes are judged on the horse's conformation and movement, while showmanship is judged on how the rider presents and handles the horse, and the horse's condition and care. Due to the judging criteria, a horse and rider pair could be entered in each of the two classes and then place first in one and dead last in the other.
The individual breeds of horses can be shown differently and then the discipline, or style, of riding can be presented differently. Western horses are shown in hand in a Western show halter, which is leather absolutely plastered with engraved silver plates so that you'd never know it was made of leather. There is as much twinkle on those horse's heads as you'd find in the crown jewels. Ever wonder why the Western horses carry their heads so low? My guess is, it's the 40 pounds of silver they carry around strapped to their noggins that weighs them down. I get tired just wearing an elaborate pair of earrings. Long-ago, Western horses were shown in a plain leather halter. Then came halters with fancy stitching and contrasting colors, then the gleam reared it's glamorous head. Soon silver encrusted halters became the norm. If the trend continues, horses will soon be wearing halters manufactured of solid silver and pirates will begin lurking outside of stalls and show rings.
English horses are shown in their bridles. Within the "English horse" category can be found, Huntseat, Dressage, Saddleseat and generic, or un-delclared, horses. Like the English language which includes, the Southerner, British English, the Downeaster, the Canadian, and many other dialects, English riding comes with many accents.
Some breeds are shown in native head-gear and not specified as English or Western. Draft horses, Friesians, Arabians, Miniature Horses and others have their own specific types of halters. In-hand classes specific to the breed would show in their breed specific gear. In-hand classes identified by the discipline would show in either Western or English garb.
The "rider" in English classes wears what she would wear if riding. The Western "rider" wears what she would wear if riding except without the chaps. "Riders" showing for a specified breed, wear neat, clean, conservative clothing that is comfortable to jog in (no pencils skirts, strappy sandles or baggy jeans) and gloves.
When I began showing, I hated in hand classes. They were boring and I would always trip when I had to jog with my horse. At the time, I didn't understand the intricacies of the classes and how to properly show a horse. Now, I know how much time and prepartion goes in to properly showing a horse in hand. Having all that knowledge now gives me a new appreciation for the art. All the knowledge in the world does not help me stay on my feet during the jog so I still have an aversion to blasted things.
'
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
I'm Not Bad, I'm Just Ridden That Way
Getting older makes it harder to come up with relevant pop culture references. How many people are going to read the title on this and remember the quotable line (I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way.) from Jessica Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"? If I am going to continue to write these posts, I am going to have to become much more hip.
The metaphor is meant to lead into my feelings on horse behavior. Routinely, I talk about my "bad horse" or "bad pony" sometimes grumpily, but always with affection. No horses are literally bad. There are horses with physical limitations, lack of education, too much or too little nutrition and personality issues. There is no way that we can call our horses bad when everything that we ask them to do is completely unnatural and ridiculous. I touched on this in a previous post so won't go too far, but a training session today with one of the horses reminded me that when the horse isn't performing as needed or requested, then it is up to the rider/trainer to find a solution. The horse's only job is to not kick and bite. The rest is up to us.
The point becomes glaringly obvious when you watch a horse ridden by several different people. Some riders bring out the best in the horse, some hinder it. Some riders are more confident or persuasive, some are blissfully ignorant, and some are inhibiting.
Along with a change of rider, different results can be seen with a change of tack. A better fitting saddle, a new saddle pad, a variation on a bit, a less pinchy girth, an alternate noseband, and such can go a long way in getting the cooperation of your horse. Adversely, some tack will be detrimental to training, especially in a novice's hands, and should not be used as a replacement for training. Any type of tie down, martingale or draw rein can be cruel if misused. Harsh bits or painful nosebands will not help your horse learn or understand anything. Most often, they cause him to be more resistant. Training isn't about the creation of pain. It's about making the horse more comfortable.
Regardless of tack, a horse will rise or sink to the level of its rider. The highly trained Olympic mounts would make mincemeat of an average, amateur, recreational rider. Heck, a highly trained Olympic mount would make mincemeat of me, and I consider myself an experienced professional. Just because a horse knows stuff, doesn't mean he will perform. As I said to someone today about Rocket, "He knows exactly what he is supposed to do, but if he thinks you aren't going to tell him to do it, he's not going to do it." A horse is similar to a marionette. Someone has to know how to work the strings, in the right order, at the right time in order to get the desired movements. A greenhorn can turn a finely crafted marionette into macrame in seconds.
Today, riding Image, I was having trouble getting a good canter transition. He kept throwing his head up. Was he bad? Not even a little bit. When I figured out the right combination of aids, he didn't throw his head. Did I train him not to throw his head? Only a little bit. By using the right combination of aids, I helped him find a more comfortable way to get into the canter. With repetition of those aids, he will develop the musculature and get into the habit of making the canter transition more correct. Horses learn by doing. If I always let him throw his head for a canter transition, he will learn to do it that way. If I create a way for him to canter with his neck and back more relaxed, he won't throw his head and will learn to canter that way instead. That is the essence of training: to show the horse how he can make his life easier and more comfortable by responding a certain way to the given aids. But the rider still has to give the correct aids, to get the correct response.
You may have heard of the proverbial "push-button" horse, meaning a horse that is easy to ride. Easy, if you know which buttons to push and when. Push the wrong button and the whole file gets deleted so that you have to retype the thing after spending an hour working on it already. Oh, wait, that's the computer. Thankfully horses never delete files. However, they will give you the 404 message if you don't push the right buttons. A-ha! Current reference at last!
The metaphor is meant to lead into my feelings on horse behavior. Routinely, I talk about my "bad horse" or "bad pony" sometimes grumpily, but always with affection. No horses are literally bad. There are horses with physical limitations, lack of education, too much or too little nutrition and personality issues. There is no way that we can call our horses bad when everything that we ask them to do is completely unnatural and ridiculous. I touched on this in a previous post so won't go too far, but a training session today with one of the horses reminded me that when the horse isn't performing as needed or requested, then it is up to the rider/trainer to find a solution. The horse's only job is to not kick and bite. The rest is up to us.
The point becomes glaringly obvious when you watch a horse ridden by several different people. Some riders bring out the best in the horse, some hinder it. Some riders are more confident or persuasive, some are blissfully ignorant, and some are inhibiting.
Along with a change of rider, different results can be seen with a change of tack. A better fitting saddle, a new saddle pad, a variation on a bit, a less pinchy girth, an alternate noseband, and such can go a long way in getting the cooperation of your horse. Adversely, some tack will be detrimental to training, especially in a novice's hands, and should not be used as a replacement for training. Any type of tie down, martingale or draw rein can be cruel if misused. Harsh bits or painful nosebands will not help your horse learn or understand anything. Most often, they cause him to be more resistant. Training isn't about the creation of pain. It's about making the horse more comfortable.
Regardless of tack, a horse will rise or sink to the level of its rider. The highly trained Olympic mounts would make mincemeat of an average, amateur, recreational rider. Heck, a highly trained Olympic mount would make mincemeat of me, and I consider myself an experienced professional. Just because a horse knows stuff, doesn't mean he will perform. As I said to someone today about Rocket, "He knows exactly what he is supposed to do, but if he thinks you aren't going to tell him to do it, he's not going to do it." A horse is similar to a marionette. Someone has to know how to work the strings, in the right order, at the right time in order to get the desired movements. A greenhorn can turn a finely crafted marionette into macrame in seconds.
Today, riding Image, I was having trouble getting a good canter transition. He kept throwing his head up. Was he bad? Not even a little bit. When I figured out the right combination of aids, he didn't throw his head. Did I train him not to throw his head? Only a little bit. By using the right combination of aids, I helped him find a more comfortable way to get into the canter. With repetition of those aids, he will develop the musculature and get into the habit of making the canter transition more correct. Horses learn by doing. If I always let him throw his head for a canter transition, he will learn to do it that way. If I create a way for him to canter with his neck and back more relaxed, he won't throw his head and will learn to canter that way instead. That is the essence of training: to show the horse how he can make his life easier and more comfortable by responding a certain way to the given aids. But the rider still has to give the correct aids, to get the correct response.
You may have heard of the proverbial "push-button" horse, meaning a horse that is easy to ride. Easy, if you know which buttons to push and when. Push the wrong button and the whole file gets deleted so that you have to retype the thing after spending an hour working on it already. Oh, wait, that's the computer. Thankfully horses never delete files. However, they will give you the 404 message if you don't push the right buttons. A-ha! Current reference at last!
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Pony Tales
Ponies have gotten a bad rap. Half the population of adults in this country either had, or knew someone who had, a nasty little pony. A pony that would bite, buck, scrape off riders on fences, barn doors, or tree branches, assuming the pony could be caught in the first place. This pony was usually kept in a back yard, maybe had a stall in a shed, maybe was tethered on a rope. This pony had no training and very little proper handling, care, or feeding yet was expected to pull a cart and go riding. The pony survived on grass, bread, corn stalks, apples, carrots, birdseed, cereal or whatever anyone thought to feed it. From this pony, people formed an opinion of ponies in general. And it wasn't a good one.
The general population of ponies are, if not rainbow colored like a popular toy may lead one to believe, cute and fluffy. Even the ones that aren't cute, are homely enough to be so. They have little ears, long hair, big eyes and they are pint-sized. There is a society of show ponies that are pampered, groomed within an inch of their lives, and are more well-trained than secret agents. These are not the ponies you find in the first paragraph. They are a different species. Also a different genus, are the ponies that are actually small horses. Technically, a pony is an equine under 14.2 hands high (58"). There are some large ponies that are really just small horses and are regarded as such.
The first paragraph ponies are the Rodney Dangerfields of the horse world. They get no respect. Due to their size, they don't get structured training. The people small enough to ride them, are the ones who haven't had much training themselves, therefore being inexperienced and not qualified to teach a pony the path it should take in life and not balanced or strong enough to be delicate riders. These ponies are hardy and self-sufficient which allows them to survive in less than ideal situations but also lends them to the idea that they need to fend for themselves. It's akin to a naughty child who hasn't had a structured home life or good parenting. Can we blame that child for not knowing how to be a good citizen? No. Can we blame a pony for figuring out that a child's head is right about level with the clothesline when seated on said pony?
People will say that ponies are bad-tempered and conniving. I think they're just clever and not about to put up with any baloney. Ponies are like MacGyver. They're crafty. They don't know that they are little and cute. They think they are big and spectacular. There are two reasons ponies are disagreeable, one is the lack of formal training, the other is that they are too smart. Ponies know that they don't have to do a darn thing they're told to do. Unless there is food involved. The quickest route to a pony's brain is through its stomach. One of my students did a science project on "Things My Pony Will Eat". The list was long.
All ponies can be devoted, willing partners as long as they trust and have respect for their human sidekicks. One misstep though, and it's the clothesline for you, buddy.
The general population of ponies are, if not rainbow colored like a popular toy may lead one to believe, cute and fluffy. Even the ones that aren't cute, are homely enough to be so. They have little ears, long hair, big eyes and they are pint-sized. There is a society of show ponies that are pampered, groomed within an inch of their lives, and are more well-trained than secret agents. These are not the ponies you find in the first paragraph. They are a different species. Also a different genus, are the ponies that are actually small horses. Technically, a pony is an equine under 14.2 hands high (58"). There are some large ponies that are really just small horses and are regarded as such.
The first paragraph ponies are the Rodney Dangerfields of the horse world. They get no respect. Due to their size, they don't get structured training. The people small enough to ride them, are the ones who haven't had much training themselves, therefore being inexperienced and not qualified to teach a pony the path it should take in life and not balanced or strong enough to be delicate riders. These ponies are hardy and self-sufficient which allows them to survive in less than ideal situations but also lends them to the idea that they need to fend for themselves. It's akin to a naughty child who hasn't had a structured home life or good parenting. Can we blame that child for not knowing how to be a good citizen? No. Can we blame a pony for figuring out that a child's head is right about level with the clothesline when seated on said pony?
People will say that ponies are bad-tempered and conniving. I think they're just clever and not about to put up with any baloney. Ponies are like MacGyver. They're crafty. They don't know that they are little and cute. They think they are big and spectacular. There are two reasons ponies are disagreeable, one is the lack of formal training, the other is that they are too smart. Ponies know that they don't have to do a darn thing they're told to do. Unless there is food involved. The quickest route to a pony's brain is through its stomach. One of my students did a science project on "Things My Pony Will Eat". The list was long.
All ponies can be devoted, willing partners as long as they trust and have respect for their human sidekicks. One misstep though, and it's the clothesline for you, buddy.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sentimental Journals
While looking for something completely different, I came across some of my riding journals from my college years. As part of my major, I took riding courses and as part of those courses, I had to keep a journal of the lessons. Journal entries had to include what the lesson was about, exercises we did, the theory behind those exercises and what we felt and learned during the ride. What we did not have to include was sarcasm, whining or silliness. I added those for free.
The journals I found were from my Junior and Senior years (1993-1995) and my instructor was new to the University. He knew what he was doing riding-wise, but he had no idea what he was getting into when he signed up with us. We were a group of mostly girls, there were only 2 male riders in the program, with varying levels of experience. Some of the riders thought they knew better than this new instructor. Some of them, like me, waffled between thinking we knew everything and wanting to quit because we thought we were failures. The poor man put up with a lot. I have since written him an apology.
The school had horses to use for lessons, but I also was lucky enough to have the use of a horse from a neighboring barn. The owners wanted him exercised so I got to ride the horse for free. This horse was a big gray Irish Thoroughbred named Wall St Whiz but called "Floyd". Floyd was a disagreeable old sod who was talented but also had major resistances. He was a nice jumper, other than the time he did a dirty stop at the last fence in a line of 4' bounces and I somersaulted over his head. That's a whole story on it's own though.
We were graded on our journal entries and surprisingly, my instructor did read them and made comments as well. My entries were often filled with discouragement as I struggled to grasp the mechanics of Dressage and dealt for the first time with uncertainty with jumping. After one particularly down-hearted lesson, my instructor begged me to try to find the positive parts of every ride. So after the next lesson, which was on my very favorite school horse (Welkin, a Dutch Warmblood) whom I was supposed to ride in an upcoming competition, I began my entry with, "I will try to be positive. I did not put draw reins on. If I ride Welkin with draw reins, I will not be able to ride him without them for the test and quadrille. I am positive of this." I always hated using draw reins but they were a common tool used in the program.
Another horse I rode few times was Star Trek, a stunning dark bay Thoroughbred who was unusually uncoordinated. A lesson with him resulted in one of the most original excuses I have ever come up with. We were supposed to be doing shoulder-in and using the mirrors to look for the three tracks of the movement. Shoulder-in was always my nemesis in school and here is one reason I gave for not knowing whether I got it right by looking in the mirror: "Star Trek is very dark so he blends in well with the wall and footing. I had a hard time telling where his legs were."
A lot of times, I didn't want to write about my lessons because they went poorly. An entry after a jumping lesson begins with "What a rotten ride. I Hate writing journals!" Part of this was my desire to ride the horses that were difficult or that no one thought I could ride. A noble pursuit, but an exercise in frustration most of the time. After one ride on Floyd, I wrote, "I don't feel like I have any control over this horse's body. He plows around swinging his haunches around as if they weren't attached to him." An interesting visual, if nothing else.
Jumping lessons seemed to take on a theme. The next jumping lesson entry begins with "I HATE WRITING JOURNALS." The very next entry, also a jumping lesson, deals with a problem I had with keeping my leg down in place thereby losing my balance forward. I wrote, "It all seems so simple when I think about it. Just keep your heels down, then your balance will stay back and you'll be able to follow the horse. HA!" This is followed by a sentence completely scribbled out and then in parenthesis "I decided not to be sarcastic."
Not every lesson had a negative reaction. After one lesson with Floyd I began my journal entry with "FINALLY! I broke through the crust surrounding Floyd's brain and actually got some quality work out of him. It was unbelievable, the drastic change in him from the beginning of the lesson to the end." Of course, the very next line is "The lesson began horribly." It was at that point, I was starting to get to know the curmudgeon a little better and despite the difficulty in riding him was becoming fond of him and began to develop pet names for him and included those in the journals. The entries following list him as The Gray Horse, Weasel Face, Ford, Pin Head, Rocket Butt and Raisin Brain (not because his brain was small but because he loved raisins).
I also was able to see a little bit of humor in my struggles. One thing Floyd was good at was being a longeing horse for mounted exercises. Usually. An entry for a longe lesson goes like this: "The problem was at the trot, Floyd couldn't decide if he was going to do Western Pleasure or harness racing... It's a little hard to do exercises where you take your legs off or hands go up or out when your horse keeps leaping out from under you.... Usually, when Floyd is walking or trotting he gets into a rhythm and sings a little song in his head. You've probably heard it before, it goes like this, 'Do you know the Muffin Man...' Well, today he was singing, 'Do you know the MUFFIN MAN!...' We did leg lifts, scissors, helicopter things, arm circles, pointing both hands up to the ceiling and pulling the ankle up to the hip to stretch the thigh down at the walk and trot. It's a really good thing I'm not writing this for English class because that last sentence was grammatically incorrect. In fact, it was so incorrect that if it were a walk trot rider, it would be on the wrong diagonal. But who really cares. We don't get graded on grammar in riding class. Or do we...."
It's considered, is what I found out. We also get graded on content, particularly the theory, which had been lacking in my entries. The rest of this day's lesson continues with, "I can sit better on Floyd when I have no stirrups than if I do. Are you allowed to drop your stirrups in a Dressage test? What would happen if you did? It doesn't say 'A- enter working trot sitting with stirrups'. I think that if they don't specify it we should be able to do what we want. I vote for no stirrups so you don't bounce. I guess I better stick some theory in here pretty soon so I can get an A."
"THE THEORY PART When you do leg lifts, you're really doing a half halt because you are sitting into the saddle. BUT, it can't be a real half halt because you take your legs off. You can't come down the center line and just before x, do a couple of big ole leg lifts. Your horse will halt with his hind legs at D and his forehand at G."
At one point, my room mate, Rita came home with me for the weekend. Apparently I had not done my homework before leaving because the next entry begins, "I really did plan to write my journal entry right after my lesson so that I would remember what we did. Honest, I planned on doing it. But then I went home for the weekend and I rode my pony and I never got around to it. I could tell you what I did when I rode my pony! We Galloped! A lot! That's about all we did! Rita galloped too! She rode Lady! And Ivy (a little)! It was fun! My pony is good at galloping. She doesn't want to be a dressage horse, she wants to be a Race horse."
I did learn things in my lessons. Things that I am trying to teach my students now. One of the most important lessons was about down transitions. "Part of Floyd's down transition is my fault. I find myself pulling too much on his mouth and not anchoring my seat into the saddle as I should. Floyd gets so strong on his forehand that I resort to sheer brute force to stop him. This is bad." The first part of learning how to do something right is recognizing what you are doing wrong!
Unfortunately, my struggles with jumping continued. Most of my trouble came from falling badly, again another story on its own, but also from the snide comments of riders in my lessons who felt they were much better than I was. They probably were better at riding over fences than I was, but I let their mean comments undermine my confidence which caused my riding to get worse, not better. The last jumping journal entry is no different from the others and begins, "Have I mentioned that I HATE WRITING JOURNAL ENTRIES!" Hence, my love of Dressage began to take over.
There are some other journal entries that are amusing or interesting enough to share but this post is approaching ridiculous proportions so I'll end now and write another at a later time. Unlike writing journal entries, I do not hate writing blog posts.
The journals I found were from my Junior and Senior years (1993-1995) and my instructor was new to the University. He knew what he was doing riding-wise, but he had no idea what he was getting into when he signed up with us. We were a group of mostly girls, there were only 2 male riders in the program, with varying levels of experience. Some of the riders thought they knew better than this new instructor. Some of them, like me, waffled between thinking we knew everything and wanting to quit because we thought we were failures. The poor man put up with a lot. I have since written him an apology.
The school had horses to use for lessons, but I also was lucky enough to have the use of a horse from a neighboring barn. The owners wanted him exercised so I got to ride the horse for free. This horse was a big gray Irish Thoroughbred named Wall St Whiz but called "Floyd". Floyd was a disagreeable old sod who was talented but also had major resistances. He was a nice jumper, other than the time he did a dirty stop at the last fence in a line of 4' bounces and I somersaulted over his head. That's a whole story on it's own though.
We were graded on our journal entries and surprisingly, my instructor did read them and made comments as well. My entries were often filled with discouragement as I struggled to grasp the mechanics of Dressage and dealt for the first time with uncertainty with jumping. After one particularly down-hearted lesson, my instructor begged me to try to find the positive parts of every ride. So after the next lesson, which was on my very favorite school horse (Welkin, a Dutch Warmblood) whom I was supposed to ride in an upcoming competition, I began my entry with, "I will try to be positive. I did not put draw reins on. If I ride Welkin with draw reins, I will not be able to ride him without them for the test and quadrille. I am positive of this." I always hated using draw reins but they were a common tool used in the program.
Another horse I rode few times was Star Trek, a stunning dark bay Thoroughbred who was unusually uncoordinated. A lesson with him resulted in one of the most original excuses I have ever come up with. We were supposed to be doing shoulder-in and using the mirrors to look for the three tracks of the movement. Shoulder-in was always my nemesis in school and here is one reason I gave for not knowing whether I got it right by looking in the mirror: "Star Trek is very dark so he blends in well with the wall and footing. I had a hard time telling where his legs were."
A lot of times, I didn't want to write about my lessons because they went poorly. An entry after a jumping lesson begins with "What a rotten ride. I Hate writing journals!" Part of this was my desire to ride the horses that were difficult or that no one thought I could ride. A noble pursuit, but an exercise in frustration most of the time. After one ride on Floyd, I wrote, "I don't feel like I have any control over this horse's body. He plows around swinging his haunches around as if they weren't attached to him." An interesting visual, if nothing else.
Jumping lessons seemed to take on a theme. The next jumping lesson entry begins with "I HATE WRITING JOURNALS." The very next entry, also a jumping lesson, deals with a problem I had with keeping my leg down in place thereby losing my balance forward. I wrote, "It all seems so simple when I think about it. Just keep your heels down, then your balance will stay back and you'll be able to follow the horse. HA!" This is followed by a sentence completely scribbled out and then in parenthesis "I decided not to be sarcastic."
Not every lesson had a negative reaction. After one lesson with Floyd I began my journal entry with "FINALLY! I broke through the crust surrounding Floyd's brain and actually got some quality work out of him. It was unbelievable, the drastic change in him from the beginning of the lesson to the end." Of course, the very next line is "The lesson began horribly." It was at that point, I was starting to get to know the curmudgeon a little better and despite the difficulty in riding him was becoming fond of him and began to develop pet names for him and included those in the journals. The entries following list him as The Gray Horse, Weasel Face, Ford, Pin Head, Rocket Butt and Raisin Brain (not because his brain was small but because he loved raisins).
I also was able to see a little bit of humor in my struggles. One thing Floyd was good at was being a longeing horse for mounted exercises. Usually. An entry for a longe lesson goes like this: "The problem was at the trot, Floyd couldn't decide if he was going to do Western Pleasure or harness racing... It's a little hard to do exercises where you take your legs off or hands go up or out when your horse keeps leaping out from under you.... Usually, when Floyd is walking or trotting he gets into a rhythm and sings a little song in his head. You've probably heard it before, it goes like this, 'Do you know the Muffin Man...' Well, today he was singing, 'Do you know the MUFFIN MAN!...' We did leg lifts, scissors, helicopter things, arm circles, pointing both hands up to the ceiling and pulling the ankle up to the hip to stretch the thigh down at the walk and trot. It's a really good thing I'm not writing this for English class because that last sentence was grammatically incorrect. In fact, it was so incorrect that if it were a walk trot rider, it would be on the wrong diagonal. But who really cares. We don't get graded on grammar in riding class. Or do we...."
It's considered, is what I found out. We also get graded on content, particularly the theory, which had been lacking in my entries. The rest of this day's lesson continues with, "I can sit better on Floyd when I have no stirrups than if I do. Are you allowed to drop your stirrups in a Dressage test? What would happen if you did? It doesn't say 'A- enter working trot sitting with stirrups'. I think that if they don't specify it we should be able to do what we want. I vote for no stirrups so you don't bounce. I guess I better stick some theory in here pretty soon so I can get an A."
"THE THEORY PART When you do leg lifts, you're really doing a half halt because you are sitting into the saddle. BUT, it can't be a real half halt because you take your legs off. You can't come down the center line and just before x, do a couple of big ole leg lifts. Your horse will halt with his hind legs at D and his forehand at G."
At one point, my room mate, Rita came home with me for the weekend. Apparently I had not done my homework before leaving because the next entry begins, "I really did plan to write my journal entry right after my lesson so that I would remember what we did. Honest, I planned on doing it. But then I went home for the weekend and I rode my pony and I never got around to it. I could tell you what I did when I rode my pony! We Galloped! A lot! That's about all we did! Rita galloped too! She rode Lady! And Ivy (a little)! It was fun! My pony is good at galloping. She doesn't want to be a dressage horse, she wants to be a Race horse."
I did learn things in my lessons. Things that I am trying to teach my students now. One of the most important lessons was about down transitions. "Part of Floyd's down transition is my fault. I find myself pulling too much on his mouth and not anchoring my seat into the saddle as I should. Floyd gets so strong on his forehand that I resort to sheer brute force to stop him. This is bad." The first part of learning how to do something right is recognizing what you are doing wrong!
Unfortunately, my struggles with jumping continued. Most of my trouble came from falling badly, again another story on its own, but also from the snide comments of riders in my lessons who felt they were much better than I was. They probably were better at riding over fences than I was, but I let their mean comments undermine my confidence which caused my riding to get worse, not better. The last jumping journal entry is no different from the others and begins, "Have I mentioned that I HATE WRITING JOURNAL ENTRIES!" Hence, my love of Dressage began to take over.
There are some other journal entries that are amusing or interesting enough to share but this post is approaching ridiculous proportions so I'll end now and write another at a later time. Unlike writing journal entries, I do not hate writing blog posts.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Good Sports
There is a story I feel like sharing because it has to do with poor sportsmanship. There have been some wonderful displays of good sportsmanship at some shows I've been to and I'll provide a couple of examples of those as well. No matter your level of expertise, the value of your horse or the rating of your competition, good sportsmanship should be part of your game plan. Good sportsmanship includes being polite to your fellow competitors as well as your trainer, your parents, your students, and certainly the judge and show staff, but also to your horse. Unfortunately, I have succumbed to pressure and nerves at horse shows and been snappy and whiney on more than one occasion but have always been very sorry and felt like a complete troll afterward. For the most part, I try (and sometimes it's not easy) to be a Golden Rule participant.
This one situation came to mind as I was writing about some of my shows with Raffles. We started participating in a series of shows mostly populated by Arabs, Morgans and Saddlebreds. In particular, I started participating in these shows to do the Road Hack class. With Raffles big trot, and Dressage horse adjustability, I *thought* we would be a shoe-in for the blue. What I didn't factor in, was Raffles' giant ego and spontaneity. If you're not familiar with Road Hack, it's basically a pleasure class judged on the horse's manners, gaits and tractability. Along with the normal walk, trot and canter, the horse also has to perform an extended trot, hand-gallop, halt and rein-back (backing up). The horse has to do this all obediently but with the equivalent of stage-presence.
In every Road Hack class we had entered something not only kept us from winning, but sometimes kept us out of the ribbons altogether. Raffles would either break from extended trot to canter, or buck during the hand gallop, or spook, or throw in a couple of lead changes because he's fancy like that. It didn't help that the class was always held late at night under the lights which not only inflated his ego but exaggerated anything he might consider spooky also. Road Hack became my albatross. We were totally capable of winning yet couldn't quite get there. We watched a lot of familiar horses take the blue time after time.
Then there was one night, when I had been having a perfectly miserable day/show/week when we put in the ride of our lives. Raffles was spot on. He was flawless. He moved with power but grace. He responded to my slightest aids. He was consistent, stunning and perfect. Despite all of this, while waiting for the placings to be announced, I was still having not just butterflies but pterodactyls in my stomach. You never know, at these type of shows, whether the judge likes your horse (despite a stellar performance) or whether any of the other competitors performed even better than your horse, or whether the judge even noticed you.
When the announcer called Raffles name as first, I just about cried. We had finally won the class after years of trying. There was never time when I needed that win to lift my spirits more. I was relieved and bursting with pride. I knew that we had earned the win and was on cloud nine leaving the ring.
There was an ice cream social for all the competitors after the Road Hack class which was the last one of the evening. After tucking my horse in with lots of extra carrots, I joined the crowd and heard many congratulatory remarks from Raffles' fans as I made my way to a seat. I sat next to one of the more well-known trainers and she, as many others did, congratulated me on my win but then, in the same breathe said, "You wouldn't have won if my horse had been in there."
My little euphoria balloon deflated and puddled around my feet. With that one remark, she belittled everything I had worked towards for years. What's worse, is that I let her remark take away my joy. It may have been true, or maybe not. Her horse was also a very talented animal, but like Raffles, also had a habit of showing a little too much exuberance in Road Hack. So in the future, fellow equestrians, please remember to pay a compliment and then zip it.
Now, I'll leave that behind me and share some stories of exemplary sportsmanship. My favorite comes from a little fun show for some pony-campers, all about 5-7 years old. They played relay games and Mother May I and were awarded their ribbons. After the classes the kids would all mill around and trade ribbons so that they each got their favorite color.
At another show, one of the horses I was bringing for students to ride, injured herself in the trailer. 2 people at the show offered to let those kids use their horses instead. The kids rode the borrowed horses, that they had never ridden before, and did not complain. They didn't win anything, but they were thrilled with the opportunity to ride some new horses.
At several shows, I have shown up without a girth or Dressage whip or boots and there has always been someone willing to loan me the needed items.
For every curmudgeon or naysayer out there, there are three other people that restore my faith in the equestrian community.
This one situation came to mind as I was writing about some of my shows with Raffles. We started participating in a series of shows mostly populated by Arabs, Morgans and Saddlebreds. In particular, I started participating in these shows to do the Road Hack class. With Raffles big trot, and Dressage horse adjustability, I *thought* we would be a shoe-in for the blue. What I didn't factor in, was Raffles' giant ego and spontaneity. If you're not familiar with Road Hack, it's basically a pleasure class judged on the horse's manners, gaits and tractability. Along with the normal walk, trot and canter, the horse also has to perform an extended trot, hand-gallop, halt and rein-back (backing up). The horse has to do this all obediently but with the equivalent of stage-presence.
In every Road Hack class we had entered something not only kept us from winning, but sometimes kept us out of the ribbons altogether. Raffles would either break from extended trot to canter, or buck during the hand gallop, or spook, or throw in a couple of lead changes because he's fancy like that. It didn't help that the class was always held late at night under the lights which not only inflated his ego but exaggerated anything he might consider spooky also. Road Hack became my albatross. We were totally capable of winning yet couldn't quite get there. We watched a lot of familiar horses take the blue time after time.
Then there was one night, when I had been having a perfectly miserable day/show/week when we put in the ride of our lives. Raffles was spot on. He was flawless. He moved with power but grace. He responded to my slightest aids. He was consistent, stunning and perfect. Despite all of this, while waiting for the placings to be announced, I was still having not just butterflies but pterodactyls in my stomach. You never know, at these type of shows, whether the judge likes your horse (despite a stellar performance) or whether any of the other competitors performed even better than your horse, or whether the judge even noticed you.
When the announcer called Raffles name as first, I just about cried. We had finally won the class after years of trying. There was never time when I needed that win to lift my spirits more. I was relieved and bursting with pride. I knew that we had earned the win and was on cloud nine leaving the ring.
There was an ice cream social for all the competitors after the Road Hack class which was the last one of the evening. After tucking my horse in with lots of extra carrots, I joined the crowd and heard many congratulatory remarks from Raffles' fans as I made my way to a seat. I sat next to one of the more well-known trainers and she, as many others did, congratulated me on my win but then, in the same breathe said, "You wouldn't have won if my horse had been in there."
My little euphoria balloon deflated and puddled around my feet. With that one remark, she belittled everything I had worked towards for years. What's worse, is that I let her remark take away my joy. It may have been true, or maybe not. Her horse was also a very talented animal, but like Raffles, also had a habit of showing a little too much exuberance in Road Hack. So in the future, fellow equestrians, please remember to pay a compliment and then zip it.
Now, I'll leave that behind me and share some stories of exemplary sportsmanship. My favorite comes from a little fun show for some pony-campers, all about 5-7 years old. They played relay games and Mother May I and were awarded their ribbons. After the classes the kids would all mill around and trade ribbons so that they each got their favorite color.
At another show, one of the horses I was bringing for students to ride, injured herself in the trailer. 2 people at the show offered to let those kids use their horses instead. The kids rode the borrowed horses, that they had never ridden before, and did not complain. They didn't win anything, but they were thrilled with the opportunity to ride some new horses.
At several shows, I have shown up without a girth or Dressage whip or boots and there has always been someone willing to loan me the needed items.
For every curmudgeon or naysayer out there, there are three other people that restore my faith in the equestrian community.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Drill Bit
Lately I've seen some pretty amazing drill team exhibitions on youtube which gets me excited about working with the drill team riders here. Not that we'll be jumping through hoops of fire like the London Metropolitan Mounted Policemen (or will we...?) but there are other ways of getting the crowd's attention, and keeping it.
Drill team has always been something I loved coaching, but I think I've only ever ridden in two of them. One was during college when some classmates and I were chosen to ride a Quadrille for an open house. We rode to "Bolero" and my mount was a gorgeous TB gelding named Star Trek. He was a stunningly good looking horse with an unfortunate name and severe lack of coordination. The cantering parts of the drill were always a bit hair-raising for me.
Despite all raised hairs, I enjoyed it tremendously and from then on, wherever possible, I worked drill rides into lessons. First were the little Summer Camp riders who managed to learn a drill within just a few days. Then there were Quadrille teams that rode a pre-determined test, and then larger drills with 6 or 8 riders and smaller drills with only two. I rode in the two horse drill (technically a pas-de-deux) with one of my students. I rode Raffles and she rode Dancer. Raffles is a 16.2 hh beefcake Swedish Warmblood. Dancer is a 12 hh Welsh Pony. Taking their sizes and personalities into consideration, we performed our ride to two songs. One was Fred Astaire's "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" for which we rode very sweet patterns where we would ride apart, come together, part again and finally sway through a series of intricate circles. Then the music switched over to "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better". Cue the hilarity. With spunky little Dancer upstaging him at every moment, Raffles and I wove a pattern of diagonals, leg yields, and changes of direction. A few years later, I did a reprisal of the ride with a different student (student #1 had outgrown the pony) and with a different horse. Raffles was stricken with a hoof abscess so at the last second, Vanessa had to pinch hit. She was also a big horse so the visual was similar, but without Raffles' machismo the effect wasn't quite the same. Also, I made a few mistakes. And Dancer wouldn't go through the puddles in the ring. Overall, it was not a polished performance. Let's just leave it at that.
Choosing the music is a big part of having a crowd-pleasing drill ride. Hoops of fire don't hurt either, but as I said earlier, we're not doing that (or are we...?). The music has to have the same tempo and rhythm of the gaits used, and it has to be recognizable and lively. In the most drills, we rode the drill to fit the music. The pre-determined Quadrilles were tricking because we couldn't alter the ride to fit the music so we had to find music to fit the ride. Fancy-schmancy computer programs are available to edit music to the length of the ride, and to blend different songs together to fit the different gaits, but my computer skills are neither schmancy nor fancy so I always had to adapt the ride to the music. Which meant that all the riders had to put up with last minute choreography changes.
"Hey guys, that last part that took you two weeks to learn.... that's got to be longer so we're going to add two more circles. Right in the middle. In the other direction. At the canter. Ready?"
Without fail, every drill rider learned their pattern, with all last minute changes, better than I did. Even though I was the one that made it up and coached it every week.
Some of the choices we've made for music were; the theme from Top Gun, music from the movie Jurassic Park, a 1980's techno remix of Puttin' On the Ritz, Hawaiian music from the movie Lilo & Stitch, ragtime music from the movie, The Sting, and one piece of music by a veritable deity of British rock & roll - Gary Glitter. We had some classic drill moves like the Wheel, Obliques, and Thread the Needle, but also some I dreamed up and labeled as Crashing Diagonals, the Shuffle, and the Roll-back Reverse. I wish I had video of each of the rides my students have done over the years. There are a few on youtube, but most were done before youtube was mainstream. I'm sure there is a rider or two that is secretly not too sad about that.
Without fail, the day of the actual performance, one of the horses would get overly excited by the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, and flip his lid. Usually, that horse is the same one that was too slow to keep up with the other horses during the 3 months of practice thereby catching his hapless rider completely off guard. My efforts at keeping my mouth shut, as the drill was performed, gave way with shouts of "Stay in line! Stay in line! Sit back! Hang on! Stay in Line!"
Every ride has been memorable for me and at every performance, I've had more jitters than my riders. Every ride had me bursting with pride (and relief) at the end, and applauding like a fool. I look forward to many more opportunities to applaud like a prideful, relieved fool.
Drill team has always been something I loved coaching, but I think I've only ever ridden in two of them. One was during college when some classmates and I were chosen to ride a Quadrille for an open house. We rode to "Bolero" and my mount was a gorgeous TB gelding named Star Trek. He was a stunningly good looking horse with an unfortunate name and severe lack of coordination. The cantering parts of the drill were always a bit hair-raising for me.
Despite all raised hairs, I enjoyed it tremendously and from then on, wherever possible, I worked drill rides into lessons. First were the little Summer Camp riders who managed to learn a drill within just a few days. Then there were Quadrille teams that rode a pre-determined test, and then larger drills with 6 or 8 riders and smaller drills with only two. I rode in the two horse drill (technically a pas-de-deux) with one of my students. I rode Raffles and she rode Dancer. Raffles is a 16.2 hh beefcake Swedish Warmblood. Dancer is a 12 hh Welsh Pony. Taking their sizes and personalities into consideration, we performed our ride to two songs. One was Fred Astaire's "Dancing Cheek to Cheek" for which we rode very sweet patterns where we would ride apart, come together, part again and finally sway through a series of intricate circles. Then the music switched over to "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better". Cue the hilarity. With spunky little Dancer upstaging him at every moment, Raffles and I wove a pattern of diagonals, leg yields, and changes of direction. A few years later, I did a reprisal of the ride with a different student (student #1 had outgrown the pony) and with a different horse. Raffles was stricken with a hoof abscess so at the last second, Vanessa had to pinch hit. She was also a big horse so the visual was similar, but without Raffles' machismo the effect wasn't quite the same. Also, I made a few mistakes. And Dancer wouldn't go through the puddles in the ring. Overall, it was not a polished performance. Let's just leave it at that.
Choosing the music is a big part of having a crowd-pleasing drill ride. Hoops of fire don't hurt either, but as I said earlier, we're not doing that (or are we...?). The music has to have the same tempo and rhythm of the gaits used, and it has to be recognizable and lively. In the most drills, we rode the drill to fit the music. The pre-determined Quadrilles were tricking because we couldn't alter the ride to fit the music so we had to find music to fit the ride. Fancy-schmancy computer programs are available to edit music to the length of the ride, and to blend different songs together to fit the different gaits, but my computer skills are neither schmancy nor fancy so I always had to adapt the ride to the music. Which meant that all the riders had to put up with last minute choreography changes.
"Hey guys, that last part that took you two weeks to learn.... that's got to be longer so we're going to add two more circles. Right in the middle. In the other direction. At the canter. Ready?"
Without fail, every drill rider learned their pattern, with all last minute changes, better than I did. Even though I was the one that made it up and coached it every week.
Some of the choices we've made for music were; the theme from Top Gun, music from the movie Jurassic Park, a 1980's techno remix of Puttin' On the Ritz, Hawaiian music from the movie Lilo & Stitch, ragtime music from the movie, The Sting, and one piece of music by a veritable deity of British rock & roll - Gary Glitter. We had some classic drill moves like the Wheel, Obliques, and Thread the Needle, but also some I dreamed up and labeled as Crashing Diagonals, the Shuffle, and the Roll-back Reverse. I wish I had video of each of the rides my students have done over the years. There are a few on youtube, but most were done before youtube was mainstream. I'm sure there is a rider or two that is secretly not too sad about that.
Without fail, the day of the actual performance, one of the horses would get overly excited by the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, and flip his lid. Usually, that horse is the same one that was too slow to keep up with the other horses during the 3 months of practice thereby catching his hapless rider completely off guard. My efforts at keeping my mouth shut, as the drill was performed, gave way with shouts of "Stay in line! Stay in line! Sit back! Hang on! Stay in Line!"
Every ride has been memorable for me and at every performance, I've had more jitters than my riders. Every ride had me bursting with pride (and relief) at the end, and applauding like a fool. I look forward to many more opportunities to applaud like a prideful, relieved fool.
Monday, January 17, 2011
It's been a while since I wrote anything here. The holidays kept me busy and I also started a new job. It's not exactly a new job, because it's still teaching and training horses and riders, but new in the capacity that I will get paid for it. At my stable, every penny I earn goes right back into the stable in the form of hay, grain, shavings and the like. At this job, there is no overhead so it's actually profit. The money still goes back into my farm, but at least it came from somewhere else.
The new job is slightly different, in that I will be specifically teaching students about training horses. Whether we like it or not, every time we are in the presence of a horse, we are training it. Horses constantly learn from people. They learn good stuff and they learn bad stuff but they are always learning. A horse is never "trained". You can say he's been trained or had training, that is all true, but a horse is never done being trained. Horses never lose training either. Training can get buried, but it's still there. Horses don't forget but they need constant reminding of skills they've learned.
Just because a horse has learned a certain behavior from one person does not mean he will exhibit the same with a different person. For example, one of the school ponies, Dancer, is a perfectly pleasant, polite pony when I lead her around the farm. As soon as she gets a small child at the end of her rope, she turns into Thomas the Tank Engine and drags the unfortunate victim from one food source to the next. It doesn't even matter whether or not it's a standard pony food source either. Dancer has been known to devour the duck food if the bowl is within child-dragging distance.
With consistent one on one training, a horse may maintain that level of training for a short time when presented with a new handler/rider. If the new person doesn't keep up the level of leadership, the horse will start to learn other behaviors. A horse will always rise or sink to the level of it's trainer.
There is no such thing as an un-trainable horse. A horse always has the capacity to learn. There are horses who are not physically or mentally capable of learning what it is the trainer is trying to teach. A frantic, nervous horse is not going to learn much of anything in that state so he first needs to be calm. A 10 hh pony is not going to learn to jump a 5' oxer. Even if he is calm. Not all people are cut out to help a horse learn how to be a good citizen or accomplished athlete. Some horses take more time, some take more patience, but they all learn. They learn even when we are not actively teaching. Horses don't take time-outs from learning. Training doesn't just happen in the saddle. Training happens from the second that horse notices you're there. In the paddock, on the crossties, being groomed, being tacked up... it's all training, all the time. If a person expects the horse to consistently behave a certain way, than it is the person's responsibility to allow that to happen. Carol Lavell, an Olympic medalist, once told me in a lesson, that the training process is like a teacher with a classroom full of children. That teacher can not let those children do as they please for two days, letting them climb the bookshelves, throw pencils, scream and run, punch each other, dance on the desks and so on, and then on the third day tell them they must now sit quietly at their desks and pay attention to their long division. There is no routine, no respect and no training going on when you let the horse do as he pleases for 30 minutes and then for the next 30 expect him to obey your every whim. That doesn't fly with horses. Or children.
As a trainer, you can't even allow an unwanted behavior to carry on for several minutes before you decide to do something about it. If you let a horse nip at you 3 times before telling him to quit, all he's learned is that he can bite you 3 times, but not 4. He does not associate the correction with the first bite because it didn't come immediately following the first bite. Even worse, is rewarding a horse for a behavior that is unacceptable. When a horse is pawing on the crossties and his handler settles him down by petting him and giving him a cookie, he's just learned that if he paws, he'll get attention and a cookie. If he's pawing and I go to him and immediately ask him to back up and then come forward and then back up and then come forward... for a little while, he'll associate the pawing with having to work a little harder and will choose to stand still instead. Then he can have a cookie.
If I could get a cookie for standing still, I don't think I'd ever move.
The new job is slightly different, in that I will be specifically teaching students about training horses. Whether we like it or not, every time we are in the presence of a horse, we are training it. Horses constantly learn from people. They learn good stuff and they learn bad stuff but they are always learning. A horse is never "trained". You can say he's been trained or had training, that is all true, but a horse is never done being trained. Horses never lose training either. Training can get buried, but it's still there. Horses don't forget but they need constant reminding of skills they've learned.
Just because a horse has learned a certain behavior from one person does not mean he will exhibit the same with a different person. For example, one of the school ponies, Dancer, is a perfectly pleasant, polite pony when I lead her around the farm. As soon as she gets a small child at the end of her rope, she turns into Thomas the Tank Engine and drags the unfortunate victim from one food source to the next. It doesn't even matter whether or not it's a standard pony food source either. Dancer has been known to devour the duck food if the bowl is within child-dragging distance.
With consistent one on one training, a horse may maintain that level of training for a short time when presented with a new handler/rider. If the new person doesn't keep up the level of leadership, the horse will start to learn other behaviors. A horse will always rise or sink to the level of it's trainer.
There is no such thing as an un-trainable horse. A horse always has the capacity to learn. There are horses who are not physically or mentally capable of learning what it is the trainer is trying to teach. A frantic, nervous horse is not going to learn much of anything in that state so he first needs to be calm. A 10 hh pony is not going to learn to jump a 5' oxer. Even if he is calm. Not all people are cut out to help a horse learn how to be a good citizen or accomplished athlete. Some horses take more time, some take more patience, but they all learn. They learn even when we are not actively teaching. Horses don't take time-outs from learning. Training doesn't just happen in the saddle. Training happens from the second that horse notices you're there. In the paddock, on the crossties, being groomed, being tacked up... it's all training, all the time. If a person expects the horse to consistently behave a certain way, than it is the person's responsibility to allow that to happen. Carol Lavell, an Olympic medalist, once told me in a lesson, that the training process is like a teacher with a classroom full of children. That teacher can not let those children do as they please for two days, letting them climb the bookshelves, throw pencils, scream and run, punch each other, dance on the desks and so on, and then on the third day tell them they must now sit quietly at their desks and pay attention to their long division. There is no routine, no respect and no training going on when you let the horse do as he pleases for 30 minutes and then for the next 30 expect him to obey your every whim. That doesn't fly with horses. Or children.
As a trainer, you can't even allow an unwanted behavior to carry on for several minutes before you decide to do something about it. If you let a horse nip at you 3 times before telling him to quit, all he's learned is that he can bite you 3 times, but not 4. He does not associate the correction with the first bite because it didn't come immediately following the first bite. Even worse, is rewarding a horse for a behavior that is unacceptable. When a horse is pawing on the crossties and his handler settles him down by petting him and giving him a cookie, he's just learned that if he paws, he'll get attention and a cookie. If he's pawing and I go to him and immediately ask him to back up and then come forward and then back up and then come forward... for a little while, he'll associate the pawing with having to work a little harder and will choose to stand still instead. Then he can have a cookie.
If I could get a cookie for standing still, I don't think I'd ever move.
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