Standing up for myself

So it started like this. T has been having lessons for a few months now, and has been keeping me up to date on what he is learning each time. The other week the riding school were short an instructor so a 30min private lesson turned into an hour group lesson. As part of this he was telling me the instructor had people doing "standing trot"... standing in their stirrups for one circuit of the school.

I got a bit nostalgic remembering days of long long cross country canters in half-seat, or lessons when I was doing my BHSAI where we had short short stirrups and had to work out of the saddle to improve our lower leg, strength, balance etc.

Was I still up to it ? I knew I would probably want to try it out.

Now Fi has a tendency to be a bit spooky - I rarely do work without stirrups because it is just too risky unless it is a fine day, but not too sunny, with no wind, no scary pheasants etc etc. The safest place to be is *in* the saddle. In addition, despite her main issue being her left hock (DJD), she has then shown some lameness in the front (probably adjusting to "save" her back leg). And doing work in a forward seat would put more weight on her forehand, which might not be such a good idea.

Fi's right canter is her biggest problem - because of the left hock. Recently she has been struggling and braking gait. (A lesson back in the summer suggested this was tension in her back). She also has a tendency to be a bit stuffy in trot until she warms up.

So I was a bit uncertain how this would work out.

But I figured it was worth a try so did a bit of a warm up and then had a go. And all of a sudden the stuffy trot started moving a bit better, and a bit better, and there we were.... with a nice big swinging trot !!

Hmmm..... interesting. Same thing on the other rein. And then we tried canter.
Right canter is still not as strong or consistent. She isn't as straight and I suspect that in trying to straighten her up, I sometimes make things worse instead.

But it really did make a difference. And it wasn't just a fluke as I added it in to my warm up this week as well.

Even better, I didn't ache after :)

I have been trying to build up her work and fitness. Previously canter has been a case of one 20m circle, or one circuit of the school (40x20) on a good day. But we've been working up to 3 full circuits on her good rein, and two on her worse rein. As her fitness is improving, we're managing to do longer sessions (40-50 mins) and with more fast work. I still don't think she is fit enough, nor is her right canter ok enough, to do a dressage test yet. But she (touch wood) does seem to be staying sounder on D&H Mobility.

The downside is that the mild weather we have been having (I'm not complaining !) means that even her limited fluffiness means she is getting hot and sweaty. I clipped a "key hole" from her neck and chest today so no doubt that is the cue for some frosts :(

In other news...

Rosie is down to just heartbar shoes with no gel pad support. She will probably have her feet x-rayed at the end of the month to see how any recovery is going.

Duds is enjoying getting to toddle around the stubble field and the girls are now very used to this and don't really fuss about him being away any more.

Last worm counts were low for Rosie and Duds but medium (1150 epg) for Fi. Fi got wormed and retested and is back to <50 epg.

Retraining Racehorses - Yogi Briesner

I didn't get to see the whole demo - a late start due to microphones (which he ended up not using) compounded by a fire alarm, and on a school night, meant I had to leave on time just as the second group was settling in to work.

But what I did see was interesting. Many of the things he showed as exercises were not "racehorse specific".

Yogi started by making clear his view on racehorses, that they were basically well educated and with a high level of exposure so tended to be quite level headed. None of the five horses in the first group turned a hair when the fire alarm went off. All were working in walk, trot and canter quite happily. None had been off the track for very long and one was even still in a racing saddle (and looking for a new home !).

What they didn't tend to know about was hand and leg aids, as they had been required to do was run fast in one direction. Yogi recommended a "simple uncomplicated" approach. So for example, soft hands and sit up to stop, legs to go - and then gradually reduce the space between the two sets of aids.

He was keen for the horses to work as a group as he felt they learnt from each other - plus it echoed their previously training.

He explained that horses were creatures of habit so he would use a plan for training, repeat a lot, and be consistent.

The natural instinct of a young horse is to push into pressure. A steady leg aid could lead to the horse leaning in to the leg rather than moving away. Whereas a sharp "poke" would get a response away.

Racehorses "go" until the end so they need to learn to go, stop, go, stop. Yogi used plenty of walk trot transition to work on that.

When jumping the horses need to learn to adjust their stride into the jump and Yogi used a simple set up of 2 fences with 3 strides between to work on that. He explained how he liked to see a horse "pad" the ground in front of the jump as they adjusted their stride. A horse will
- look (drop their head)
- adjust (move their feet)
- avoid (the obstacle) (jump)

They also need to learn to jump on their own, and he made sure they didn't always follow a lead horse.