Here is what I have since the infamous vanishing of my last post.
2/25,
Monday, Day off- 'School' at Panera, with a cup of coffee of course. Shopping
adventure with Rachel and Ally in the afternoon. Yes, I did go shopping and I
lasted much longer than normal (for those who dont know I have a
shopping allergy after about 20 minutes I get cranky and can even
get physical sicknesses from it. But hey thats probably a good thing :p
2/26,
Tuesday, I was lucky enough to work at Michael Barisone's for the day. After
taking an unplanned tour of Deer Run, then driving back through Deer Run to go
back the way I came only to arrive at White Fences without the gait code and
having to call in a few times I got to the stable only an hour and a half late.
I worked through my anger towards Siri by helping Michael's working students
muck stalls. Then the typical feeding and watering and sweeping. According to
the girls at the stable we made really good time so I was able to watch Michael
teach some lessons as well as ride. Once my sweeping and tack cleaning skills
were up to par, including learning and perfecting the Barisone way to hang a
bridle, I was able to take a lesson. Nick the horse chauffeur and Eleni
delivered Leo and helped me tack up, thanks guys! My lesson was focused on
keeping Leo forward and reaching towards the bit. And when something goes wrong
"dont buy into the bullsh**, just sit there and he will figure it
out!"
2/27,
Wednesday, lesson with Lendon. I also worked with Cindy on a 'machine' called a
biocored. The biocored is a series of adjustable intensity bungee
cords with handles that we attached to, in our case, a swing set.
The exercises we did use controlled instability to activate muscles,
especially those in the core. Working with Cindy also helped
to elongate my muscles and the body awareness tests we did helped me to
feel where all parts of my body were- this was great for my ride with Lendon.
In the evening we had a lecture with Don Later in the stable. Don is an
internationally know farrier. His theory on shoeing KISS, keep it simple
stupid. Well he didnt exactly say that but he does believe that the simplest
shoeing possible is the best shoeing for your horse.
2/28,
Thursday, lesson with Lendon. Lecture with Melanie Taylor an Olympic gold
medalist and World Cup winner for Show Jumping, breeder of polo ponies, and a
practitioner of Buck Brannaman’s form of natural horsemanship. Melanie told us
about her experience at the Olympic as well as her riding career but what she
seemed to be the most proud of is the difference that natural horsemanship has
made in her work with horses. Some quotes from her talk “Awareness gives you
feel. Feel gives you timing. Timing gives you accuracy. Accuracy gives you the
ride.” “The measure of a great horseman is one who searches for knowledge in
all aspects” “you cant replace a good work ethic, determination, and drive”
“Its always better if what you want is the horse’s idea first”
3/1, Friday, instead of having our usual hack day Melanie
Taylor offered to teach us in a group jump lesson. After some warm up work with
accessing the horse’s individual legs (and therefor their balance) we did
cavaletti work on angle lines and bending lines. Then Melanie had us do an
excercize in timing and communication. We paired up in groups of two and we
would each go down opposite bending lines, meeting in the middle, we started in
trot over the ground rails then transition up to canter over the x’s and back
through the other way. The goal was to have each of the riders in the group go
over the rails and do their transitions at the same exact time. I would have to
say that Nick and I were pros J. A huge thank you to Melanie for taking the time to
teach us!!
After our lesson we had a lecture/demo with horse handler
Phil Silva. Phil taught us the proper way to jog our horses for vet
inspections, everything from how to hold the reins to the proper turning
technique. Each of us were able to jog our horses in front of ‘vet’ Lendon and
‘coach’ Phil. Other than the need for a little more enthusiasm on Leo’s part
our technique was approved, looks like we are all set for our CDI :p (we should
probably get through second level first, but hey we are ready when the time
comes).
3/2, Saturday, before my ride today Melanie Taylor came out
again and did some ground work with Leo (and I). Before she works any of her horses
she takes them out in a rope halter with a twelve-foot line and does ten or
fifteen minutes of ground work. This is really just a practice in focusing the
horse to your aids. Leo really benefitted from this and we went on to have one
of our best rides ever! We were able to do much more consistent and drama free
lateral work and even did two changes (after the first one each way was clean,
after not doing changes for 2 months, we didn’t need any more J.
A big thank you to Melanie, you definitely get credit for this amazing ride!
Then part two with Phil on judging conformation. We practice
judged a few of the horses and got to hear some of Phil’s stories on his work
being a horse handler- if you ever want to hear some cool stories and have a
good talk call this guy.
3/3, Sunday, Lesson with Lendon- not as amazing as yesterday
but still pretty dang good. I started off with the groundwork again {jumping
into the future, I am doing groundwork with him every day before I ride}.
Lecture with Lisa Schmidt, “R” judge. She walked us through the process of
working up the levels of judging as well as telling us a bit about her own
journey.
It is hard to tell from the length of my summaries but if
you noticed that the last few days seemed a bit easy that would be because I
took some time to hang out with my friend Andrea D who came down from Chicago
to visit me. It was a lot of fun to show her around, we went to the beach, had
some overly large but delicious mozzarella sticks, went bowling, as well as all
kinds of other fun stuff J. Thanks for coming down Andrea-here’s your shout
out, sorry it’s so late.
3/4, Monday, today I got a much-needed massage! Sleeping on
a pullout and working with the horses for over two months has definitely made
me miss my bed back home. I also trailered in one of the new girl’s ponies from
a nearby barn. It’s late in the game but the barn is still a happening place. (even
on Mondays)
3/5, Tuesday,Today we had the wonderful opportunity to spend
the morning at Swedish rider/trainer Tinne Vilhelmsen’s stable. First off her
property is gorgeous, her use of Real trees was quite nice (there aren’t many
of those down here). Her horses and her riding were unreal. Maureen and I were
convinced that they were holograms and everything we were seeing was a lie. Besides
TInne’s beautiful seat and hands her use of transitions within movements struck
a cord with me. For example on the first horse she worked with she did
trot-walk-trot transitions within half pass and shoulder in to calm this horse
whom she told us is especially hot. Tinne is a very calm and focused rider,
which helps her quite a bit especially because she prefers the hotter horses.
One of the other horses she brought out was similar to my guy Leopold in his
personality and work ethic. It was awesome to see how she worked with this
horse to keep him confident and not get too tense and nervous in the ring. This
she said is the type horse she/we have to be the most focused on (I guess that
means I’m in store for some quality focus time).
Once we got back to the barn Lendon gave us the opportunity
to ride on our own, working with some of the things we saw. I, having watched
my horse’s uber fancy twin, chose to take that opportunity and Leo performed
well.
3/6, Wednesday, Lesson with Lendon today. Then lecture with
Arlene White in the Lox of the hatchee on horse physiotherapy. She taught us a
sort of in stable fitness routine for horse’s, especially those on stall rest.
With 30 repetitions per exercise per side she has found an impressive increase
in the muscle tone of her horses. After taking us back into the barn to
demonstrate these stretches she showed us an exercise band system that she uses
with her horses. This system consists of a buckle equipped saddle pad and two
large exercise bands, one under the horse’s belly and one behind him. This
system has worked well for her and is definitely some food for thought. Then we
all went out to buy our 20 lb bags of carrots, I see lots of stretching in the future.
3/7, Thursday, Lesson with Lendon.
Lunch and Learn. And lecture with Lauren Sammis on horse sales.
3/8, Friday, After a quick morning gallop along the polo
fields with Brittany we had a morning lecture with Bonnie Stetson on horse
massage. She has developed a ‘Currassage’ method that she taught us. It is a
basic massage using a currycomb that we can do to warm up and stretch out our
horse’s muscles before a ride.
More to come, hopefully. Things are heating up as we near the end :(
Tata for now-
Jenny