We offer coaching and training for basics,dressage, show jumping and cross country. All training facilities are on the property, all ages and abilities welcome.
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Specialising in beginners, nervous riders and returning riders. Agistment also available.
Very good article, particularly the part about concerntrating on your position and use of your aids if your horse is feeling tense or spooky.
Tension is a mark-losing problem that most dressage riders have experienced. Use our simple exercises to help reduce tension and get your horse to relax.
We are selling our beautiful horse property. 18 acres with sand dressage arena with shade cloth cover, grass show jump paddock, training cross country jumps. Undercover tack up area, double wash bay. Four large grassy paddocks all with shelters and water troughs. Separate full granny flat could be used for managers quarters or rented out. https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-ourimbah-138913767
Halting is a movement that seems easy, but it is not. It’s found in every test from Training Level to Grand Prix, so practice perfect halts without overdoing it and creating anticipation. Halting Crooked: Many times a rider can place the horse on the centerline, but in the halt the horse’s haunc...
There are two essential upper-body skills to learn so that you can maintain an ideal balance and support your horse in his movements to the best of your ability.
Face book memory from 2016. Harry and I jumping at home.
Vienna and Elliott 🦄🦄🤩
A lovely day on Saturday at Fernances Creek. Show jumping in the morning followed by a lovely lunch with XC in the afternoon. Shared with good friends Linda Greenwood, Liz Jeffrey 😁
3 steps to transform on-the-forehand to (more) on-the-hind-end – and what it feels like.
May as well do some 2 point seat riding and the ditch in my dressage saddle 😆
Some long and low work around my paddock today.
Learn to correct a tight neck by riding your horse forward and downward to the hand.
First outing in a while. Took my new pony Elliott to Berrima. Lovely day with friends Marisa McKinnon and Joanne Purdue. The pony a bit fresh and excited.
Now that we have reached 70% double vaccinated I can start coaching again as from next Monday. 🥳🥳🥳🙂Video of my show jumping round on Harry at Berrima, last ODE that I went to in 2020.
Information from Equestrian NSW - The NSW Government has announced the roadmap for easing restrictions as NSW reaches the 80 per cent double dose target.
From the Monday after NSW hits the 80 per cent (aged 16 and over) double dose vaccination target, eased restrictions will allow those who are fully vaccinated to have up to 10 people visit their home, participate in community sport, and access hospitality venues (where drinking while standing up will be allowed indoors). All premises will operate at 1 person per 4sqm indoors, and 1 person per 2sqm outdoors.
I think this explanation of contact is a good read. Advocating a light feel in the hand rather than heaviness in the hand that can lead to a fixed and rigid outline. 🙂
Contact is DYNAMIC not FIXED
As a dressage rider myself, I feel I can call us out for being one of the worst offenders of this as riders.
We tend to hold contact too rigidly, and for too long, in a stagnant frame that lacks actual SELF carriage.
Contact is a reference point towards SELF carriage and balance. If constant weighted contact is required to hold your horse in a frame, I'm going to question how much SELF carriage the horse actually has.
It is a common question in the dressage world "How much weight should I feel in my hands with contact?"
Short answer...NONE.
Or as Charles de Kunffy says "The rider should merely feel the weight of the bit or reins in soft, closed hands... So long as there is weight that must be held or sustained by the rider, the horse is not in self carriage."
It is the norm that many dressage riders feel POUNDS of weight in their hands on the regular, and some even feel this to be a "good" thing.
Their is no SELF carriage in weighted, strong, or FIXED contact.
Dynamic means "a process or system characterized by constant change."
If your contact is not changing enough, it goes from a reference point of balance and SELF carriage, to a park bench of stagnant leaning and dependency.
Now of course there will be moments of heaviness or tension as the horse is learning to supple and balance. But as the horse develops, you should be feeling more and more lightness as the horse educates into more moments of self carriage. If more then 50% of you're ride is routinely heavy or strong, then you're likely not working towards self carriage.
Here are some photos of two developing horses. Look at how many times the contact and frame changes in a single ride. There are moments of heaviness, moments of lightness, and I am constantly changing the frame to help the horse lengthen or lighten within changes of balance. It's a very dynamic conversation, not a fixed position or frame.
I found this essay really hard to write clearly. The nuances of the topic can become a little muddied. I’ve struggled to put into words what is clear in my mind. I hope I’ve done a better job at weaving the thread of ideas together than I feel I have.
_____________________
There seems to be some confusion in the horse industry that certain training methods are kinder and more gentle than others. For example, the reason many people are attracted to positive reinforcement techniques is that they mistakenly believe they offer a kinder and less stressful approach than negative reinforcement methods such as pressure and release.
I want to say that if two or more methods are equally effective in modifying behaviour one method is no more gentle than another. When a method is done well it is a myth that some approaches are kinder to a horse than others. I emphasize this on the one condition that a method is “done well” (which I will explain in more detail later in this essay).
All horse training incorporates the metaphoric “stick and carrot” principle. It balances a little bit of stick with a little bit of carrot. The stick is emotional discomfort. And the carrot is emotional comfort. The stick is designed to motivate a horse to search for an answer to a question, eg, can you move here or can you go faster? The carrot is intended to make the horse feel that its answer was a good idea. This is so it will give us the same answer the next time we ask the same question.
Training is always a balance between how much stick and how much carrot to use.
People get confused by what type of stick and what type of carrot they should use. But in their raw fundamental state, the stick and the carrot always work through the same mechanism to change a horse’s thought. It doesn’t matter if your stick is physical pressure or emotional pressure. It doesn’t matter if your stick is applied with the principles of positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. No matter what type of stick you use, the stick’s sole role is to always elevate emotional discomfort. And the carrot's only function is to alleviate the emotional discomfort. It’s irrelevant whether the carrot is in the form of removal of the stick or the application of a reward. The purpose of the carrot, in any form, is always to reduce anxiety and create comfort.
Later on, when the training is more established the stick is replaced by a cue and the horse experiences little or no emotional discomfort when we ask it a question. Likewise, the carrot disappears and there is only the removal of the cue or the substitution of another cue with little or no anxiety. But this is only after the “stick and carrot” principle has given clarity to our cues. In the training stages of teaching clarity, we rely on the addition or removal of emotional comfort to modify our horse’s responses. However, later on, emotional discomfort should not be part of creating changes in our horse’s thoughts and responses.
Emotional discomfort is the prime motivator for modifying behaviour whether it is the anxiety caused in the hunt for a reward or the hunt for a release. It’s all driven by a horse’s emotional discomfort, anxiety, worry, or whatever you want to call it.
So how much emotional discomfort do we need to motivate a search AND how much comfort do we need to offer for it to feel like a “good deal” to a horse and bring clarity to the search?
The answer is not simple. Emotional comfort exists on a scale. The scale runs from anxiety being barely noticeable at one end to creating a feeling of life and death at the other extreme. Somewhere between those two extremes lies a level of discomfort that motivates a horse to search for a response that is different from its present behaviour. This level of discomfort is called "the threshold discomfort". It’s the absolute minimum amount of emotional discomfort a horse needs to cause it to let go of its thought and search for a new idea and response. Anything less results in zero search and anything more verges on punishment, over-reaction, and damage to the relationship.
The threshold discomfort may sometimes be a lot of anxiety and other times a minuscule amount depending on how strongly a horse feels it needs to cling to the thought it already possesses to stay safe. But the threshold discomfort is always independent of the method we use to create it. The threshold discomfort may vary from horse to horse, situation to situation, and even moment to moment. It is always changing. Nevertheless, it is the same no matter the method of training. As long as we try to work at the level of the threshold discomfort no method is kinder or crueler than another.
To find the threshold discomfort, and not go past it into deeper trouble, we should ask for a change of thought that is as close as possible to the thought the horse already has. When we have established clarity by helping the horse associate emotional comfort with the change of thought, we add another layer by asking for another change thought close to the one it already has. In this way, we add layer upon layer until we get the result we want while never imposing anything more than the threshold level of discomfort.
For example, if I want to teach my horse to place one foot over a pole and stop I might begin with applying a threshold level of discomfort to teach it to stand 1m from the pole. Then I might teach it to walk over a pole using only the threshold level of discomfort. Then I might teach it to stop in front of the pole before has walked over the pole. Then I might teach it to walk towards the pole, stopping and waiting with each footfall before asking for another step. Then I might ask it to stop in front of the pole and place only one foot over the pole and stop.
I choose each layer by how much emotional discomfort I need to create a search, but not so much as to exceed the threshold level of discomfort. I don’t move to a new layer until the anxiety of the preceding layer is diminished yet I can still inspire a change of thought.
Just to summarise, all training works by inducing emotional discomfort in a horse to search for a new response and then reducing that anxiety when the horse gets it right. When the training is done well, the level of emotional discomfort doesn’t exceed the threshold amount required to evoke a change of thought and a search. Every training method depends on this and none are more gentle or cruel than the other if this principle is applied.
It’s true that developing “correct” impulsion may take years to fully learn and understand. But that doesn’t mean that even the most novice rider can’t learn it at the…
Kortez doesnt want to get his feet wet 😊
Jamie and Kofi playing in the mud 😩
Has your instructor ever told you to shorten your reins?
Jamie has the most beautiful up hill canter to sit on, just love it, very comfortable. 😊
I might be luckier than some as I can ride at home. Hope everybody is not going too stir crazy with lockdown. After a few days of gale force winds, back into it, riding and training my warm blood gelding Jamie aka New World Baryshnikov. 😍🐴
Australias top-ranked equestrian show jumper was overlooked for the Tokyo Olympic team in favour of a rider with sponsorship links to a national selector.
// Tuesday Training Tip - Riding circles //
When riding a circle, it is important to know its size and diameter to work out where those touchpoints are. The letters of the arena are there as a guide, they are situated around the outside, but also on the centre line. If you have trouble, place cones at these touchpoints and ride from one cone to another.
To ride a 20m circle at B on the left rein:
🐴 Start at B (touchpoint 1), aim to cross the centre line 2m towards X from I (touchpoint 2), then
🐴 Aim for E (touchpoint 3),
🐴 Then aim to cross the centre line 2m from L towards X (touchpoint 4) and then,
🐴 Back to B.
To make the circle round, aim to stay on each touchpoint for three steps.
In the beginning, just steer first (ride your line) and then work on speed. You will notice that most horses will stall as they leave the wall or edge of the arena, and also as they return to the wall. This can happen four times on the circle at B, so you can see how important it is to correct these variations in rhythm! They may shorten the stride or slow the tempo, so aim to keep your seat action the same. If he shortens, your seat action will also shorten and, if he slows the tempo, you will feel like pushing more.
Notice these feelings and respond by quickening or slowing appropriately. You will soon find that your circles will become round and the ‘egg shape’ will disappear.
Once rhythm is self-maintained in turns, flexion and bend can now be targeted, as well as lateral movements. By adding these components, your training will improve and you will be ready to start working on the next step of the shaping scale: Straightness. Your marks will improve again.
This is an excerpt of the article series 'Boost Your Dressage Scores', available to purchase here: https://www.esi-education.com/product/boost-your-dressage-scores-article-series-1-14/
Have been a bit busy lately coaching and dressage judging. Fiona having a flat work lesson on her lovely calm boy 🦄 👍😊
Annette and Teddy starting their cross country jumping lessons. Awesome combination, doing really well. 😎🐎👏😊
One of the first ‘life lessons’ that all of us riders learn from our horses is to persevere. Our mantra is “try, try again.” “Keep at it.” Maybe if you do it eno…
Magenta, NSW
2261
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Now that we have reached 70% double vaccinated I can start coaching again as from next Monday. 🥳🥳🥳🙂Video of my show jumping round on Harry at Berrima, last ODE that I went to in 2020.
Morning tea at OCE
Victoria and Rufus putting a few fences together:
Antonia and MJ flying over the bank!
An excellent sunny morning of cross country schooling at Hidden Valley with Antonia, Casey and Victoria. So much progress for all horses and riders 🤗🐎👍🏻✅ Sylvia and Harry making the bank look easy:
We offer lessons and training for people with their own horse. The basics and all 3 phases of eventing: dressage, show jumping and cross country jumping. We cater for different levels however we specialise in adult beginners/nervous riders and those returning after a break.
We can do individual private lessons or group lessons at our property which is equipped with full size Dressage arena, training Cross Country course and Showjumping arena, or we can travel to you.
From time to time, we also arrange Clinics to be held on our property, or I am available to coach at your clinic. All levels, abilities and ages of riders/horses are welcome.
Please note – we don’t have riding school horses, but have plenty of room for your float or truck, you are welcome to use our yards, wash bays and so forth so your horse is comfortable while you’re here. We also provide agistment, check for availability.
Contact us today to find out more about riding at Ourimbah Creek Equestrian.
Grow your confidence, develop your riding skills and have heaps of fun along the way!
Sylvia Gordon | EA Level 1 G coach | EA G level dressage judge
