NYE polework clinic - not my original idea but it was great fun to work with this ‘popping Champagne bottle’ layout this morning!
I had a rare weekend off to spend 2 days at the fabulous Weston Lawns Equestrian Dressage Festival hosted by Ekko Equestrian - Rebecca & Keri Bates.
This amazing inaugural event was masterminded by Keri Bishop and was the friendliest and most thoughtfully organised event I’ve ever been to - across the disciplines.
Everyone I spoke to was so friendly and genuinely encouraging - There aren’t many places you can ride a Prelim in the next arena to someone doing an Inter 1 and never feel out of place as everyone supported and applauded both arenas.
I was thrilled to have placed in all 4 classes with my boys from Prelim to Medium level with very correct and encouraging feedback from the judges, and thanks to some incredible generous sponsors brought home some huge rosettes and even had mounted presentations!
I hope this will be an annual event but meanwhile there will be a full calendar of dressage at Weston Lawns again, organised by the same team, and well worth putting into your diary!
Back to normal routine this weekend, with a few spaces left on the Polework clinic, followed by a dressage clinic the following weekend - booking online as usual at www.ivanhoeequestrian.net
A little video from a really enjoyable Gridwork clinic today, a mix of new faces and returning long term combinations and an interesting range of horses to work with.
I prefer to keep my fences quite low and work on the horses balance, confidence and comprehension.
I’m definitely not the person to visit to see just how high or wide you or your horse can jump! 😂
I won’t move the exercise forwards until your horse both understands and enjoys what is being asked, sometimes we take a step back to the flatwork basics and make sure there are no suppleness or balance issues away from the fences.
I usually end a session early, before a horse gets tired and makes unnecessary mistakes, or as soon as they have shown a clear understanding and completion of the exercise. 💡
I do try and send a lot of footage back to clients, especially in slow motion as it can be so valuable to see what is happening through the 5 phases of the jump, and in between, for both horse and rider.
My next Saturday clinic will be mid March but I am thinking of adding a weekday afternoon/evening Gridwork clinic to my schedule - would this suit anyone?
(Video starring Socks, Billy, Paddy and Grace ❤️)
ETA I know a lot of people ask about the soft poles I use as ground poles. They are an amazing addition, causing no harm or risk if the horse were to stand on them and opening up loads more proprioception and balance exercises, both on the flat and over fences, that I wouldn’t do with round poles. I buy them from Solway Showjumps (via eBay!) and will definitely add more to my collection in the future. My other fences are all from Jump4joy and are a range of standard and heavyweight poles.
I wanted to post this clip I filmed yesterday with Mythmaker as a follow up to Saturdays mounting video. Thankfully without the talking to camera bit!
This shows my mounting routine in practice and I can explain how it works in ‘real life’ situations. (Perhaps it was hard to see the useful content when Pointy stands there so quietly and politely!)
Mythy loves his game of moving his quarters sideways to the block (so much so he usually climbs on top of the block too!) and it gives him instant focus at a moment when he is quite keen to get on with work.
When I box him out to go hacking he comes off the lorry in full 🏇🏻 ‘okay where’s my race’ 🏇🏻 mode (he left racing in September as a 9 year old with £163k winnings, and he really LOVED being a racehorse!) - he’s keen to check everything out and excited to get going, standing still is not really on their agenda at that time!
I am alone so I travel him tacked up, unload and as soon as I take him to the side of the lorry and climb onto the steps to the living he instantly brings his focus from the other cars / lorries / dog walkers / people / surroundings to me, he has a fun job to do at that moment and it allows me to get on safely.
There are lots of different ways to teach this and I’ve held off a ‘tutorial’ as which method will work depends where you and your horse are with groundwork, how you normally communicate and how quick you can respond to pressure and release.
My biggest advice would be to train yourself up before experimenting on your horse. If you can learn to quickly notice cues from your horse and give the release at that exact moment I can guarantee your horse will learn this trick really quickly - and it will be so useful in so many real life situations!
Who’s seen the recent viral ‘mounting challenge’ video? Spoiler alert - I couldn’t do it but I came up with a good reason not to 😂
Here’s a short video sharing my mounting procedure with my very patient partner in crime, Pointy, and in particular how I address helping your ex-racehorse have the right mindset from the start of a session. There were so many takes (talking to your phone balanced on a jump block is super awkward 🙈) I’m surprised he hadn’t completely fallen asleep!
It’s not a tutorial of how to do this, as with many aspects of horsemanship there are many ways to teach this depending on your groundwork foundations, how you currently communicate with each other and what works for you and your horse may be completely different to the combination next to you.
There are a lot of links of YouTube - I’ll post the one that worked for me in the comments - and well known trainers such as Tristan Tucker have great courses to guide you through this.
Let me know what has worked to change your horses mindset about mounting! 💡
🎉 Happy New Year! 🎉
Now we move into 2022 and you are probably clearing up the remains of Christmas, if anyone is looking to recycle their 🎄 please do leave it by the wooden gateway - my 4 goats are always incredibly grateful for your donations!
Here’s 🐐 Bonnie and Clyde 🐐 tucking into their new year treat!
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed today’s Polework Clinic working with so many different combinations but on our common themes of rhythm, balance, suppleness and accuracy - whatever the horses stage of education, chosen discipline, or rehab goals we have worked together to find exercises to help both horse and rider improve!
My August dates will be Sunday 15th (due to dressage judging commitments on my usual Saturday date) and Saturday 28th.
Booking for the 2 rider shared sessions (£25/50 mins) will be available at www.ivanhoeequestrian.net in the next day or so.
A little snippet from this weekends Polework clinic - June dates are now fully booked and I will be publishing July dates here and on the website soon!
Saturday mornings, £25pp for a group of 2.
