Flying High Stables

06/13/2024

I'm re-posting last night's photos. FB randomly cropped one of them and I can't figure out (don't care to spend the time figuring out) how to fix it.

Was a good night for team FHS at the Apple Knoll Farm Equestrian Center Jumper Show

06/13/2024

Was a good day for team FHS at Apple Knoll Jumpers. :)

06/10/2024

It rained. It was still fun! :)

And the rain fell down .... If there was rain during your ride, there will be rain in your photos! Gremlins and human mistakes from being overtired are the theme so far for these proofs. I named them all w the wrong date and NOPE! I'm not renaming them all. Let the great cull begin. And remember to pre-register to be emailed once proofs are posted at this link. https://www.flatlandsfoto.com/proofs/2024-competition-proofs/apple-knoll-farm-june-horse-trials-2024/

05/28/2024

The dressage warmup area is freshly mowed as we look forward to our schooling show on June 8th! We currently do not have enough entries to run so please consider signing up and we’d appreciate if you would help us spread the word. Thank you!

This is a perfect opportunity to help prepare for the season ahead and ride your test(s) for judge (R) Leslie de Grandmaison!

https://huntington-farm.com/schooling-dressage-shows

05/09/2024

05/08/2024

Many thanks to Myler for posting this. The elimination she mentions is another unfortunate example of our governing body living in a vacuum.

05/06/2024

This. This. And more this.

04/04/2024

Today, I will do what others won't, so tomorrow, I can do what others can't.

02/07/2024

.

I hope your trainer doesn't give you what you want.

I DO hope your trainer gives you what you need, more importantly...what your horse needs.

There will always be someone willing to do it faster and flashier. There will always be someone willing to get you into the show ring on your time line instead of your horses. There will always be someone who will tell you only the things you want to hear. For the right price, there will always be someone.

I don't want that kind of someone...not for me and not for you all either.

So, choose your someone carefully.

Choose someone who values their process enough that they can't be swayed from it by demands and dollars. They know where they've been, where they're going and all of the things they've learned between. They put your horse first and show you the value in work that is centered around what the horse needs. They are your biggest supporter while remaining honest and realistic about what it takes to achieve your goals. The only promise they make, is that your horse will get better...and you will too. You pay them but at the same time, who they are at their core can't be bought. They live their truth each day, honest and humble.

That type of someone is priceless...

- Terra

📸: Logan Astrup

01/29/2024

My students will have often heard me say, "in a photo (especially over a jump) you should be able to remove the horse from the image, and see the rider is balanced enough that they wouldn't immediately fall over." Look at this photo. Caroline is in perfect position. She is not hanging on her reins - despite her horse inviting it. Her heels are as down as they can be. Her core is over her lower leg. She is as ready as she can be for whatever comes next. A great example of riding - equitation and horsemanship. I think this should be framed and put in the OHEC tackroom. :)

I love my horses for their big personalities, but sometimes that means they have their moments 🤣
thankful for sticky spray and a relentless photographer !

01/18/2024

In so many clinics the gulf between the knowledge and experience of the clinician and that of some of the participants will be so wide that it can be and enormous challenge to begin to bridge that gap, especially if it is a group lesson for perhaps one hour or one hour and 15 minutes.

As just one example of possibly hundreds, the clinician may see that one of the riders uses an inside rein to try to pull the horse around and that the horse puts its head in the air, opens its mouth, and tries to evade the pressure.

This is not an uncommon sort of scenario. If that rider were to ride with that clinician several times a week for a number of months the horse and rider would be brought back to simple basics. The clinician would explain that rigid force only makes the horse become more rigid in response. There would be weeks of quiet and systematic suppling exercises, lots of basic and gentle leg yielding, perhaps, to explain to the horse how to move gently away from pressure, Many transitions, little intensity.

And in those many months, as the inexperienced rider begins to understand concepts and philosophies of training, much that now seems an unbridgeable gulf might become much less of a struggle.

But the clinician does not have weeks and months. If the clinician pauses the session to explain intricacies that can only be learned through significant study and practice, all the other riders will be bored, probably resentful of the time being spent on just one of the riders, and the rider in question probably won't understand it anyway, because complexities can’t be understood in the absence of study..

In real life these kinds of situations arise all the time in clinics. If there is an easy answer, a realistic solution, I don't know what it is. No clinic, no matter how accomplished the clinician, can ever take the place of consistent lessons from an educated teacher.

Clinics certainly have a place. When the groups are basically even in terms of level and experience, and the clinician teaches to that level, good takeaways can happen. But many times the clinician is expected to be some sort of miracle worker, and when the miracle doesn't happen, which realistically it cannot, sometimes the clinic participant goes away feeling frustrated and disappointed.

Do not go to a clinic expecting to learn how to ride. Something that takes many months, even years, is not going to happen in a couple of hours. Hope to find a few gold nuggets? That should be possible. Hope to learn a few things to work on at home? Absolutely. But be realistic about what a clinic can and cannot do, and probably it's best not to enter a clinic when you know very little about the clinician, and if you have too high expectations that don't mesh with reality

01/17/2024

Who’s ready for show season?? Our shows are posted and ready to accept entries on our website! https://www.orchardhillequestriancenter.com/events/

01/07/2024

... -_- ... how many times have I said this over the years? Any of my current or former riders care to chime in?

UGGH---That damn “good seat” thing again---

In reading about the half halt---see prior post---the use of the rider’s seat and core musculature is cited as being critical to executing the movement correctly.

Which comes back to what LeGoff told his squad of USET 3-day riders half a century ago.

“At Saumur (French national riding academy) we had a question and answer saying---What are the THREE THINGS that a rider MUST HAVE in order to become a good rider?
1. A good seat.
2. A good seat
3. A good seat.

Having a good seat doesn’t mean you ARE a good rider, not if you read what it says. You need a good seat to BECOME a good rider, It is a prerequisite for all that follows.

What does a good seat involve? Well, generally it is the ability to sit on the back of a moving horse at all gaits, with or without stirrups, and be in harmony and balance with those movements. Good riders blend/mesh/integrate the motions of their bodies with the motions of the body of the horse.

PLUS, eventually they become adroit enough to use their deep and supple seats to actually influence the motions of the horse.

Go on Google and check out upper level dressage riding videos, Ingrid Klimke, Isabel Werth, Carl Hester, Laura Graves, Dorothee Schneider, Klaus Balkenhol, Charlotte Dujardin----

Seeing that supple and seemingly effortless flow of human body integrated into horse body is a far superior tool than reading about it. What a learning treasure we have in the internet, so we better learn how to use it.

12/25/2023

12/03/2023

How cool to see one of our favorite local therapeutic riding programs getting some well deserved recognition from the New England Patriots!

09/19/2023

Perfectly safe... :)

09/18/2023

So much fun today at The Cutter Farm! I couldn't be happier for all of the horses and their riders. Challenges met; breakthroughs made; and as you can see, the day ended with lots of smiles. It was also great to have so many from the greater barn family there - it was like the old days! :)

Feel free to tag each other and share as you like.

09/03/2023

Thanks to Alison Eastman-Lawler and her gang at Apple Tree Farm for a fun show today at Hazel Grove in Groton.
..and congratulations to these two ladies who put on their big girl breeches and went out and did the thing!

08/20/2023

Some ways to tell if a kid is truly interested in learning how to ride---

1, Does she/he volunteer to set fences in jump sets so she/he can watch?

2. Does she/he then pay attention, or does she/he keep looking at her/his phone?

3. Does the rider take on practicing working on her/his seat by dropping the stirrups and sitting the trot without having to be told to?

4. In a jumping barn, has the rider memorized the basic distances between jumps in in-and-out lines?

5. Has the rider practiced walking those distances to have an accurate stride?

These are simple examples. There's a saying that you can make someone DO something by promise of sufficient reward, or by threat of sufficient punishment, but it is impossible to make someone WANT something.

Wanting comes from within. A teacher told me years ago something along these lines---"The kids who are going to get good, you can't stop them no matter what. The kids who are not, you can give them everything, and they still won't."

So it begins more with creating motivation than actual instruction. Figure out how to do that and the rest gets easy.

08/19/2023

There must have been some sort of telepathic memo in the ether as we all dressed this morning. :)