Educating Rico

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Educating Rico This page is to chart my progress training my young PRE, Rico, to become a safe, reliable and happy

Bent Branderup Clinic Oct 2023 - Part 2 (Part 1 on Bella’s page).Insecurity, Working in Lunging Position and CirclesOn t...
26/11/2023

Bent Branderup Clinic Oct 2023 - Part 2 (Part 1 on Bella’s page).

Insecurity, Working in Lunging Position and Circles

On the first day of the clinic one of the horses that Bent hadn’t seen before was working in the pouring rain (yes, they were in the UK!!). They started in groundwork position and everything went really well, but when they swapped to lunging position the horse made it clear she wanted to stay close to her owner and started getting increasingly upset when the owner kept trying to push her further out on the lunge.

After making suggestions for a short time Bent asked if they were at home and was told no, they were in an arena away from home. He said in that case the horse was probably feeling insecure and when horses are feeling insecure and want to stick close to us we should try to view it as a positive thing, even if it’s frustrating, and not try to push them away as that doesn’t feel nice to the horse.

He suggested she go back to walking backwards in groundwork position and, from that position, work on changing the rein into lunging position, then quickly ask the horse to come to her again, back to groundwork position.

He said that we should always try to train by making use of the things the horse wants to do, and use them to slowly build comfort in the things he (she, in this case) doesn’t want to do.

Doing this the horse quickly settled and became happy and focused again. Bent told her to use this strategy to,very gradually over time, increase distance and slowly build the horse’s confidence being in the lunging position.

This is a mistake I made frequently in the past with Rico. He’d start getting worried about something and get clingy, and I’d try to push him away and make some distance between us on the lunge so I didn’t get squashed. He would then lose the plot completely, take off at full speed on the end of the lunge, and often lose his feet and fall over.

This was before I discovered the AAoR work and it eventually dawned on me that when he was worried we’d both be much better off if I just abandoned the session, reassured him that I understood and was on his side, and tried again another time.

Nowadays he’s very happy and relaxed in groundwork position, and usually is in lungework position too, but when he does very occasionally get a bit clingy in lungework position this is something I’ll definitely use.

It’s weird how, when they’re used to it, groundwork position (walking backwards in front of them) seems to have such a calming effect on the horse. I’m sure it’s one of the main reasons the AAoR work has had such a huge influence in turning Rico into a calm, confident horse, and one of the main reasons I’ve already got Obi, not yet a 3yo, used to this position, both standing and in walk.

I think the other factor with Rico was his tendency towards hyper-mobility made him feel a bit unsafe and insecure, and I made that worse with the things I asked him to do, like turns around the forehand where his hind legs shot around so dramatically they looked as though they no longer had any connection to the front end! I’ve heard Bent say several times that the great thing about Andalusians is that they are so mobile, and the problem with Andalusians is that they are so mobile! The AAoR is all about only ever working the feet into function, under the horse, so that has helped him build so much more confidence in his own body and balance.

This clinic also made me understand why circles were so hard for Rico in the past. Bent said that the basic physics of centrifugal force means that the horse HAS to lean in on a circle. If the hind legs don’t come forward enough to help catch the weight the horse will have to lean onto the inside shoulder. The joints of the front legs don’t bend when supporting weight like the joints of the hind legs can, and so this will be damaging to the joints. This is why we need quarters in on the circle, to send the hind legs forward and under, to where they can catch the weight and relieve the inside shoulder.

I’m so grateful that I found the AAoR, for the massive difference it’s made to Rico and I, and I’m so looking forward to starting Obi with it properly when he’s old enough. He’s going to be the luckiest one because he’ll never know anything else.

Rico and Obi having fun.

17/02/2023

Bent Branderup Christmas Clinic Pt 3

I thought I’d better finally finish writing this report because there is another weekend clinic with Bent this weekend!!!

I remember that when I first started watching Bent teaching a couple of years ago, I was a bit mystified. I’d hear him instruct the rider or handler “…… shoulder in - good, now haunches in - very good” and think “but the horse wasn’t doing shoulder in or haunches in?!?”

I now realise that was because I was used to seeing shoulder in and haunches in as relatively big sideways movements, and I had no idea that the goal to find the ‘golden middle’, and they were just tools used in that quest.

In this clinic Bent often asked the riders to ride shoulder in and haunches in so slightly that only he could see it. He told students to “ride shoulder in a way that you could at any moment take the shoulders out again, and ride quarters in in a way that you could take quarters out” and “….ride collection in a way that you could ride forward, ride forward in a way that you could collect, make the circle bigger in a way that you could make it smaller ….. because between all these opposites lies the golden middle” and you need to “play with the in-betweens”.

This is something I noticed a while ago with Bella and then aimed for with Rico - that Bella could swap from an outwards schwung direction (shoulder in) to an inwards schwung direction mid stride, which looked really cool and proved how balanced she was in that moment.

Bent said that if the hind legs step too much sideways they step out of function and then can’t support more weight, to relive the forehand. For example too much sideways in quarters in results in the inside hind leg getting lost to the inside, instead of under the centre of gravity, and the horse can’t then sit on the inside hind to turn (pirouette).

He said it was good to practice the exercise I’ve been doing a lot with Rico thanks to Ylvie Fros’s masterclass, switching directly from shoulder in on a straight line to quarters in on the diagonal and back, to check if the horse’s hind legs are in the right place, because if they are the transition between the two will be easy. I found with Rico that once he understood that I was going to ask him to frequently switch from one exercise to the other he made sure his hind legs were always in the right place, so he could do so quickly and easily.

Bent then went on to get riders to add on, after riding from shoulder in on the straight to quarters in on the diagonal, leaning back slightly towards the inside hind foot and turning on it in a half pirouette. I’ve been practicing riding this with Bella and found it works really well with her.

I found SO much to help me in this clinic. There was so much information on exactly how to ride all the movements from the seat - which part of the upper legs to use where, for example - which I’m finding so useful in my quest to develop my academic seat. I made pages and pages of notes which I’m already finding invaluable, and there is another weekend clinic starting tomorrow!!!

This weekend the focus is on the horse’s natural gaits and the school gaits. I’m SO looking forward to it!!!

Bent Branderup Christmas Clinic Part 2 - Why Forward Down May Not be a Good Place to Start (or Finish).This post is real...
03/01/2023

Bent Branderup Christmas Clinic Part 2 - Why Forward Down May Not be a Good Place to Start (or Finish).

This post is really more suited to Bella’s page but I’ll share it here as well.

The idea of starting work in the forward down position is to stretch the whole of the horse’s top line (spine) to free everything up and encourage the hind legs to swing well forward under the rider’s seat (or where the seat would be, when working from the ground). Then, once you have the hind legs stepping under the weight, you can work on getting the hind legs to carry more of that weight, to lighten the horse’s forehand (collection).

The problem is that for many (probably most!) horses it takes a LOT of training before they are able to step forward under the rider’s seat. Working them in forward down before then results in the horse carrying itself even more heavily on the shoulders, with the front legs appearing to travel further and further back under the body. The horse can only manage ‘backward down’ (the horses in the first two clinic lessons, a Friesian and a Welsh Cob, both demonstrated this). When riding you find yourself sitting on the horse’s shoulders, and you can’t influence the hind feet or the schwung.

Bent says that if you can’t get the hind legs forward under the weight then you have to try taking the weight back to the hind legs and work towards collection first, having working in forward down as a goal rather than a starting point. He also told the rider of the Friesian that for breaks it was better to stop and stand rather than walking around on a loose rein, because the horse just fell apart and practiced bad movement. He said that if a horse has REALLY bad movement it can only be taught in standing to begin with.

Unfortunately I didn’t watch this part live because I wanted to ask Bent if a horse could be stepping forward under the rider’s seat in forward down and STILL be on the shoulders, because I think Bella is a master of this in walk! I suspect the answer would have been that although we have the ‘forward’, we also have too much ‘down’, and need to balance it with a little more ‘up’ in her head and neck carriage when working in forward down.

There was a very interesting lesson a little later, with a very advanced PRE mare, using a neck strap to encourage her to raise her neck from C5/6, then immediately switching focus to working her hind legs forward, with very impressive results. The mare quickly transformed from quite ordinary looking to absolutely stunning!!! It was tricky to do well, without inadvertently physically blocking the horse’s shoulders with the neck strap (this was from the ground), but I think it’s something I’d like to try with Bella.

I have always felt the need, when I’m riding, to warm up and to allow plenty of walk breaks on a completely loose rein, even though it has always felt too much like practicing bad movement to me. That’s something I need to change, I think.

Photos of Bella (photobombing Rico’s page) showing our typical forward but too much down in walk.

Bent Branderup Christmas Clinic 2022.Part One - Training the Hind Feet to Step into Function, not Dysfunction.This onlin...
29/12/2022

Bent Branderup Christmas Clinic 2022.

Part One - Training the Hind Feet to Step into Function, not Dysfunction.

This online clinic was amazingly thought provoking and inspiring for me. I watched some of it live and am now catching up with the recordings - the first day’s recording is over ten hours long!!! It was supposed to be available for ten days after the clinic and, with Christmas, etc., I’ve had trouble finding enough time, especially with all the pausing for making notes I’ve been doing, so thought I wasn’t going to be able to get through all of it. There is so much there I want to properly take in, I really wanted to watch in smaller chunks than the four+ hours I managed yesterday (the last day it was available), and preferably write posts for this and Bella’s page, to help solidify everything in my mind. You can probably imagine my delight when I got an email last night to say that Bent has decided to keep it available until the end of January!!!

The overall topic was “Over the Back” but what popped out at me the most in the first four hours was the idea of always training both of the horse’s hind feet to step into function (under the rider’s seat) not out of function (sideways), as quite a lot of modern dressage training seems to do.

The Academic Art of Riding is different in that the emphasis in the side movements is to keep both of the hind feet stepping forward without the leg crossing that results in a lot of sideways movement. We are mostly looking for weight shifts (i.e. the inside hind foot taking more weight in shoulder in, to free up the outside shoulder) and changes in schwung direction (the 3 dimensional swinging of the spine), not legs swinging in and out sideways.

Bent says that allowing/encouraging the hind legs to step into dysfunction not only ruins the horse’s joints and the three dimensional swinging of the spine, but it also tends to have a ‘bambi on ice’ effect, with feet swinging out to the side causing the horse to brace, with a very stiff spine, through fear of falling over. This, of course, can make the horse very nervous and relaxation completely impossible, and you need calmness to get schwung.

This all made perfect sense to me because Rico is by far the most flexible, mobile horse I’ve ever trained, and he was extremely unstable on his feet (as demonstrated by the fact that he used to actually fall over at the drop of a hat!). I used to think that lots of sideways movement and leg crossing was good gymnastic training, and got away with it with my naturally stiff, calm, foot at each corner type Dales Ponies, but with Rico I must have been making him feel (and be) even more unstable and insecure than his natural tendency towards hyper-mobility already makes him (and possibly caused him some discomfort/pain in the process - ouch!!!).

With the AAoR training he’s become a completely different horse - one hundred times more physically, mentally and emotionally solid, secure and confident, loving his training - and now I fully understand why!!!

Part 2 coming soon - The Pitfalls of Forward Down and Why it May Not be a Good Starting Place.

Monsoon like conditions recently have meant that Rico and I haven’t been doing very much lately, but he did manage to at...
09/11/2022

Monsoon like conditions recently have meant that Rico and I haven’t been doing very much lately, but he did manage to attain supermodel status while the autumn skies were still blue, modelling to perfection the bridles I’ve made lately. He’s so good at this now every photo is a winner. I couldn’t ask for a better model, although he is currently plastering himself in mud every day!!!

The pads all attach with Velcro and I have also made a set of pads in metallic silver leather, as well as the metallic bubblegum pink and metallic fuchsia in the photos, for the bridle with silver hardware, but haven’t got around to trying them on him yet.

I am about to make a new pair of reins for those silver buckles - I’ve used these Portuguese reins so much they’re looking very tired now. I don’t think they were really designed for more than occasional use for best.

04/10/2022

A short video of Rico and I practicing the ladder exercise - swapping from shoulder in on a straight line to quarters in on the diagonal. I still have trouble finding my line when I’m walking backwards, so don’t always position him very well, but I love how quickly Rico can now respond and alter from one to the other.

I’ve also noticed that he now chooses to stand square most of the time when we stop, often with both hind feet well underneath him, both of which are quite recent developments.

When he’s turned out and I’m going up and down the the track, along his fence line, he always wants to earn some treats so I get him to do halt to trot and rein back to trot transitions at liberty along the fence with me and his trot looks gorgeous now, SO much more balanced and cadenced since we’ve spent so much time on the ladder exercise. He gets far too many treats for it (for his waistline!) because I can’t help myself, he impresses me so much!!!

It was a really windy day (the tripod blew over just after this video and nearly hit him on the nose!) with lots going on and you can see how calm and reliable he is. That’s all down to the Academic Art of Riding groundwork we do, usually only ten minutes or so, but just about every day.

The Ladder Exercise.When Ylvie Fros gave me feedback on Rico’s shoulder in and haunches in videos she suggested I try th...
27/08/2022

The Ladder Exercise.

When Ylvie Fros gave me feedback on Rico’s shoulder in and haunches in videos she suggested I try the ladder exercise - a few steps of shoulder in on a straight line changing into a few steps of haunches in on the diagonal, and repeat. She said doing this keeps the momentum going, as you don’t have to change position yourself, and repeatedly swapping between the two means you can use the shoulder in to improve the haunches in and visa versa.

Rico and I have been doing a LOT of this exercise and, oh boy, it’s really making a difference! He now swaps from one to the other as soon as I open or close my inside shoulder, and does it so fluidly now!

I noticed ages ago, when I first started doing the Academic Art of Riding groundwork with Bella, that she changes from one to the other so quickly she does so by literally changing the direction of whichever front leg is in the air when I ask, she’s that quick to respond. At the time I also noticed that Rico was miles slower to change, it took him a whole stride or more. Now he can change just as quickly as Bella can, which massively impresses me every time!!!

Thinking about it, it’s a complete change of swing direction, from outside to inside, so must need quite a high degree of balance to be able to change that quickly.

Rico also looks, to me, as though he’s leaning in towards me a little now in haunches in, which is what Ylvie said I should aim for, and he looks as though he’s taking more weight behind in both exercises than he was before, and,in shoulder in, not drifting out through his outside shoulder now, which makes sense because he knows he’s going to have to change to haunches in any second, so he has to keep himself more centred to be ready.

I love this exercise! I can see how the shoulder in on the straight line encourages his inside hind foot to step well forward, ready to support more weight so his outside hind can swing in and under in haunches in, as he changes onto the diagonal. That sets the outside hind up to support more weight so his inside hind can swing forward and under again in the change back to shoulder in.

I must get some video of this and see if it looks as improved with a bit more of a distance overview than I can get when working him in groundwork position. Rico thinks he’s amazing though, which is always the main thing!!!

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A short video of Rico and I practicing the ladder exercise - swapping from shoulder in on a straight line to quarters in on the diagonal. I still have trouble finding my line when I’m walking backwards, so don’t always position him very well, but I love how quickly Rico can now respond and alter from one to the other. I’ve also noticed that he now chooses to stand square most of the time when we stop, often with both hind feet well underneath him, both of which are quite recent developments. When he’s turned out and I’m going up and down the the track, along his fence line, he always wants to earn some treats so I get him to do halt to trot and rein back to trot transitions at liberty along the fence with me and his trot looks gorgeous now, SO much more balanced and cadenced since we’ve spent so much time on the ladder exercise. He gets far too many treats for it (for his waistline!) because I can’t help myself, he impresses me so much!!! It was a really windy day (the tripod blew over just after this video and nearly hit him on the nose!) with lots going on and you can see how calm and reliable he is. That’s all down to the Academic Art of Riding groundwork we do, usually only ten minutes or so, but just about every day.

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