Primarily I was going to Associates camp to use it as my Residential section for my Gold Duke of Edinburgh but it actually came at a very useful time to cement my partnership with George!
On the first day we had lessons with either Jonty Evans or Sophie Martindale. I had Sophie and we did grid work in the school. This was incredibly fun - NINE bounces in a row! George was, as Hannah described him, like a Ballet dancer on acid! He is such an athletic little horse!
On the first day we had lessons with either Jonty Evans or Sophie Martindale. I had Sophie and we did grid work in the school. This was incredibly fun - NINE bounces in a row! George was, as Hannah described him, like a Ballet dancer on acid! He is such an athletic little horse!
Next up was a Show Jumping session with Kenneth Clawson. This was very interesting and highlighted how little attention most of us paid to what we were doing. He told us to ride a square in canter and then proceeded to ask us how many strides we got on each side and none of us had a clue. Once this had been highlighted we all rode accurate squares with 9-11 strides on each side depending on the horse in question. Kenneth then said that immediately our riding and the horses way of going improved dramatically because we were riding determinedly and accurately. When we started jumping we worked on control and so had to get five strides in a four stride distance. This highlighted how I was being very fixed in my elbow which was causing George to run against my hand into the base of the fence, once I softened my arms this was much improved.
We then went on a little trip to Talland to ride some schoolmaster horses. I ended up with a little grey pony that I had to literally drag out from the yard....everyone was in hysterics! However he turned out to be the best one in our group and a very cool little dude! He was an FEI team pony and trained up to Grand Prix level! Our lesson was with Charlie Hutton and unlike the other groups we didn't play around with the advanced level movements but Charlie took our stirrups away and worked on our positions. This was fairly useful I guess but not hugely fun or beneficial to the others in my group who wanted to ride some changes and half pass etc. I wasn't overly fussed as have been lucky enough to have had a schoolmaster of my own (Jack!!).
On Wednesday we had a session riding in the morning and in the afternoon.
In the morning we ran through a dressage test of our choice which was marked by Islay Auty. We then went through the test with Islay to try and improve on various aspects. George did a reasonably calm test, it was much improved on Salperton but still lots to work on - especially in the canter. Islay gave us all 6's and 7's for a mark of 35.5 (64.5%). We then worked on getting him to accept the contact more readily and relax into it in canter. He was better on the left rein than the right because on the right rein he is more stiff and I find it hard to keep him bent around my inside leg. So Islay had me on a circle bending his neck to the right until he softened and then when he did I then patted his neck and gave him the rein. This encouraged him to loosen his neck, bend to the inside and have a softer more relaxed frame.
In the afternoon we had a simulated XC session with Yogi Breisner. This was the first time I jumped George over XC style fences and I really enjoyed it! To start with Yogi just had us cantering around the field to assess our position and the main point he made from that was that we all needed to make sure that our lower leg remained forwards on the girth and didn't creep back as we started kicking our horses! After a few warm up fences we jumped some turning combinations to assess control and also a set of open kick on fences. We then came back to the technical fences and Yogi had us jumping a very tricky combination of three skinny brushes. We had to jump one skinny brush then do a 90 degree turn on 4/5 strides to another skinny brush, then a 90 degree turn in the another direction again on 4/5 strides to a third skinny brush! We jumped this up and down hill and the message Yogi got across was that XC riding isn't about looking pretty, it's about getting the horse clear! All in all it was very successful and Yogi also said that my position was excellent and that I had a very secure lower leg. So now I am really looking forward to doing proper XC with George at Purston on Sunday!
In the morning we ran through a dressage test of our choice which was marked by Islay Auty. We then went through the test with Islay to try and improve on various aspects. George did a reasonably calm test, it was much improved on Salperton but still lots to work on - especially in the canter. Islay gave us all 6's and 7's for a mark of 35.5 (64.5%). We then worked on getting him to accept the contact more readily and relax into it in canter. He was better on the left rein than the right because on the right rein he is more stiff and I find it hard to keep him bent around my inside leg. So Islay had me on a circle bending his neck to the right until he softened and then when he did I then patted his neck and gave him the rein. This encouraged him to loosen his neck, bend to the inside and have a softer more relaxed frame.
In the afternoon we had a simulated XC session with Yogi Breisner. This was the first time I jumped George over XC style fences and I really enjoyed it! To start with Yogi just had us cantering around the field to assess our position and the main point he made from that was that we all needed to make sure that our lower leg remained forwards on the girth and didn't creep back as we started kicking our horses! After a few warm up fences we jumped some turning combinations to assess control and also a set of open kick on fences. We then came back to the technical fences and Yogi had us jumping a very tricky combination of three skinny brushes. We had to jump one skinny brush then do a 90 degree turn on 4/5 strides to another skinny brush, then a 90 degree turn in the another direction again on 4/5 strides to a third skinny brush! We jumped this up and down hill and the message Yogi got across was that XC riding isn't about looking pretty, it's about getting the horse clear! All in all it was very successful and Yogi also said that my position was excellent and that I had a very secure lower leg. So now I am really looking forward to doing proper XC with George at Purston on Sunday!
Finally on the last day we had either Jonty or Sophie again. This time I had Jonty and like with Islay the day before, we ran through a dressage test and then worked on what we could improve. We then jumped a course of Show Jumps. George improved yet again on his dressage which was very consistent in trot and much improved in the canter. We then worked on my presentation of the test and my setting up of (or lack of) the movements to ensure that we remained as balanced as possible.
The course of Show Jumps was pretty difficult considering it was the last day and the horses were all pretty tired! It was a very long course of 14 jumps with 17 jumping efforts on terrain that was very up and down and with very light plastic poles! I jumped a 1m10 track on George and we had two down which although not brilliant wasn't too bad and all the other 15 fences we hit on near perfect strides!!
George is now having a well earned day off in the field with my old retired bean that is Supplejack! Jack was SO excited to gain a playmate that he didn't know what to do with himself and just leapt around waving his legs and squealing!
