Managing the competition calendar

There are many events on the horse riding competition calendar. Primarily I am interested in the HRCAV events. However, shows can be really handy to give the rider preparation experience, and the horse a nice outing. Then there are Equestrian Australia (EA) events, which sometimes have training grades at my level. Pony clubs sometimes have "open" sections where anyone can compete. In addition to that there are clinics, lessons, adult riding club, and pony club to juggle. And that's on top of the usual family commitments - lunch at grandma's, ballet practice, parties, etc.

Ah, I forgot to mention that I prefer events within a 2 hour drive.

All in all, trying to create a manageable calendar of events for you and your horse, where you get a good mixture of training and competing, is quite a challenge!

So, what I do, is I sit down with my diary every few months, and write down every single event within a respectable distance that I can find. I ensure that I include Pony Club, and any other events my daughter may wish to go to. Then I go through the diary and put a red box around the "must do" events. That is: Pony Club and Horse Trials at my level. And, of course, those pesky family thingies.

Once I have a Horse Trials event in sight, I work backwards and try to find a cross country clinic. I try to squeeze in a dressage lesson or two or three, and one other outing. The aim of the outing is to give your horse a taste of being away from home at an event, but without much pressure, or nerves, or stress from me.

For this purpose, shows are my favourite. Because I just don't care! Of course I still wash my horse, plait them, put white stuff on my horse's socks, and black stuff on my horse's hooves. I still try and ride them to perfection. But, I don't care about the result. What I care about most is that my horse behaves well, and that they have the opportunity to relax.

Another very useful option though, is to take your horse to an event that you're not actually competing at. That way you get the whole feel of the commotion, but you just do your normal home workout. Your horse has to stand at the float and take in the atmosphere.

Achieving the perfect preparation is always difficult. But being able to see all the events in my calendar gives me a really good view what my options are. That way I can adjust my plans, depending on how my horse is travelling. I can also see why I am not attending certain events - especially when I hear friends are.

Dingo's grading

I had Dingo graded at Adult Riding Club today.

We were very lucky as the instructor came out and gave us a lesson first and then graded us as well. So I was able to work on Dingo's running issue, get him to slow down, and carry himself much better. This, in turn, meant that the grading was far more in control.

We were graded for Dressage, which went smoothly.

Then we proceeded with Showjumping. Dingo took to this like a duck to water. I had practiced trot poles and canter poles with him at home, and tiny little jumps. But here, he went around the grade 5 course like a little pocket rocket. Then we started jumping grade 4. And honestly, if it wasn't for his short neck and my terrible habit of getting too far forward, I think we would have graded at grade 4. But, due to the reasons mentioned above, I'll stick to grade 5 until we've got some experience under our belt.

Finally, cross country. As we don't have a cross country at our club grounds, the instructor just asked me to go for a fast canter around the perimiter of the grounds. I kicked Dingo into gear, enjoying every second of my little hoon.

So now we are graded and ready to compete.

Take Two

We've acquired a new car - the primary reason for the upgrade being the ability to tow two horses. So today, when I headed off to Adult Riding Club I took Lilly and Dingo.

My intention was to be graded on both horses, but of course I always chew off more than I can swallow. However, I was unconcerned. Grading Dingo was the priority, while grading Lilly was always going to be a bonus. Either way, the outing would be good for her.

Well the car towed really well. Yes, I could feel that we were pulling something heavy. But I felt quite confident on the way to Adult Riding. The acid test came on the way home. The road to our farm has a dip in it, which I affectionately call "the big dipper". When you drive through it, you know why.

Well the big dipper is steeper on the way to the farm. And it's gravel. And there is a turn in the road at the top of it. And the turn is banked the wrong way.

I took it easy up the big dipper. The car kicked down a gear, but otherwise we made it up without any issues.

So now, I just need to get fit enough to actually ride two horses at an outing.

The hoon horse

I have realised something really important. Horse riding, in my life, fulfills two distinct (and almost opposing) purposes. One purpose is time out. The other purpose is the art of training.

When horse riding is used for time out I head out bush and get lost for three hours, and I gallop. This behaviour is also known as:

• hooning
• fanging it
• racing with the wind
• flying, reins loose, arms out to the sides, screaming "yeeee-haaaar!!!"
• using up the juice
• letting it all out
• burning rubber
• sending sparks
• getting a breath of fresh air
• creating dust
• kicking up mud

(Rest assured I don't gallop for the full three hours, and my horse is well looked after, both throughout the ride, afterwards, and in between rides.)

The long and short of it is, that I need a horse that's my "hoon horse". A reliable steed that I can just jump on and get out there and enjoy the wind in my face. I might still take my hoon horse to competitions, but his primary purpose is to be the hoon horse. The fun horse. The everything horse.

Crownie used to be the perfect hoon horse. She is now happily retired, although we often reminisce about those days as I scratch her wither under the shade of a tree.

Now Dingo wears the title.

Clear signals

So, Lilly is back in work, day 2, and I decide to iron out the problems we had yesterday. Mainly we had one problem - she was not relaxed in the trot. But that's probably a slightly simplified view. My experience in trot was that she was rushing off, running out to one side, and throwing her head in the air. That sounds to me like she was trying out random behaviours. And, when does a horse try random behaviours? When they do not understand what in the world you are asking, and their normal responses are not causing the rider's pressure to go away!

Hmm ... food for thought there. I was putting some sort of pressure on Lilly when asking her to trot, and then, once she was trotting, I wasn't taking this pressure away. Wonder what it could be?

Well, as you go into trot you squeeze with your legs, and in order to keep your legs still, and yourself in the sweet spot, you need to retain some rigidity in your legs. So I figured I was about right there.

Also, Lilly wasn't exactly complaining about my legs, but she was throwing her head up in the air. Was I holding her back with my hands perhaps? No, really? But she was also rushing off! How am I supposed to tell her to slow down and not rush off if not with my reins?

I went back to walk and had a bit of a think about it. And then it dawned on me. Of course, Catherine had told me to control the horse's rythm through my rising, and it worked really well on Lil.

So I went forwards into trot with just the lightest contact on the reins, and a good squeeze with my legs. When Lilly went into trot, I just rose up and down at a tempo that I thought was appropriate. Lo and behold, Lilly lowered her head, chewed the bit, and trotted at the tempo I dictated. Magic!

At the end of the riding I jumped off and made a fuss of her, telling her what a good girl she is. I couldn't help but notice though a certain feeling of "I'm so glad you've finally worked it out" oozing out of the horse.

Teachings of Andrew McLean

One of the "light" readings I've had the pleasure to indulge in during my break is "The truth about horses" by Andrew McLean.

But, allow me to back track.

Ever since reading "Horse control, the young horse" by Tom Roberts, I have understood that training horses is based on applying an unpleasant pressure, and then releasing it when the horse reacts as desired.

But other questions still welled up in my mind. Why does the horse jig-jog? Why does the horse rear? What does it mean when the horse paws the ground? Puts his ears back? Why do some horses shy in the same spot every single time?

From other sources, some trainers were saying not to lunge horses. Yet other trainers were lunging horses and it was a marvellous tool in their hands (I had witnessed this first hand).

I was majorly confused. Yet when I asked equestrian coaches these questions they were either stumped or silent or both. These are legitimate questions and any coach who is qualified should know the answers to these sort of questions.

Along came "The truth about horses" and all of a sudden I wasn't just reading the book. I was breathing it in. Andrew McLean had answered all of my questions. And like I had suspected, his answers were very simple. (Horses are very simple animals, most solutions to training horses are simple).

Now, if you really want the answers to all your horsey training questions, then I suggest you read one of Tom Robert's books first, and then go and read "The truth about horses". It is worth every cent, and every second of your time.

What really clicked for me was that when we ask the horse to do something, and he is not sure what the right response is, then his behaviour will become random. That's when he will kick, bite, put his ears back, paw the ground, etc. Some horses are more inclined to do random behaviours in close succession than others. What the trainer must remember, is that he must only release the pressure when the horse had performed the correct behaviour.
 
The next part that I really liked, is that most bad behaviour can be fixed by re-establishing correct forwards, stop and backwards responses. So if your horse is prone to kicking. Don't get in there and risk being kicked. Walk your horse, ask it to stop, ask it to walk, ask it to stop, ask it to back up. I've actually experienced this with my horses in the past, but never understood why it worked. It works because you are establishing a control over how the horse's legs move. But - if you have this sort of problem with your horse - go and read the book to get all the detail on it. (It's how you ask the horse to walk forward, how you ask them to stop - the devil is really in the detail.)
 
Then Andrew McLean talks about lungeing. And basically, it's a very powerful tool. If you know how to use it, then you will know which horses not to use it on. And if you don't know how to use it, then don't use it, because you'll do more damage than good. I'm really glad I've finally got the truth on this one, because lungeing doesn't really work for Dingo, but is brilliant for Lilly.

Lilly back in work

At the start of August I put Lilly out for a bit of a break. That allowed me to have a bit of a break too, have some more family time, and catch up on a few odd jobs. (Cleaning saddles being one of them!)

Well, today I brought Lilly back into work. She felt a little bit agitated under saddle, especially in the trot. That is fairly normal, and I expect it to diminish over the next two weeks. On the other hand, she was very responsive when I asked for shoulder in. Impressively so.

The big difference is, that during my little break I've also had a pleasure of catching up on some "light" reading about training horses.