THOUGHTS FROM A CLINIC

THOUGHTS FROM A CLINIC

Over Memorial Day weekend, Amy had her first on-farm clinic since I started my internship. It was a hot, fun-filled day complete with horses, horsemanship, and fellow horse lovers. As always, I was amazed to watch people learn and progress throughout the day and to realize how many horsemanship principles can truly be paralleled with life.

We Are All Different

              As the participants began to arrive, it was fun to see how many different types of people and horses were going to be taking part. There were riders ranging from age 15 to 50. The horses were all sorts of breeds and sizes; Arabians, Quarter Horses, and even an Irish Sport Horse. Everyone had different backgrounds with varying degrees of experience and styles of riding.

              Each person and their horse was unique with their own unique bond to each other. Some participants were buoyant and extroverted while others were more reserved and kept to themselves. The horses themselves were quite different as well. The two clearest opposites were a little quarter horse mare who was very right-brained (reactive thinking) and an Irish Sport Horse gelding who was very left-brained (logical thinking).

Adjust Your Tactics

              Throughout the day, there were many different exercises that everyone took part in. It was fun to watch Amy approach each pair with different strategies on how to accomplish their tasks. Although everyone did the same exercises, some horses were approached strongly and others softly.

              During the morning session, the focus was on how to play with your horse from the ground. One of the exercises was about improving their “yo-yo game”, which is backing the horse out on its line and then having it return to you. This game improves and balances your drive and draw with your horse.

The young girl, Ava, with the Irish Sport horse, Jamie, was encouraged to get much stronger with her horse, since she was being so quiet and timid about driving the horse away that he was simply tuning her out and ignoring her. Amy pointed out how big horses get with each other in a herd situation, explaining that there really isn’t much that you can do by wiggling a rope or tapping with a stick, even if you do it as hard as you can, that is going to be more aggressive or harder than what horses naturally do with each other. Once the girl learned how to tell when her horse was just ignoring her and how to get bigger and stronger in that moment, the horse started paying attention and got softer to the pressure.

After that, Amy took all the exercise from that morning, including yields of the hind and fore-quarters, and began asking the participants to put them to a purpose. We laid out ground poles and watched as the participants helped their horses back over the poles with their newly improved yo-yo game. Without each piece of the puzzle that Amy had taught them, like tactics that improved their horse’s responsiveness and softness, the participants would have had a much harder time completing the task.

The last exercise of the morning session was to lead their horse over a ditch. The ditch that we have here on the farm is a cross-country style ditch, and it’s quite a scary one at that. It’s an aluminum trough buried into the ground, and even though it’s small enough for any horse to simply walk over, the color and look of it can be really daunting.

The first horse Amy wanted to attempt the crossing was Jamie and Ava, who were a three day eventing team. At first, the horse was a little spooky at the ditch, but he quickly got over his fear. But then he decided he just didn’t want to cross it. After Amy worked with him for a little while, we eventually added a little pressure from behind to help him choose to cross. After that, he walked over it no problem.

In comparison, the right-brained, quarter horse mare was quite reactive to the ditch. She jumped it fairly quickly, but in a way that showed that she wasn’t really thinking about what she was doing. She was just trying to get away from her perceived danger as quickly as possible. With her, Amy encouraged the owner to take things slowly and allow the mare time to process the task. One of the most important things she did was to have the horse get lots of relief when she was near the ditch and made it uncomfortable when she was away from it. This helped her begin to look at it as a place of comfort.

Rate Yourself

              As the afternoon riding session began, one of the first things Amy talked about was rating everything you did from zero to ten, zero being non-existent and ten being as excellent as it could be. She started by having everyone simply walk around the arena and having them halt along the rail at intervals. Each time they stopped, she asked what they would have rated their halt.

              This exercise really helped the riders become aware of everything in their riding. In each maneuver, they needed to be conscious of where they landed on the scale, and whether it was better or worse than their last attempt. Amy was not looking for perfection in anything she was asking them to do. She simply wanted them to be aware of the small bits of progress they were making. It was interesting to see that, as the participants continued doing this through the rest of the exercises, they were able to give themselves and their horses a little more grace.

Don’t Compromise Your Quality

              For the afternoon session, the fun continued with the little quarter horse mare and the Irish Sport Horse. The mare was extremely nervous about being ridden around strange horses, so much so that she couldn’t stand still while she was in the arena. Amy rode her for a little while for her owner, and the first task she gave the mare was super simple: just stand still and relax. It was amazing how hard that was for the horse!

              As the rest of the horses continued with other exercises, Amy simply sat on the mare. After a while, she had the rest of the horses stop wherever they were in the arena, and she rode the mare around them, first at a walk and then at a trot. The mare was very concerned, and every time she would start getting tense and start speeding up, Amy would just move her into a small circle, using only one rein. This way, she wasn’t blocking the mare, but she was putting her forward motion into something productive. The smaller circle made the horse work a little harder and made her turn on her brain. Eventually, she realized life was a lot easier if she stayed relaxed and slowed down.

              Jamie, the sport horse, similarly would get very forward, but in comparison his forwardness came from a feeling of excitement rather than fear. Whenever he started feeling playful, he would get fast and bracey. The tactic Amy gave Ava to use was similar to what she used on the quarter horse even though Jamie’s forwardness was for a different reason. Using only one rein, she would pull him in a small circle. The intent was to allow somewhere productive for his excess energy to go without blocking him by pulling back on both reins at once.

              As the exercises of the afternoon progressed, Amy especially told both of these pairs that, if either of their horses started getting strong at any point, they should not compromise their quality for the sake of completing an exercise.  The quarter horse mare didn’t take part in any of the trotting pole exercises, but instead, Amy encouraged her owner to focus on how much progress her horse had made in the area of relaxation. Anytime Jamie got strong on Ava, Amy told her to quit the exercise and circle until she regained the trot she wanted.

Adjust Yourself

              The last set of exercises that day were sets of trotting poles. Amy separated the horses by their natural stride length and had the groups trot over the poles. As they continued, she lengthened and shortened the stride lengths between the poles so the riders had to adjust the speeds at which they were trotting the poles so that their horses didn’t have to work too hard to go over them. It was incredible to watch how much the different horses had to speed up and slow down to appropriately affect their striding.

              At the end, Amy set up two sets of trot poles side by side, one long and one short, and asked the riders to trot circles, first going over the long and then over the short. On the far side of the circle from the poles, the riders really had to affect their horses so that when they got back to the poles, their horse was prepared to trot the different stride. Everyone did a really good job of helping their horses adjust using their body by trotting taller and higher to gain a shorter stride and shorter and quicker to gain the longer stride.

Final Thoughts

              As the day came to a close, every participant and auditor was asked what they had learned. As I pondered the question, I thought over how different each attending pair was. Even with their differences, however, they were all able to complete the tasks that were set before them. Often times, we look at something that is asked of us as too far out of our comfort zone to complete. Instead of adjusting ourselves so that we can rise to the occasion, we offer some sort of excuse as to why we can’t do it, be it our personality, past, preferences, or something else of that nature. Just with the trotting pole exercises, if we are willing to adjust ourselves, often we can get it done without too much effort. We might have to slow down or speed up, but oftentimes we can see what’s coming on the other side of the circle and prepare for it.

              Similarly, when we feel like we are getting out of control, taking the time to back off and regain our quality is crucial. No task or endeavor is going to be completed well if you don’t take time for self-care so that you can maintain a quality within yourself and in everything you do. It’s important to rate yourself so that you can give yourself grace for every small improvement. Adjust yourself to approach the things that stretch you. At first you may need to approach and retreat, but eventually you will be able to approach and hold. But if you never rate your efforts, you will never know how much progress you have made!

              At the end of the day, we all went separate ways. We all have different stories, but nobody’s is perfect in and of itself. We all have things we are working on, in our horsemanship and in life. It was nice to come together for a day to strive and learn alongside one another, to rate and adjust and grow. However, isn’t that all life is every day?