Young trainer, young horses

Last  weekend, we had our first schooling show of the season. Maddy was not present -- not because she does not support our shows, but becasue I sent her down to Hassler Dressage to audit the USEF Young Horse Training Session. Below are some clips from her notes.

June 28-29, 2014

After two days of watching some amazing young horses, I had pages of notes but I was able to narrow down the information to about a page. Although the clinic was focused on the young horse , the information can be applied to any horse to help a more through, supple and obedient horse.

-     Your aids are a conversation with the horse- sometimes you whisper and sometimes you have to yell, but you should never just sit there.  You are the horse’s inspiration.

-     Be clear and be precise. You are the horses only coach.

-      Always ask questions- does the horse need more suppleness? More engagement?

-      Don’t just visit exercises . Make sure the horse understands what you are asking. Especially once a horse has gotten a concept. For example, the horse must first learn the concept of shoulder in and then you need to define it and make it crisp. Details are very important but don’t punish the horse when not satisfied, just ask again.

-     Horses don’t just have three gaits, they have six. Know the horse in each gait. Does the horse need more bend in trot left vs. right? Does he/she need more straightness in canter right vs. left? ETC. Need to understand the horse beneath you.

-     Tempo work should be ridden through the whole body.  And there should  be forward thoughts but not fast. The hindlegs need to help move through a supple back but  don’t forget about the shoulders and topline. The topline should stay supple so the power can come through. Horses use their neck for what the back should be doing.

-     Bringing the horse back in tempo work should be creating energy not stopping it. If the horse has good forward energy use lines to harness it ( like corners) . Subtle tempo changes help the suppleness.

-     EVERY transition should be CRISP. Be  like a spark plug. The horse should always be thinking “What does my rider want from me next?”  the first steps is when the dance begins. Don’t just let the horse slide through the movements. Ask them to step, and each foot fall is a step.

-    Halts are transitions for balance.

My choice to send Maddy to Hasslers instead of being at our schooling show was clearly the right one. I'm pretty happy with the results of Maddy's weekend. Her training horses have looked great this week.  

All Grown Up

Venus turns 12 this year, and I realized I haven’t posted a word about her quite some time. Why you ask? Because, frankly, she has become known around the barn as the good girl, and let’s face it, consistency doesn’t lend itself to good storytelling. 

Venus schooling in winter 2011

When I bought Venus, back when she was an awkward coming-three-year-old, SFD hadn’t opened. I was still freelance teaching and training, and wanted a young, hot, fancy horse to develop and compete. I really enjoy riding hot horses—for my tastes, the quick responsiveness that comes with it is worth the potential tension.  She is Dutch and thoroughbred, and a red mare, so I thought for sure she would fit that bill perfectly.  Her sire’s sire is Roemer, a sire known for stamping his offspring with rideablilty, which I thought would be a nice balance for the thoroughbred heat. 

As a youngster, she was indeed a hot, responsive, could-get-

tense mare. She showed well, earning a paycheck from the Jumper Futurity for her scores in the 4-year-old FEI division and a red ribbon at Dressage at Devon as a 6-year-old. 

Venus in the Think Pink ride at DAD, 2012

As she has matured, her initial heat has mellowed to a very ridable response level.  In 2011, Scott and I developed a plan to teach her to manage her emotions, which worked really, really well. So well, in fact, that in 2012 she and I were included in the quadrille at Dressage at Devon. She was super. The whole process of going to practices and learning to deal with flags, music, horses headed straight towards her and horses tail-gaiting her helped seal the lessons she had learned the previous year. She became so good in a group that this summer we were asked to ride lead in the First Level Quadrille at the DVCTA USEF Show at Radnor Hunt.  She has become a reliable mount.

I guess this really isn’t too surprising. Horses, like people, go through different stages of emotional development. Usually around 5 or 6 the horses are going through the equivalent of adolescence. They begin to develop confidence and challenge their place in the herd, which can make for some interesting training sessions. Somewhere between 6 and 8 they settle into their mature personalities—which is why most of us pros advise our students to not buy a horse younger than 6.  Around that time, Venus became much more tolerant and much less hot. 

Venus at NEDA 

She has not become dull, by any standard. She is such a good girl, and she has developed a patient, schoolmaster personality. If the aid is correct, she happily does what she is supposed to do. If the aid is incorrect, she tends to ignore it, or just sorta respond.  Over the winter, a student was struggling with shoulder in, so I put her Venus for a ride. When the student set it up with too much inside rein, Venus just went down the long side with her neck over to the right. When my student figured out the use of the seat and outside rein to set up the shoulder in, Venus not only gave her shoulder in, she lifted her shoulders, changed her carriage, and added suspension to her step. It was like Venus was saying to my student “look, when you do it that way, you get all of this too!” Venus was practically cheering her student on.

Venus, with Nicole up.

She has become such a good girl that last fall, when I decided I really should learn to jump with more skill than just grabbing mane and hanging on, Venus became my ride for our weekly jumping lessons. It became clear that Venus really enjoyed jumping, and when my Dr. suggested that I give it up (some old gymnastics injuries in my neck), I passed the jumping reins to Nicole. Nicole is a much more skilled jumper, and Venus has flowered under her training.

She is such a good girl that when a couple of students with young horses were looking for a calm horse to join them on a paper chase last fall, Venus and I came along to play babysitter.  She has not only become a dressage schoolmistress, she has become a solid-citizen all-around horse. 

Venus competing at her first "A" hunter show

But, like most things, this comes with a negative side. Since she is such a good girl, I really don’t get to ride her that much these days. Over the winter, she was busy teaching a few choice students how to put a horse on the bit correctly and how to ride correct lateral work. Nicole jumps her.  Maddy, my assistant, earned some much-needed show miles on Venus this spring. 

As Venus has grown up, so has my business. Unfortunately, in recent years, her competitive ring time has been limited by client demands. Each year I have started with the determination to get Venus out and do what I bought her for – show. And each year one of my client’s horses begins to take off.   Competing on a client’s horse not only makes my client happy, it lets me use my show budget to do exciting things like buy a tractor for my growing business.

Which brings up that negative side again. I am a professional dressage rider who likes hot, spicy horses. And my mare has evolved into a wonderful good girl that anyone can ride. She clearly doesn’t need a professional to ride her any more. Plus she seems to really like teaching, loves to jump, and is great on a trail ride. My growing business could really use a bigger trailer, a better drag for the arena, and a replacement for the purchase-really-used Toro that we use to muck the barn—the list keeps getting longer. So I have decided it is time to sell her. 

Venus, just turned 3. She was all legs and booty

Venus now, the pretty girl. 

This process of letting go of the tailcoat dreams I bought along with my awkward red filly (I NEVER dreamed she would grow up to be a beauty queen, I just liked the way she used her hips) has been very, very hard.  But Venus is so much happier teaching and jumping than being asked to work harder and dig deeper every day, as is the life of an FEI horse, that the decision has been made for me.  Some of the horses I ride really enjoy the harder work. Secret thrives on canter pirouettes, and Sling thinks half steps are so much fun that he offers them whenever I say “good boy.”  Venus does all of this work, but when she has more variety in her life, she is more fresh each day. So in addition to not needing a professional to ride her, I think she’d prefer to not have to deal with my professional goals and professional intensity every day.

 I half-heartedly put her on a few sales sites last spring, but didn’t really promote her much. But now, with the business growing again, it is time to let my good girl go become a cherished teacher for a new owner that will love what she has grown up to become.

Perfect Self Carriage

As a dressage instructor, I have to help my students understand many, many topics in order to develop their and their mount's dressage potential. One thing I often need to help students understand just how active they need to be when riding dressage.  Between the half halt, the posture, the bending aids, the movements, the balance,the steering, etc., there's a lot going on up there.  Often, the aids are small, so they aren't obvious from the ground.  When I introduce this concept, usually I will hear something along the lines of "riders look so quiet up there, like they aren't doing anything."  

To which I reply, "There in only one horse that I have ever ridden that I didn’t have to actively help with his balance. One horse, and only one horse, that I could just sit up there and do nothing and he would maintain perfect self carriage.  That horse lives outside of Wal-Mart. The best part is he only costs fifty cents to ride."

So one of my students sent me this photo.  His balance is a bit on the forehand for my taste, but heck, he is in perfect self carriage.

Keep Calm...

This highly praised wardrobe essential can be yours, but only for the next few days -- sales end April 21.  This is a Bonfire Fund Raising Campaign, and the way it works is for each t-shirt sold, $5 goes toward SFD's Instructor Education Fund. But it only goes through if 50 shirts are sold. If less than 50 are sold, no one gets charged and no shirts are mailed out.

I started this drive about a week and a half ago, and it's almost over. As of this writing, we only need to sell 7 more shirts. Who wouldn't want this amazing piece of cheezy horse wisdom?

Click here to buy this gorgeous wardrobe essential.  

But now to the inspiration behind turning me into a salesperson.

As I'm sure you've noticed, education is pretty important to me -- of my students, of my staff, of myself.  Heck, it's so important to me that we give it away for free in our Open Training Demos. 

So now I'm going to ask you to give back.  But you get something for it.  A cool t-shirt.

This an outgrowth of of my crazy idea I wrote about in a blog last August, about how if we really want to improve the quality of dressage in the states, we need to invest in our local instructors.  Of course, the most local instructors I know are, well, Maddy and I.  

Last year I applied for, and received, an awesome training grant from the American Morgan Horse Association.  With it, and help from some of my clients, I spent two weeks at Hassler Dressage really focusing on my skills. I came out of it a better rider, and therefore a better instructor.

I also came out of it hungry for more.  

So this year, I decided, in addition to our normal monthly investment in instructor education, SFD would ear-mark proceeds from our Schooling Show Series, including sponsorships, for instructor education.  

But that did leave a gap, for those who want to help on a smaller scale.  So I found this t-shirt fund-raising campaign, and decided to give it a try.  

The catch is we need to sell 50 shirts for it to fly.  So buy a shirt for you. Buy one for your friend. Buy one for your significant other. Heck, buy one for your dog. 

Then Maddy and I will go get an inspirational lesson, and come come home and pass that inspiration on to you. 

If you want to do more, like use our sponsorships to advertise at our facility during our many educational events and schooling shows, follow this link to more info, or contact me at ange@straightforwarddressage.com

Learning to Ride

This is written by Maddy Mangan, SFD's Assistant trainer. I started teaching Maddy when she was in junior high, and after a break from riding while she was in college, I happily accepted her back as a working student two years ago.  Her work ethic and commitment to her education impressed me enough that after her time as working student was over, I offered her the title of Assistant trainer.  I asked her to write a blog about the difficult process of learning to ride in such a way to improve a horse's overall balance. I hope reading about her learning process helps you with yours. ~ Ange

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 By Maddy Mangan

About a year ago, when I was offered the assistant position at SFD, I decided to take the plunge and go full time in horses. As a young professional, I knew I was sorely lacking in show miles. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a horse to compete on. So Ange so graciously offered to let me bring her big, black mare,Silhouette, back into competition after time off as a broodmare. I was thrilled except that there as another problem. I could not for the life of me figure out how to ride the black mare with a big engine and big attitude.

So the struggle began.

Ange warned me when this started that Silhouette is a tricky ride. She has a sensitive mouth and hates to go on the forehand, so riding her uphill from the seat and leg is really important. When the rider gets it right on Silhouette, she locks into a wonderful, uphill floaty gait. But if the rider doesn’t get it right, Silhouette tells on the rider by nodding her head like a bobble-head doll and squealing in the canter departs.

Ange’s goal, besides giving me a show mount, was to take my riding from the “steady-keep-you-head-down-horse stage” to learning to ride my horses with lowered hips and a more uphill balance.  Which, of course, takes that elusive dressage thing we call “feel.” In short, Ange’s goal was for Silhouette to teach me how to ride.

I took lesson after lesson trying to get the “feel.” This is one of the most difficult parts of dressage. Learning and teaching “feel” is tough because “feel” is a bit different for each rider. Ange had to translate how “feel” felt to her into words, and hope those words translated to something my body could lock into.  So much of dressage is figuring out the right balance and feel for each individual horse at each moment of the workout, so sorting this out at this stage of my riding career is pretty important.

Ange was trying so hard to help me. “Ride her hind end, don’t worry about her head,” “Don’t fight with her mouth.” And the list continues. I just could not figure out the balance of my aids to help Silhouette understand that I wanted her to carry herself more uphill.

It is not that I did not understand how Ange was trying to get me to ride this horse, but Silhouette and I just could not find the right place where we clicked. We just kept fighting with each other. There were some very good rides and I would think “yes I finally got it!” but the next ride I would just not be able to recreate the feel from the day before. I was getting very discouraged.

So Ange put me on Venus for a few rides. She is quite a different mare then Silhouette, more tolerant and very kind (no head bobbing or squealing or anything), so I felt a little more at ease on her. During a lesson on Venus, Ange had me working on transitions. We started with halt to walk, focusing on keeping Venus’ shoulders up-which is really easy to feel on Venus as the pommel of the saddle practically drops if she isn’t keeping her shoulders up. If she dropped her shoulders, I had to make her halt again. By the end of the ride, Venus was taller and more connected. It was like the front of the saddle not only lifted, it became connected right into my seat.

I took this back to Silhouette, hoping it was the missing piece. It certainly helped, but Silhouette seemed to still be getting trapped somewhere. I just could not carry it through like I could on Venus.

One day, Ange called me into the arena. She was riding one of the training horses and asked if I wanted to hop on a get a feel of her. I never turn down a ride. Ange told me that she had been working on the half halt, very similar to what I had been working on with Venus and attempting with Silhouette--half halting with my back and lower leg, asking her to carry on her hind end, and then release up and out. It was the same feeling of keeping the withers and shoulders up like on Venus, but for some reason on the training horse, the feeling was a light bulb moment for me. I had to hold her on my seat with shoulders and core but let it out in a controlled way. I had to own every step. I had to own the balance. Could this be the missing link for Silhouette? Was I just letting the energy spill out over the front of the saddle, instead of lifting the shoulders up, and letting her fall more on the forehand?

So again I brought this new light bulb moment to Silhouette. Half halt the balance onto her hind end, then own the motion and allow it through, controlling the out. I focused on keeping her shoulders more up and not letting the front of the saddle drop at all. And it finally clicked! Six months of struggling and I finally had found the key to the uphill balance that Silhouette needed to be through and connected.

Of course I was worried I would not be able to carry it to the next ride, but I got on telling myself that I could. And I did.

Silhouette and I still have a lot of work to do but I am happy to say that we are now working together and not fighting. And I certainly know that I have a horse to show this summer.

So Miss Silhouette, you are teaching me to ride!

Searching for Inspiration

I was searching for inspiration (a conscious effort to battle the winter blahs), so I pulled out my notes from the FEI Trainer’s Symposium with Steffen Peters and Scott Hassler in January.  Looking at them now, a little over a month later, let me look at how that trip has improved my training arena. To keep this from becoming another long, dressage-geek diatribe, I am going to discuss 3 areas that I have notes on and how they have improved my rides. Like pretty much everything in dressage, they all come down to basics.

Positioning the neck for the bend

One of the horses in the clinic was a young horse with limited road miles. He was a bit overwhelmed by the environment, and showed it by bracing in his neck and wanting to come too high in the contact.  Steffen emphasized that horses need to be correct in the connection before they can proceed to the work of the day, no matter what was on that day’s training agenda. He had the rider position the horse with inside bend, then flex the horse’s neck to the inside, but not take the neck further than the width of the horse’s chest. Then he had her straighten the neck. When the horse maintained a soft neck bend without excessive inside rein, Steffen asked her use the outside rein to put the horse’s neck whatever height gave her the best feel of the horse’s back and control of the topline.

Throughout the weekend, the topic of a slightly braced topline came up.  Croup-high gaits and unauthorized lead changes were attributed to slight bracing in the connection. 

So I went home and checked all of my horses. Were the toplines soft and easy to position? If I flexed them to the inside, then straightened them, would they hold the bend from all of my aids, every time? I changed my warm up plan – when I asked my horses to flex and soften their topline, if I didn’t get the response I wanted, I replaced my old plan of lengthening the rein and letting them stretch (which is my go-to when I had flexion problems, to make sure I’m not getting the neck to short and blocking the flexion), with repeating the flexion aid again until I got softness from a response to my aid. I probably wouldn’t have tried this plan in the summer as I would worry about getting the necks too short, but since it’s winter, I was months from the judges’ eye and free to experiment.

The experiment worked out.  I began warm up focusing on the flexion and ignoring what I saw in the mirror. When they started to feel soft, then I’d check the mirror.  What I saw was not short necks, it was softer toplines and more open throat latches as my mounts stretched more into the connection. Which meant I could then put the neck at whatever height was best for my mount’s balance in that particular part of the workout.

Go from a light, pressing leg

Steffen Peters has a couple of themes that have shown up every time I have watched him teach. One of my favorites (and one I quote regularly, with attribution, of course) is that the only things we have to communicate with our horses is our leg, seat, hand and voice. He insists that they respond calmly to the lightest of aids, particularly the leg aid.  He made it very clear that the leg should stay softly against the horse at all times, and the horse should go forward from a small press of the calf. Not a kick, not a bump, not a spur or whip, but a press. Every time, no matter what, without any tension.

So I went home and checked my horses. At the Debbie McDonald clinic in December, she had focused on getting Secret to slow her steps from my seat. The order of the aids – increase energy with my leg, slow the tempo with my seat, ask Secret to follow the bit into a longer topline, then relax my thigh pressure to allow her to go forward again. Being a good student, I had done that with pretty much all of my horses.  As a result, I’ve seen longer toplines and more control with my seat. But I think all of this emphasis on not running through my seat aid had let them be a touch lackadaisical about a forward response to my leg. 

Since I had spent a month on “stay with my seat no matter what,” when I added “forward energy with every press of my leg,” I found I had a bit of a hole.  Most responded, but not in the next instant. They went, but a stride or so after I applied the aid.

So for 2 days I kept my leg steady, and without taking it off, added a gentle press. If I didn’t get an immediate response, I gave a REALLY strong press-to which, of course, they hurried away from. I’d bring the tempo back under my control, and apply a gentle press again. Most of them got the point within a few repetitions.  I tried to be a good student of Steffen and Scott and not use my whip (which Scott emphasizes is for collection/cadence), or the spur (which Steffen emphasizes is for engagement). 

The result after a couple of days was, of course, my horses were more responsive to a light aid.  In addition, insisting on an immediate response created a feeling of the withers pushing the pommel up every time I pressed. This isn’t an unfamiliar feeling to me at all, but the 95% consistency of it was really nice, especially with so little effort from me.

So I kept that standard as a tool in my toolbox, and watched what it did to the other work. Slingshot, who I have been focusing on exercises to create shoulder freedom for several months now, took that shoulder freedom upward into his medium trot to create a reliable, rideable medium with very lifted front legs (I have video proof!). 

Three components of pirouette work

Pirouette work always comes up in FEI clinics, because pirouettes are, frankly, hard. They take a long time to develop.  And like most things in dressage, the pirouette is only as good as the basics. Scott specified the three areas of the basics that often create problems in pirouette work: compression, suppleness, and balance. His advice is to figure out which of the three is creating the limitation, then fix that part, then go back and work the pirouette as a whole.

With his emphasis on simplicity, Steffen addresses both the canter pirouette and the walk pirouette pretty much the same. They are all about control.  If the horse backs off at any point in the approach, go forward out of the pirouette. Only stay in the pirouette as long as the quality is good, if I can’t get out of movement, I’ve stayed in it too long.  Once the horse understands the compression, balance, suppleness, add the turning aids. Once the turning aids are understood, polish the approach. If the approach isn’t controlled, the movement won’t work, so repeat the approach.

So I went home and checked my walk and canter pirouettes. I tend to start walk pirouettes pretty early in a horse’s education, so they all do them to some degree. I love walk pirouettes for teaching bend without swinging the haunches out, lifting of the withers, and shoulder freedom. But when I added the element of ‘control every part’ and ‘go forward at any moment,’ I also got the benefit of, well, control and forward.  That control carried over to the next exercise, and the next, and the rest of the workouts. 

Using Scott’s plan of deciding where the problem was, working that part, and then putting it back together made a big difference in Secret’s canter pirouettes.  She went into the winter understanding to rebalance and carry more on her hind legs on a straight line or a 20 meter circle, but I was having trouble maintaining the quality of the canter when we started turning. Her compression and balance seemed ok, so I spent a few days working on improving her suppleness during the compression.  Then I went back to asking for the turning steps, and boy did it work. I went from the spiral in exercise to Steffen’s pirouette diamonds to working pirouettes on the centerline, and when I kept the suppleness in mind, she could make big-girl pirouettes every time.

So even in this hard, long, snow bound winter, with all of my usual help enjoying the sun in Florida, using the resources I do have, I’ve managed to keep my guys progressing. I am looking forward to everyone returning north so I can get familiar eyes on my horses this spring. That, and warmer spring weather.

My Personal Trainer made Headlines!

Several years ago, I suffered a whip-lash injury to my lower back. While it was healing, I began to understand why riders gave up riding. I REALLY don't want to be one of those people, so I started looking for a personal trainer to help me stay strong in the right places, so I wouldn't wear my body out riding horses every day.  

I tried several different trainers, and they wanted to either make me into a body builder or an anorexic gymnast. Carolyn was the first one who actually listened when I said "if this doesn't make me ride better, I won't stick with it." And best of all, she's the first one who actually let me put her on a horse. 

In addition to my workouts, Carolyn has developed an Equestrian Boot Camp that we run here at SFD on Saturdays. Between her own riding (yep, that first ride was not a one-time event!!) and my feedback, she has created a system that incorporates cardio, core work and balance work. Believe me when I say this -- I can tell which of my students are in her class and which ones aren't.

So when the reporter from Suburban Life asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed for an article about Carolyn's fitness work, of course I agreed. Below is Carolyn's article. It's a bit hard to read, if you want me to send you a more legible digital version, e-mail me at ange@straightforwarddressage.com