First off Andrew started with a youngster who was a full sister to Toots and with Jazz in her bloodlines very hot. Slightly short in her neck conformation wise but he felt had the potential to go to Grand Prix. The consistent thing was to keep her deep and round. She wasn't ready to come up and carry herself so would just go hollow therefore it was better to have her deep and round and balanced. She didn't look like an easy ride but had fabulous paces, canter being the highlight. After an initial warmup he concentrated on transitions explaining she didn't know half halts yet so he would do a complete transition from trot-walk-trot as the initial step in teaching her the rebalancing of the half halt. Played with some leg yield and shoulder-in. He said he encouraged the young horse to escape through their shoulder in the leg yield as wanted them to keep going forwards and if you insisted too much on keeping them parallel they would struggle and back off. More important to keep forwards at this stage. Kept the circles nice and big, the transitions easy and relaxed and considering this was her first time away from home she coped very well.
Moved on to work with Jock and Clifton Lush on the flat. Totally different type. Skinny neck, much leaner with incredible hindlimb muscles (this is Lush we're talking about here, not Jock!) Orange horse which is of course the best sort and could happily have smuggled him away home. Apparently has an old injury which has dropped his withers and created the large hollow in front of his withers. Again, explained important to work him deeper initially. His paces to start with were very flat but as he warmed up and came through more from behind you uncovered a very nice horse with a super medium trot and some lovely straight flying changes. Jock said he felt he came up more in front quite naturally once he'd done the initial warmup and got him working through more. If he made a mistake he wouldn't get after him as he said he was a very genuine horse and they were just mistakes, nothing more. Just repeat the exercise and he will learn from his own mistakes.
Final dressage horse was Bellisimo - a horse who has needed a lot of reschooling as although apprently working at grand prix didn't have the basics fully established and wouldn't accept the contact. Currently competing small tour. He worked on the changes and explained that he had to sit and wait, then ride forwards through the change then to come back and sit and wait again. Cant remember much more about this one at the moment - brain fade.
Had a break then onto jumping with Jock. Started with 13yr old Clifton Lush and explained that it's all about rhythm - if you keep the rhythm you will be able to see your stride but more it's about creating the right canter for the fence and letting the fence come to you. He worked on a very useful exercise that he uses at home all the time combined with grid work. Today the fences were quite small but as the season goes on he makes them bigger and more difficult by using oil drums instead of normal fences. So we had 2 fences down each long side 7 strides apart and then a fence across the centre. He started with a couple of poles 5 strides apart and played with adding and taking away a stride. Just cantering in a relaxed fashion over the poles and making it all look very easy. He then played with the same thing with the fences down the long side. Moved on to taking the first fence on the long side then a curve to the centre fence followed by a curve in the opposite direction to the opposite fence on the long side. He did this on an easy 5 strides, on 6 strides that required riding quite a square corner and on 4 strides that required all 3 fences to be angles and quite a bit of trust. He explained at home he would ride it on 7, 6 and 5 strides but the arena was a bit narrow for that. Adjustability was the key. So then he varied it so he rode it 6 strides one way followed by 4 the next then back to 6. Clifton Lush was foot perfect with this exercise - made it all look easy.
Moved onto 10yr old Elvis who was clearly newer to the exercise and prone to getting a little excited and taking charge. He said he didn't mind him getting a bit excited after a fence as long as he came back when asked but if he tried to take charge on the way to a fence he would halt him. If he landed on the wrong leg in the curved line exercise he would halt him. It was all about discipline. His motto is "perfect practice makes perfect". Dont keep letting a horse do something that isn't correct and then expect them to do it correctly. If they do it wrong do it again correctly.
Really interesting demo. Will look forward to trying out the jumping exercise as soon as I can find an arena big enough and will try to be more focused on always asking for correctness and not accepting simple things like landing on the wrong leg that should be corrected if you want the horse to learn what's right.
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