Back To Basics

I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything but today had a conversation with a student that got me inspired to do some writing.  First of all, a quick update on our spring/summer season for our friends out there, this season has been relatively quiet but we did attend the Kelowna Spring Show and the Edmonton Amberlea Spring Show, Landino, Sietske and Diamond Gem each earned scores into the 70s and championships respectively at their level, we had planned on attending the Calgary show in June but due to the flooding on the roads had to cancel our trip so will be attending the Alberta Provincials there shortly instead:)  Anyhow, getting on with the training portion of this post, today I had a conversation with one of my students about basics versus tricks which made me want to do some writing.  I think that there is such a gap with a lot of dressage riders in the actual understanding of how the basics affect everything, I think there are a lot of people in the sport who say the "right" things verbatim because they've heard those things repeated over and over again but rarely do I actually see someone who truly applies those things correctly to their training sessions which tells me that the concept is actually not fully understood so much as it is repeated verbally.  As a trainer, I know without any doubt that any issues with my horses are always related to a hole in the basics, I am always confident in that belief, and fixing those holes is always my number one focus in training, that being said I'm not saying it's easy, just because one is a trainer doesn't mean we don't struggle with the basics as well, every rider and every horse has their difficulties, but it does mean I have a large toolbox to help fix those holes and it also means I have understanding and complete confidence in what it is I need to fix.  As a coach, I can tell quite a bit about a student by how they come into a lesson, when a student comes in and you ask them to tell you about their horse there are usually three types of responses, the ones who openly say they don't know much and will leave it up to you to tell them what to do, the ones who may not be completely confident in their assessment of themselves but know they need to correct their basics (i.e the ones who come in saying they struggle with contact or bend) and the third type who come in saying they want to work on a specific movement, half pass, flying changes etc.  The third type is always the one that scares me the most as a coach, mainly because they are often looking for a quick fix for one of the tricks and I am not someone who can give a quick fix and ignore a hole in the basics when I see one and sometimes it is hard to get these students to wrap their head around the idea that they need to fix a very basic thing (something they thought they already had down) in order to improve their work beyond that, I can honestly say that I personally have never walked into a lesson or clinic and asked the coach/trainer to work on a specific movement.  I always hear the word "exercise" in dressage, people want exercises to improve things, they want drills to go through and repeat over and over again, something that they can practice through routine but the thing is there are no magic exercises in this sport and in reality the exercises actually don't matter much at all, it's how you ride the exercise that matters.  There are thousands of exercises and drills that we can put our horses through but none of those matter if we aren't working the horse correctly through the body while doing those exercises, if we don't have a horse using itself correctly while doing an exercise we are simply putting miles on the body, this is no different for humans, any coach, trainer etc in any sport will tell you that it doesn't matter what exercise you do, if you do it in a way that isn't productive for your body then it's not only a waste of time but often times actually counterproductive.  For example, often people will come to me and ask me for an exercise to improve the bend in their half passes and they seem to be looking for a magic fix for the "half pass problem" but what they are failing to realize is that if there is a problem in the half pass, there is a bend problem in general going on, so drilling the half pass again and again, no matter how you mix it up, is likely useless, I can certainly come up with ways to practice a half pass but in all honesty I can be of much more help "fixing the half pass" by working on basic suppleness on a circle or in riding proper bend through a corner than in actually fixing the half pass.  When that basic suppleness is corrected, all of a sudden the half pass more or less fixes itself (and this applies to any movements, flying changes, pirouettes etc. the problem is never in the movement it is in an element of the basic training, of course we have to ride movements at some point because that's how we check in with our training but we can't fix movements by riding movements, if I school a movement and notice the movement doesn't work as I'd like it to then I have an answer as to whether or not there is a hole in the basics, the next step is to isolate where the problem area is, for example if my horse falls through my inside leg in a half pass then I have the answer that I don't have the horse around my inside leg well enough, the answer is not to keep working at that half pass but to go back and work on keeping the horse better around the inside leg and that is something that can be achieved best by going right back to the basic training scale element of suppleness, so the long and the short of it is don't fix movements, fix basics!

Consistency Is Key!

Not long ago someone asked me what I thought was the biggest reason for why someone might not have success in dressage, I had to think about this question long and hard because there are so many factors that contribute to either being successful or unsuccessful in this sport but in the end I kept coming back to the same conclusion.....consistency!  I think as human beings our ability to be consistent is questionable at the best of times, people like variety, "keep things interesting" as they say, and we're not always the best at being consistent in how we approach or achieve things.  Horses, on the other hand, are the complete opposite, their lives revolve around consistency and we as riders need to keep things consistent for the sake of helping our horses to learn.  Consistency with horses is a multiple layered thing, it not only involves consistency with the care but also the training program.  With a proper stable management program we make sure our horses get the care they need on a consistent basis, this applies to the obvious day to day tasks such as feeding, cleaning and watering to the more complex care of the equine athlete including routine vet checkups (and whatever therapeutic treatments each individual horse may require) and farrier work. When it comes to the training side of things we need to be consistent not only with our regular training program but also how we train, what we ask of the horse and what response we expect to get from them.  I think a committed training program is so much undervalued in North America, there are so many riders who are wishy washy in how they train.  By a committed training program I am not in any way referring to drilling the horse or overworking them day in and day out, far from it, I think our daily routines should have variety for sure to keep the horse interested and fresh and their bodies working in different ways but what I am referring to is committing to a certain way of training and what we expect, as an example it's not okay to one day get after your horse for not being in front of the leg and then the next day let them ignore the leg and change the rules, riders often do this, when you put an aid on you have to expect the same response every single time otherwise you are training your horse that it is okay to ignore the aid and then it's not fair later on when you get after them for ignoring that aid-this conflict causes confusion and frustration in horses-when they are clear on what is expected of them and feel the reward for the correct response they are very willing to do as we ask but riders are very guilty of not being consistent in our expectations.  There are certainly times that it is okay to be inconsistent, for example we need to train our horses to be diverse in things like what time of day they are ridden, being taken to unfamiliar locations and adapting as well as different types of workouts to keep them using different muscle groups, that sort of variety is great but the ground rule basics of proper aids and proper responses has to be consistent day in and day out (that being said making sure you check out your aids and ensure that they are correct before making the correction to the horse goes without saying!).  Someone also asked me recently what I thought were the qualities that make up a "good rider/trainer", in my opinion a good rider and trainer is one who is diverse in their abilities yet consistent in their training, to better explain that I think a truly good rider is someone who can take any horse regardless of type, gender, breed, temperament, age or level and correctly train them through the levels to that horse's ability (I also think a good rider/trainer has the ability to realize each horse is different and some have greater limitations physically than others and has the compassion to not push a horse beyond it's physical limit), this sounds like a no brainer but it's remarkable the number of riders out there who can only ride a certain type, level or temperament of horse and while all riders will naturally have their preference of horse type I think a truly skilled rider can train a wide variety of horses successfully.  Anyhow that's my two cents for the night:)

Feb update

Time to give everyone another update from the sunny south, training has been progressing nicely with all the horses, we've given Nico a small break this last week as he had been doing so well in his training and then his body started to feel like it needed a bit of a rest, as trainers we have to listen to our horses even if it means delaying our plans for the week so we've backed off him a little bit to let him have a rest and will start to build his work back up again soon, this is always the hard part of training horses we have in mind the schedule we want our training to be on but we have to listen to the horse first and not be overeager and it's important that when our horses tell us they need more time that we respect that and don't put our plans ahead of their needs.  Landino is rolling along with things, I've been continuing to try to expose him to things out here as the more exposure he gets the more he settles in, he's a very rational horse in that regard, he might be a bit nervous and tentative at first but once he knows he's okay then he's settled and ready to go.  We took him out to his second show at the Jim Brandon last weekend again doing two Third Level tests to get him around the ring confidently, the first day he was a very good boy and he earned his very first 10 which was very neat and the second day he also tried very hard, had a mistake in the first medium trot but also had some very nice moments, 9s for half passes and a score of 72% to win his class, overall I really can't complain about that at all!  Miss Ocita is also progressing very nicely, she is starting to understand more and more how to start to close up her body more and use her back and topline a bit better, I've had some moments where I start to feel her lifting through the back and shoulders and can feel where this will develop into something very expressive down the road, it really doesn't matter what level the horse is it's always exciting for me when they start to have break throughs and you can feel them start to understand the pieces, anyhow that's the update for now and thanks to my clients who have sent me videos the last bit I've got a few of them on my list to get to so I promise I will get to them ASAP and send you all feedback, nice to keep in touch with everyone and see how you're all doing back home:)

Overdue Update!!

Sorry to everyone that I haven't posted anything recently but as the saying goes time does fly when you're having fun and I have to say this winter has been great so far.  I'm super happy with how all the horses are doing.  Nico is doing fantastic, he is really trying very hard in all of his work and I feel he is using himself in a better way all the time, consequently he also feels this more in his muscles and then gets tired but now when he gets tired it's a good tired because he is using himself in a better way, he's always been a tense horse and often carried himself on adrenaline but now he is letting me more into his body and staying more relaxed through his brain (and consequently his topline as well!) and really using his bigger muscle groups so it's a nice feeling at the end when he gives a bit of a sigh and his body feels like it's really worked in a good way.  This has been such a big hurdle for him in his career so I'm super happy with how he is going and plan to continue on as we have been, as I mentioned in the last post my main goal down here for him is not the showing (maybe a couple here and there) but to really confirm the GP work with him and get things solid and then I plan to show him back in Canada over the May-October months more, so all in all very positive work from Nico.  Landino is also progressing right along and doing amazing, he has such an fantastic work ethic and is just willing to try his heart out, I haven't done any showing with Landino up to this point so decided to take him out on a schooling adventure last weekend to get him out and about so we went down to the Jim Brandon centre, it was great because on the warmup day I was able to take him in the big indoor and school with all the sights and sounds (scoreboard etc. all the things he'll need to get used to seeing) and though he was a bit tense and 'up' he was very well behaved, the second day we had a lesson and just worked in the warmup again just getting him used to things and the third day I entered him in a third level test just to get him around the actual show ring once so we could see how that went, he was a really good boy earning a 70.7% even with a couple of bobbles (nothing too major just a couple mis-cues between us, still have to get to know each other in the show ring a bit more but we'll go out again in a couple weeks for another tour) but generally speaking extremely happy with that for our first show together.  We also did a session with Juan Matute (who is great with the in hand piaffe/passage work) today, we did this with Nico the first year to help him with the piaffe/passage work and it was really good and a little bit last year with Rozzie as well so thought this would be a good time to introduce Landino to it as he is starting to play with those bits as well.  Ocita is also doing really well earning some life experience and mileage, have taken her out on the track a bit and schooled in the outside dressage ring today so getting her used to seeing different things, working still on the basics for her, starting to introduce her to the idea of closing more from behind and learning to step more into the contact, more suppleness through the ribcage all those good things that she has to learn about at this stage of training but she likes to get out and about and seems to be enjoying herself very much.  Anyhow that's all the news for now, hoping everyone back home is doing well, missing everyone and still looking forward to seeing you all again in a couple months:)

Day Off Update

Thought I would take a little time to update the blog as the ponies had a relaxing day off today and got to hang out this afternoon and do some grazing.  All is going well so far, the horses settled in well and have adjusted to their new home for the winter months, everyone had to have haircuts as they were all still wearing their winter fur from back home and were sweating in the humidity down here right away.  Nico settled right in and seems to remember his home from the past two winters quite well, Ocita and Landino also settled in though they were a bit more suspicious of things in their new winter home for a couple days, little bit more action at the barn down here so they had to get used to the new sights and sounds naturally.  I've got both Nico and Landino to ride in daily lessons which is great, they're both doing well and are good horses but also are very different horses physically and mentally so I feel like I'm getting twice as much knowledge from my lessons, it's always nice to get back into a lesson program myself for a few months, gives me lots of new knowledge and stuff to take back home with me to my clients and training horses at the end of the winter and just a chance to refresh the basics and focus on things, Ocita is continuing her regular training with me down here and is making good progress and basically just getting some more life experience, hacking out on the track etc, I'm quite happy with how she is doing, getting more consistent in her contact and generally feeling more supple, will be fun to see how much progress she makes over the next 3 months.  In lessons with Nico we have been working on getting him straighter (for Nico getting straighter means getting him more through the left rib cage and into the right rein as he always has the tendency to be a bit stiffer on the left side than the right) and getting him more in front of me and swinging with more power from two equal hindlegs without losing the relaxation and connection through all of the work, so important with him to stay quick (not only for him as I have to try to keep him moving quickly off the ground but also for me as the timing between my leg, half halt and softening has to be very quick otherwise he can either get stuck behind me or can get a bit flat and running, to keep him quick behind off the ground and over the back into a half halt and self carriage is the goal....sounds so easy!!:P) these things will all sound very familiar to my students back home I'm quite sure......yes we never stop working to improve those basics!;)  Generally speaking I have been quite pleased with Nico thus far down here, he has adjusted well and is trying very hard in our lessons and we go for a little hack after each session for his brain to relax a bit which he enjoys, my goal for him is to have him solid enough at the Grand Prix to show him regularly in BC and Alberta this year through the summer months and we might try and take in a couple shows down here in March depending on how the training goes.  With Landino we have been working to confirm everything, he is doing great and making steady progress up the levels, with him it's basically just about getting him stronger, straighter and more through to continue improving the overall quality of everything, again the basics that you always work to improve, outside of that he basically has all the pieces and now just needs time to get everything confirmed but he is coming along super well and I'm very pleased with how much he has achieved in a short while, I'm going to take him out to a show this weekend just to school as I've never taken him to a show before so thought this would be a good opportunity to get to know each other in a show environment without any pressure and then we're hoping to do a show in early Feb, am planning to keep things quite easy for our first couple outings planning to enter him in Third Level and basically just get around in a nice positive way and then we'll go from there and will hope to do a PSG at some point this year, we've played with the pieces a bit in schooling but of course it's always easier at home than in the show ring so I want to keep things easy in the beginning for him so that he has a positive experience to gain some confidence in the show ring and then I have no doubt he'll be sailing right along:)  Anyhow that's all for now, missing everyone (horses and humans) back home and sending warm weather wishes back home to you all!

2013 Winter Season Has Arrived!!

I just wanted to do a quick post to update everyone on how things are going, for those who don't know I'm back in Florida training for three months over the winter, this year I brought a lovely group of horses with me, Dominic my GP horse who is now into his third winter down here, Landino who I've been working with over the past year and is showing huge talent and progressing rapidly and a lovely PRE mare named Ocita, I want to say a huge thanks to all of their owners (Susanne, Konra and Shawneen) for their confidence in me as a rider and trainer, it means the world to me and is what makes this all possible.  I also want to say a big thank you to everyone who supported our 2013 calendar fundraiser and in particular our monthly sponsors (Konra and Don Young, Shawneen Jacobs, Leslie Cockerline and the Hollies Executive Golf Course) as well as Elizabeth Toth for the amazing photography featured in the calendar.

Our journey south started on the 28th of December, I had a quick holiday season at my brother's place in Nelson with the whole family and then zipped home on the 27th for the last minute packing and hit the road the morning of the 28th (special thanks to Shawneen, Joanna and Larisa for helping with the huge packing process!!).  We crossed the border in Washington that morning and overnighted at Tulip Springs in Kennewick Washington which was a lovely facility for the horses and a great guest house for us to stay in, the second night we were on to Salt Lake City in Utah with the horses spending the night at a fantastic barn called Riverbend Ranch Equestrian Center, we grabbed a hotel for the evening a couple minutes down the road, the third night we were into Albuquerque, New Mexico, we were thankful for good roads on this part of the drive as there are some very steep mountain passes, it was very cold through the mountains so I was quite glad I'd waited to clip the horses as there were parts where we got down to -22!  In Albuquerque the horses stayed at the Broken M Ranch which has some nice oversized stalls for the horses to relax in overnight, we were surprised to wake up to a skiff of snow in the morning in Albuquerque but luckily once the sun came up the roads were clear and we were moving along, the fourth night (New Years Eve) we got into Wichita Falls in Texas and Legacy Equestrian Park which is a great facility with wonderfully accommodating hosts, at this point we were finally able to change the horses out of their winter blankets into some lighter sheets, though it wasn't exactly warm but at least into the plus digits!!  Our last evening we were in Mobile Alabama at a really neat little overnight called the Rocking A Ranch, I would gladly recommend any of these facilities to people traveling with horses as overnight stops, they are all great spots, very horse and trailer friendly and at most places you're either able to stay on site with the horses or very close at a hotel minutes away.  We pulled into Florida late on the evening January 2nd, we were rolling along pretty well and at our very last fuel stop before getting into Jupiter I checked the tires and found one of them had lost half a tread (looked like a defective tire) so thankfully we were able to put the spare on before it blew and continued our trip into Jupiter.  So now after a few days the horses are all settled in at the beautiful Lady Jean Ranch (http://www.ljrelite.com), the first few days were dedicated to unpacking and setting everything up (getting hay organized etc.) and giving the horses a few days to rest after the journey.  Yesterday I had my first little school on the horses, all were good and feeling quite fresh and eager to get to work which was great so today I had my first short lessons and will start to build up from here.  I have to say I'm very much looking forward to getting back into a lesson and training program myself for a few months and I also want to say how appreciative I am of my clients back home who are patient  and understand that this time away to further my education gives me so much more information and tools to apply to my teaching and training when I return back in the spring, I've always felt that a coach/trainer who doesn't continue to further their education is not doing their job to the best of their ability, and on that note I'll be looking forward to getting back home in the spring and sharing everything with you all and wishing everyone back home good weather and happy riding, will try to keep the blog updated with information as much as possible with all that is going on and to everyone back home feel free to email or message me at any time for anything!

Over The Years

Just got home from another fantastic clinic in Calgary, had a few days of excellent lessons (as always I believe that even professional riders need to take advantage of good instruction whenever possible, if we don't get routine help then we lose touch with reality in our training and often get stuck in a rut or keep making the same mistakes over and over again), I rode two horses in the clinic, my usual partner Dominic as well as Landino a horse in training who I felt would benefit from a field trip and some instruction, both horses were fantastic and made great progress over the days.  With Dominic we worked lots on variations, especially lots of transitions within the gaits.  Dominic is a tense horse by nature and consequently the biggest issue in our training is always to get him looser and more swinging, every horse has their natural tendencies and as trainers we have to understand that we can't 'fix' who our horses are but work to improve their weaknesses progressively through a planned training program, in other words I can't expect that Dominic will overnight just magically change and become the world's most relaxed horse, he is who he is, however with systematic training and development we can improve this tendency and develop him into a more relaxed boy, consequently we try to keep a work program that consists of lots of variations between high degrees of collection and then intervals of loose, stretching working trot, with the goal that over time the looseness and stretching that we find in the working gaits will carry over into all the other work.  As always, it's so interesting to look back over things in time and see how they've changed, if your horse continues to improve his gaits throughout the course of his training then you're doing your job as a trainer.  It's so beneficial to keep old video footage to look back on to see the development, after this week's clinic I looked back through some of my old videos of Dominic and found this one taken two years ago in June 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hLSOqFIADY
-video clips from a couple of shows at PSG/I1 level in 2010

After watching this one I compared it to the video taken from the clinic this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmTdypBDzlo
-this only shows a few clips of some of the more collected work as I could only fit so much in the video but in between we alternate frequently to a working/stretching gait and then back to the collection

I was shocked at the difference in Dominic, it's rare that I get the chance to just sit down and compare video footage over the years, it's truly amazing how much a horse develops with training and a proper care plan in place to keep their bodies performing in top condition, I have to say a thanks to Mills Vet for helping to keep Dominic in top shape over the years.  It's so interesting to see how he has learned to use his body in such a different way, much more articulation through the back and joints and consequently greater carriage and more expression.  To make a long story short it's fascinating to keep video over the years and see how the horses change and develop, it's also a great way to see if your training is really helping to develop your horse into a better athlete, I'm very happy with how far Dominic has come over the years and can't wait to see how he continues in his career:)