Clinics and Seminars, The Training Pyramid

Happy Superbowl Sunday! Where you can party it up with friends and family, eat great food, and watching some great American football! Superbowl Sunday is just another marker for me that we're just a little bit closer to spring and getting back to more serious work. As we're approaching show season, there's many opportunities to help get you ready for the season. Tack sales, lessons with trainers, books (not all books are great, but some are), but there's also many clinics and seminars you can attend as well. Whether it be online seminars or in person, they're great to get someone else's opinion about your performance and give you a few tips to work on with your own horses.

This past weekend, I attended a clinic at Cortese Arabians in Middleville, MI which is just up the road from where I live. More focused on their breeding program, CA also has their performance program which has really started to show some promise within the last couple of years. CA's trainer, David Mikosz is an accomplished horseman who is also a National Judge and has also showed major success in the show ring across the country, so going to this clinic I knew would be interesting and informative. We opened up with looking and viewing a few sale horses at their barn which all of them were excellent and well conditioned. None were show ring ready, but the first show of the month for all of us isn't for another couple months. In any case, each horse sold to anyone who attended the clinic where at a discounted price and each came with an additional month of training and instruction to allow the bond between horse, rider, and trainer to be well established before they took the horse home to work on their own. It was great to see that their horses were no where near ready either, I don't feel that I'm behind the 8 ball...yet. Each show season that I come up on, especially for the first show, I never feel completely ready. Maybe because of the hold back from the weather, or maybe a mental block...not sure, but hopefully that doesn't cost me or Paxton down the road.

Some key points I was able to take away was David's Training Pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, we start with rhythm, because having a good rhythm in your horse's movement is crucial when establish cadence and balance for your horse in the show ring, plus it makes us ensure that they are sound and comfortable. If you don't have proper rhythm, you may want to consult a trainer or your farrier and vet for alternatives. Moving up the pyramid, we have suppleness, the ability to bend and flex without breaking rhythm. Being able to bend your horse helps them maneuver their bodies around corners in the show pen and creates the illusion the horse is more collected and in frame when going down the straight rails.

The third pier is contact. The major players that we riders have as aids are our seat, legs, and hands. Maintaining contact will help you better communicate with your horse than have them go which ever way they please, not a fun situation to be in when you're trying to show them off. When working with contact, you do want to be aware of your horse's mouth. Some horses may need evaluation if they are resisting the bit out of fear or frustration. You may want to consult with a trainer or a vet to check your horse's teeth, they may need to be done. Also with the mouth, we want to engage in a conversation with the horse, from the mouth, to the bit, to the reins, to the hands, through our shoulders and down through our seat and legs. When we take contact, the horse is naturally going to have a harder time working through pressure so we want to ensure we are using our seat and legs to encourage the horse forward to keep rhythm and to move to the next tier, impulsion. Keep your horse moving forward is basically what I can come up with on impulsion, but also you want them to be working too. When judges are working, they're looking for horses that are willing and ample to work. Not that having a high energy horse makes it easier, no. Impulsion is constructive forward movement, any horse can have impulsion regardless of their work ethic, it just may take time to develop the right kind while also using suppleness to keep things in check. Best way to do that, is when the horse gets a little too impulsive, take them in circles, gradually getting smaller. This makes the horse use their body more so around the turns by keeping their balance and lifting their shoulders around the turn, helps them to slow their front legs thus slowing the overall motion.

Moving to the next step, we have straightness. Now, we want to make sure our horses are moving straight when going around the ring, sounds simple right? Well...not always. Horses, especially our fine horse breeds, will try to get out of working. Whether it be side-passing down the rail to avoid moving through the pressure of the bridle, or contorting their body with too much suppleness that you're losing your impulsion and more importantly, your rhythm. If you feel that your horse is avoiding the work, you want to use your contact aids by driving the horse forward and using your hands to straighten their head and shoulders. Use your legs too, so that you can push the horses body to keep them moving forward and help balance themselves out.

The final phase of the pyramid we focus on is collection. Having collection will allow the horse to transition between each gait more smooth and balanced, as well as maintaining their overall body frame throughout the performance. The higher degree of collection you can accomplish with your horse, the more you can do for the performance, showing various degrees of difficulty always gives you extra points with the judges. We want to ensure though, with higher degrees of collection, we don't want to sacrifice anything below on our pyramid. Collection will come and it will come easier once we have an established base and connection with our horse. Once we accomplish all of this, we'll be one step closer to being ready for the show ring!

I hope this will help you and your horse once the weather starts to break or has been at least an interesting read. Definitely, you guys, if you have any questions or if you have suggestions of what you want to see me talk about, let me know!