Wheels
Well-Known Member
Weds and thurs this week saw my first clinic with Pammy Hutton. I was a bit nervous since I had heard a few stories about how sharp she can be but I needn't have worried, it was great fun.
The yard hosting the clinics has a tannoy system in the arena which is very helpful. The first things I heard were "how cute is that, your horse is very well turned out and I like your lovely boots" so that helped me settle in. I had a comp this weekend, 2 dressage tests so day 1 was running through some of the movements including the medium trot which has been a struggle for Ms stumpy pony legs. We then had a run through of one of the tests which is where it all went wrong "what size circle was that supposed to be?" "15m" says I "well the first half was 18m and the 2nd half 12m" lol "do it again, don't throw away marks on silly things like that" So we worked through shapes, we should do a diamond on the left rein since he falls out through the right shoulder and offers too much bend which also makes the circle wider.
We also worked on the medium trots, M does not find this easy - we did a bit of work around the outside of the arena getting him really forward and off the leg and then used some diagonals to mimic the tests, when I kept him up and round he was only flicking one toe forward so pammy advised to let him go on a long rein and try again - off he went, thoroughly enjoyed himself
then brought him back up and away he went and he was having a great time! If we managed to do the same thing in a test we should get at least a 6 - woohoo, that would be an improvement on last time
Day 2 - we had another go at the mediums which were already much better. We worked on the rein back and pammy made some tweaks to it - he was stepping back as soon as I put my leg back so we broke it down to ensure we got a proper halt, wait 3 secs, legs back (and he must stay in halt), ask him to come back for 4 or 5 steps and then forward again. This really helped as the rein back was always rushed and M basically dropped his wither and pushed himself backwards.
Then I asked what to work on at home over the coming weeks / months and was told to start working on the half passes in all 3 paces. Now I'm thankful that I had already taught the half pass in walk. We had only tried it a couple of times in trot before and it wasn't great but we tried it in the lesson in walk and trot and it felt pretty nice- homework is now to get it to work in canter.
One of the best things I've ever heard in a lesson is that I have good feel, I cant help but feel proud of this as it isn't something that comes natural to me, it is something I have strived for and will forever work on.
Onto the show today - we did BD Nov 28 to start which is relatively straight forward (or so I thought!) - we had a couple of costly mistakes by striking off canter on the wrong leg on one rein (never happens!) - and we also broke into canter when we should have been doing medium trot - oops! We were on for a score of 65 - 66% but those mistakes dropped us down to 63% which is pretty good for our first novice test
Our 2nd test was dressage Ireland novice 27 which has some quite strange movements in it, it was mistake free although yes, I still managed to mess up the size and shape of my 15m circles (please don't tell Pammy, I dont want get shouted at again!)
We got a 7 for our medium trot - that is amazing for us, a 7 for the rein back which was pretty nice and we also got a 7.5 for medium canter which is even more amazing! A final score of 66% - over the moon.
Both tests were a little tense and behind the leg so I know there is more to come, very exciting
The yard hosting the clinics has a tannoy system in the arena which is very helpful. The first things I heard were "how cute is that, your horse is very well turned out and I like your lovely boots" so that helped me settle in. I had a comp this weekend, 2 dressage tests so day 1 was running through some of the movements including the medium trot which has been a struggle for Ms stumpy pony legs. We then had a run through of one of the tests which is where it all went wrong "what size circle was that supposed to be?" "15m" says I "well the first half was 18m and the 2nd half 12m" lol "do it again, don't throw away marks on silly things like that" So we worked through shapes, we should do a diamond on the left rein since he falls out through the right shoulder and offers too much bend which also makes the circle wider.
We also worked on the medium trots, M does not find this easy - we did a bit of work around the outside of the arena getting him really forward and off the leg and then used some diagonals to mimic the tests, when I kept him up and round he was only flicking one toe forward so pammy advised to let him go on a long rein and try again - off he went, thoroughly enjoyed himself
then brought him back up and away he went and he was having a great time! If we managed to do the same thing in a test we should get at least a 6 - woohoo, that would be an improvement on last time Day 2 - we had another go at the mediums which were already much better. We worked on the rein back and pammy made some tweaks to it - he was stepping back as soon as I put my leg back so we broke it down to ensure we got a proper halt, wait 3 secs, legs back (and he must stay in halt), ask him to come back for 4 or 5 steps and then forward again. This really helped as the rein back was always rushed and M basically dropped his wither and pushed himself backwards.
Then I asked what to work on at home over the coming weeks / months and was told to start working on the half passes in all 3 paces. Now I'm thankful that I had already taught the half pass in walk. We had only tried it a couple of times in trot before and it wasn't great but we tried it in the lesson in walk and trot and it felt pretty nice- homework is now to get it to work in canter.
One of the best things I've ever heard in a lesson is that I have good feel, I cant help but feel proud of this as it isn't something that comes natural to me, it is something I have strived for and will forever work on
.
Onto the show today - we did BD Nov 28 to start which is relatively straight forward (or so I thought!) - we had a couple of costly mistakes by striking off canter on the wrong leg on one rein (never happens!) - and we also broke into canter when we should have been doing medium trot - oops! We were on for a score of 65 - 66% but those mistakes dropped us down to 63% which is pretty good for our first novice test
Our 2nd test was dressage Ireland novice 27 which has some quite strange movements in it, it was mistake free although yes, I still managed to mess up the size and shape of my 15m circles (please don't tell Pammy, I dont want get shouted at again!)
We got a 7 for our medium trot - that is amazing for us, a 7 for the rein back which was pretty nice and we also got a 7.5 for medium canter which is even more amazing! A final score of 66% - over the moon.
Both tests were a little tense and behind the leg so I know there is more to come, very exciting
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