rara007
Well-Known Member
Just a report of my weekend for those who may be interested. I had a young drivers on foot training week end, aiming towards Austrasia '08.
The first session was about sports psychology. TBH didn't find it very useful, we spent most of the session going through 'rules' and then talking about controlling frustration, but it was very hard from the man, our ages ranged from 7-21.
Next was Intelligent horsemanship . We did an exercise where we had to teach someone something by only saying yes and no, and apparently that it what it was like to be a horse . They then did a join up type thing with a friends pony that is bad to trot up. Apparently he chews on the lead because he was weaned early (the person reckoned), and he did do a join up type thing, which was OK. After they tried improving his walking on the lead, by every time he went ahead making him rein back, and every time he bit the lead making a noise at him and shaking the lead. This made him put his head right up which Im not sure I'd want my pony to do. She then tried trotting and he did do it, but when he got a head the lady simply ran the other way. FFS of course he will follow you, you have a head collar that squashes his nose on, if he doesn't it will hurt him. At the end it seemed to come out that they did have some good stuff for us to work on, but more than anything they had a product to sell.
This morning I had cones and Obstacles work shop, it was really useful, and I have lots to practice. We then looked at our dressage videos and made comments, I already knew what was wrong with my test and how to improve, in the test pretty much if he had been going forward more everything would he been better but I still feel it was useful exercise.
We had a session on fund raising; I need to raise lots of money for the junior team to go to Austria-any ideas anyone. My school won't help me, although I might do a sponsored long distance carriage drive if I can get people to sponsor me. Do you think people would sponsor me to do say 50 KM in a day?
Then the good news- I am in the GB squad, officially. I don't yet know if I will be selected for Austria, but fingers crossed.
The shocking- The person who used to have Pip and Ginga was too scared of them to compete, she used to turn up and have to go home after dressage as they scared her so much!. These are the pair of ponies we drove having never driven anything other than a shetty before, and the same pony that took me to the nationals from never competed in a year, along with the one who I managed to break to ride all by myself. I recon that our way of keeping them, with no hard feed and maximum turnout does them good.
The heart stopping moment. When I got home I heard from my mum the girl that had done the horses for me while I was away had left both the field and the yard gate open, but none escaped. When I went out I got them in, in Pairs as usual and when it came to R+R I simply couldnt find Richard. The field is hilly, about 4 acres and getting dark, so I took Rory in on his own. I was so scared. What would I tell dad, his prized baby leader had gone: confused:. How would we tell the person we got them from? We lost one of his favorites. When I went back to get Brook, I heard galloping along the bridleway parallel to our field and Richard suddenly burst through the electric fencing and hedge. Fortunately he was fine, just scared he would be left out alone I think . He had broken the electric fence and decided to climb through the hedge when he got out. What a relief I found him
Thats the end of my small essay/weekend report. Any comments or ideas more than welcome!
The first session was about sports psychology. TBH didn't find it very useful, we spent most of the session going through 'rules' and then talking about controlling frustration, but it was very hard from the man, our ages ranged from 7-21.
Next was Intelligent horsemanship . We did an exercise where we had to teach someone something by only saying yes and no, and apparently that it what it was like to be a horse . They then did a join up type thing with a friends pony that is bad to trot up. Apparently he chews on the lead because he was weaned early (the person reckoned), and he did do a join up type thing, which was OK. After they tried improving his walking on the lead, by every time he went ahead making him rein back, and every time he bit the lead making a noise at him and shaking the lead. This made him put his head right up which Im not sure I'd want my pony to do. She then tried trotting and he did do it, but when he got a head the lady simply ran the other way. FFS of course he will follow you, you have a head collar that squashes his nose on, if he doesn't it will hurt him. At the end it seemed to come out that they did have some good stuff for us to work on, but more than anything they had a product to sell.
This morning I had cones and Obstacles work shop, it was really useful, and I have lots to practice. We then looked at our dressage videos and made comments, I already knew what was wrong with my test and how to improve, in the test pretty much if he had been going forward more everything would he been better but I still feel it was useful exercise.
We had a session on fund raising; I need to raise lots of money for the junior team to go to Austria-any ideas anyone. My school won't help me, although I might do a sponsored long distance carriage drive if I can get people to sponsor me. Do you think people would sponsor me to do say 50 KM in a day?
Then the good news- I am in the GB squad, officially. I don't yet know if I will be selected for Austria, but fingers crossed.
The shocking- The person who used to have Pip and Ginga was too scared of them to compete, she used to turn up and have to go home after dressage as they scared her so much!. These are the pair of ponies we drove having never driven anything other than a shetty before, and the same pony that took me to the nationals from never competed in a year, along with the one who I managed to break to ride all by myself. I recon that our way of keeping them, with no hard feed and maximum turnout does them good.
The heart stopping moment. When I got home I heard from my mum the girl that had done the horses for me while I was away had left both the field and the yard gate open, but none escaped. When I went out I got them in, in Pairs as usual and when it came to R+R I simply couldnt find Richard. The field is hilly, about 4 acres and getting dark, so I took Rory in on his own. I was so scared. What would I tell dad, his prized baby leader had gone: confused:. How would we tell the person we got them from? We lost one of his favorites. When I went back to get Brook, I heard galloping along the bridleway parallel to our field and Richard suddenly burst through the electric fencing and hedge. Fortunately he was fine, just scared he would be left out alone I think . He had broken the electric fence and decided to climb through the hedge when he got out. What a relief I found him
Thats the end of my small essay/weekend report. Any comments or ideas more than welcome!
