This weekend was spent training – working on using our gears on the beach, and a flatwork/jumping session with David Gatherer.
We headed back down to John Muir beach early on Saturday morning with Kerry and her wonderful horse Conner. Conner helped teach Corky how to use his different gears in canter and up into a full gallop. Both of the horses were very well behaved – 7yo Corky was actually calmer than 23yo Conner who wanted to go even faster but was held back by Kerry much to his dislike! They both had fun stretching out along the sand and finishing up with a paddle in the sea. They were both much braver than our last visit.
On Sunday we joined a group clinic at SNEC with David Gatherer. David knows Corky from when Olivia owned him which really helps when teaching. Our first session was working on one of the BE90 dressage tests. David had lots of good tips and highlighted common errors riders make. He said that I needed to be much braver and really ride my test. Corky was not keen on this style so was chucking his head about but David said to persevere with it as my marks won’t ever increase if I always ride on the safe side! You can see grumpy Corky in the video below!
We then moved onto jumping which we both enjoyed more! We did pole work initially working on pace and accuracy riding up and down aiming for different coloured lines of striped poles. We then did the same with a triple, initially with the three jumps lined up in a straight line, then on angles, and then a curve to finish.
It highlighted that we could set out on a line and stay on it thankfully – but also showed that if I didn’t set up in a decent canter, Corky would always knock the first jump. Interesting stuff. David recommended adding a ‘canter day’ into my schooling. Use the trot in in my warm-up phase and then only walk and canter. He made a valid point that in two out of three of our eventing phases were ridden in canter so we should be spending equal time working on our trot and our canter.
Videos courtesy of Gareth and photos from Dave Cameron.
http://youtu.be/GfKRW9Vq9B4
We headed back down to John Muir beach early on Saturday morning with Kerry and her wonderful horse Conner. Conner helped teach Corky how to use his different gears in canter and up into a full gallop. Both of the horses were very well behaved – 7yo Corky was actually calmer than 23yo Conner who wanted to go even faster but was held back by Kerry much to his dislike! They both had fun stretching out along the sand and finishing up with a paddle in the sea. They were both much braver than our last visit.
On Sunday we joined a group clinic at SNEC with David Gatherer. David knows Corky from when Olivia owned him which really helps when teaching. Our first session was working on one of the BE90 dressage tests. David had lots of good tips and highlighted common errors riders make. He said that I needed to be much braver and really ride my test. Corky was not keen on this style so was chucking his head about but David said to persevere with it as my marks won’t ever increase if I always ride on the safe side! You can see grumpy Corky in the video below!
We then moved onto jumping which we both enjoyed more! We did pole work initially working on pace and accuracy riding up and down aiming for different coloured lines of striped poles. We then did the same with a triple, initially with the three jumps lined up in a straight line, then on angles, and then a curve to finish.
It highlighted that we could set out on a line and stay on it thankfully – but also showed that if I didn’t set up in a decent canter, Corky would always knock the first jump. Interesting stuff. David recommended adding a ‘canter day’ into my schooling. Use the trot in in my warm-up phase and then only walk and canter. He made a valid point that in two out of three of our eventing phases were ridden in canter so we should be spending equal time working on our trot and our canter.
Videos courtesy of Gareth and photos from Dave Cameron.
http://youtu.be/GfKRW9Vq9B4
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