Fun and games with the best in the world

George Morris, Ingrid Klimke, and David O' Connor. There aren’t too many bigger names than that. Putting all three together for a three day clinic? Not to be missed. For those foolish people who *did* miss it – my notes from the day are on the GRS blog. Not nearly as exciting of course, but maybe worth reading :)

For the fun after effects, read on :)

Alright so you spend all day watching Ingrid Klimke, and David O' Connor make amazing changes in horses and riders through seemingly simple exercieses and really, can’t help but be inspired.

Anyways – after the clinic was over I of course headed out to see Sienna :) Can we say cavalletti? Hahaha and what did I learn? I learned my incredibly athletic horse can canter on a 4.5’ stride. >;-P Yeah that wasn’t exactly the intent, but it was seriously impressive. One of these “I almost wish I didn’t have to correct this” moments because it was calm, incredibly collected and more balanced than I’ve ever felt.

The cavalletti were set w/ alternating sides on the ground (4 of them). Walking through them was no problem, trotting lead to several times through in canter, but changing direction got her to trot through. Once she had that I could trot through it either way, although getting even, rhythmic strides took several tries.

Then I took it down to three and made one of them straight across. This took a couple tries but eventually she pulled it off. And I was so impressed. She was quiet, relaxed, thinking about the puzzle :) She never got frazzled when it didn’t work, just made it better the next time until she had it perfect.

And as one can imagine – her dressage after that was just about the best we’ve ever done. Hahaha I’ve had other coaches advocate jumping before dressage to, but that’s the first time I’ve seen a dressage clinic start out that way and it worked unbelievably well for Miss Si (not a surprise since she’s *always* better after jumping, what was a surprise was how calm she was about the whole thing).

Anyways – I was pretty thrilled.

As a random note, I was somewhat amused to discover that a lot of the phrases that I attribute to my coach specifically are apparently a more wide-spread German thing than just him :) I discovered this because Ingrid uses the exact same phrases. Totally disconcerting to hear from her voice :)

Oh and my group lessons next week – you’re definitely trying the drill ride idea :) hahaha should prove entertaining!