Most of my riding instruction from about age 16 on has been on upper level horses, whether made by myself or by someone else. If I were to add up all the lessons I’ve had on horses over third level and compared them to all the lessons on lower level horses, I’m sure the uppers would win. Billy, Struppie and Cleo all came to me as Prix St. Georges horses. My first real dressage horse, Nicholas, was a cantankerous Trakehner that could do a bad PSG if you begged for it. And while Ella and Midge and Fender all entered my life as kiddos, I’ve had far less help with them than with the others.
So while I’m reasonably comfortable training young horses because I can feel what needs to happen for them to start feeling like the Big Kids, I’ve never been 100 percent happy with my ability to show them off. I don’t show training and first and even second level as well as some of my peers.
And let’s be clear—that’s not ego. I’m not saying this is a good thing. In fact, I think it’s a bad thing. Showing training and first level is fiercely hard. The movements are few, and they’re long—you get one score at training level for picking up the trot at A, going all the way to B for a 20-meter trot circle, and then proceeding all the way down to the C end of the arena. That movement probably takes, what, 45 seconds at least? In the Prix St. Georges you get scores for movements that are over in 5 or 10 seconds. And at training level you’re sitting on something that is a) young and squirrely, prone to silliness, and b) young and weak, prone to losses of balance. Plenty of time for something to go wrong, and no time to compensate for it.
So that was a big motivation for wanting to ride with my friend Eiren Crawford when she came to town. The other is that she’s the reason I own Fender—Eiren is good friends with Fender’s breeder, so when I was lamenting being in love with a Sir Donnerhall gelding who I’d seen but couldn’t be 100 percent confident in, she told me about another one she knew in Kentucky. And you all know how that story ended. I wanted her to see Mr. Fender Bender in the flesh, especially since she rides his mom, Alabama.
Plus, Eiren is awesome. So the rest is really just details.
Eiren is a Canadian ex-pat living and training in Germany. She’s a stellar rider and communicator, but she’s also spent several years working with Ingrid Klimke, who, you know, is pretty cool and stuff. She brought all those skills to the table, plus the interesting knowledge of Alabama. She and Fender are VERY similar, apparently, both in look and type and in personality—they’re charming and sweet and curious, but also really enjoy being in your personal space. Funny how genetics work! (And ruh roh for Farrah—she’ll probably have an ego as big as Cleo’s. Great!)
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My lesson on Fender was REALLY good. He’s so adjustable that I get insecure about where to put his neck, so I tend to just ride two outlines—up and out, like for the show ring, and long and low, like for stretchy circling. Eiren told me to put him everywhere, that encouraging him to be able to go up and down and right and left will make him more reliable in “the outline,” and develop his topline more. Of course I know this from FEI horses, but I’d feared confusing him in his baby stage. Not so, says Eiren. Cool.
She also encouraged me not to take his crap about sitting on the left rein. He’s never been stellar about really taking the bit on either side, so I got pretty excited when I could put him in at least my left hand, and so I didn’t want to make an issue of the fact that he never really takes me to the contact on the right side. She encouraged me to not just try and fix the contact with my hand, but also to give him a good boot with my left leg if he didn’t give me a good answer. Today, on my own? One kick was all it took, and he got right up to the right rein and offered me this stunning trot. Hello!
And best thing of all? A huge improvement on his gathered walk, which I’ve never been able to mentally figure out. I haven’t yet found the way to keep the back supple and swingy as I shorten the reins, and sending him more forward (the answer to most things, right?) just makes him choppy. Follow with your hands, but like ridiculously so, she says. Seriously? I’m thinking. I feel like I’m flopping all over the place. But sure enough, he stabilized, and what I saw in the mirror wasn’t really all that funny looking at all. Fabulous.
The biggest thing I came away with is that while yes, of course he’s not going to answer my questions like an FEI horse, I can still have high expectations for Fender. I need to make sure that I give him opportunities to make a mistake, so I can show him the right way, instead of never going there. And I need to keep my questions short and to the point, and only require a few steps of a good answer. That’s something I’m already pretty good about, but you can never hear it enough.
The other highlight was that Eiren sat on him. “Just for a few minutes,” she promised… before riding for half an hour. She said she was having too much fun to stop! And that makes me feel good—I’m far from perfect, of course, and I’ve got plenty to work on, but I’ve still kept him fun and straightforward enough that a stranger can just hop on and go to work, AND have a nice time. And that’s what we all strive for, at any level, when making a horse!
