It’s September! I love September. September is when the temps finally break (though apparently not this week), when the kids go back to school and free their parents up to ride a bit more, when the shows ramp up again after a quiet July-August. Summer wears on me in Virginia not because it’s crazy, but because it’s not—compared to growing up in the Midwest, where a colder, longer winter meant that we really only had three months in which to do all our competing, we have a much longer season in Virginia, interrupted by a summertime lull where I have very few lessons, very few competitions, and very few distractions to take me away from living in my head. Not a good scene.
But it’s back to full work now, and I’ve got a big group of students revving up for our various year-end finals, another group all getting ready to do their first Prix St. Georges tests (SO EXCITING), and my own horses gearing up for the end of the year and for their 2017 plans.
I was graced by my coach, Michael Barisone, shiny from Olympic success, for a clinic this weekend, and in addition to being regaled with fabulous stories of the awesomeness that was the 2016 Games, he helped me with all my horses, and with my students as well.
Ella has been very good, though perhaps a little uninspired with all of this hot weather. Ella is as good and kind a girl as is out there, but she’s a bit of a cold-blooded German type, and 50+ days of 90*+ temps broke her down a bit. Our Regional finals are about two weeks away, so I’ve no choice but to ramp her up, and she’s been a good sport, though I hope we’re treated to a temperature reprieve at the show. With Ella, my goal is always to make her sharp and in front of my leg without it showing up in her topline; when I ask her for more energy, she wants to drive it out and down into my hand and onto her forehand, something that doesn’t fly at Grand Prix. I continue to develop it all, get sharper and clearer myself, and we ran through the Grand Prix Special for the first time in at least a year with no histrionics.
Beverley Thomas’s Fiero, too, is aiming at our Regional Finals, and my job with Fiero now is to reach for better expression. He’s an endlessly trainable and tractable horse, and he produces consistent, clean tests, something I certainly don’t want to take for granted! But Michael and I spent our lessons working on finding some “big boy” gaits, putting more snap and energy into him. It’s the sort of ride I would never have on a younger, greener horse, or at least not for nearly as long or with as much intensity. Having just come back from the Young Horse and Youth Championships, I watched a lot of very fancy young horses with big gaits that I wouldn’t want to own myself, not because I don’t like big gaits, but because I don’t like them becoming a habit at 4 and 5 and 6 years old; I prefer to spend those years educating the horse on compressing his body, making him rideable, and then turning up the turbo later on. Fiero showed me another level that he’s capable of, and I look forward to helping him make that his new normal.
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Speaking of young horses, mine were all very smart. Johnny has never felt better in his body, and Michael encouraged me to ask even more of him by making him even more through and off my hand. Johnny has a giant neck, set high on his body, with a lot of power that he likes to lock into and drag me around. Michael reminded me that I’m a good rider and can finesse and micromanage the picture of Johnny into looking beautiful and easy, but that that was insufficient—he actually has to BE beautiful and easy. So we addressed that, and then decided to go after the flying changes, Johnny’s current struggle, out of a different canter than the one I address all his normal canter things in. The changes I address separately, out of a sharper, less dynamic but more “edgy” canter, and sure enough, he produced clean changes each way. Johnny is so solid between the ears—I tell people he’s a bit like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, very laid back and a bit of a stoner—that I have to fire him up to get him to change clean behind, but not in a way that runs him up against the bridle. The strategy was great, and I’m really excited to put it into play over the next few months.
My assistant trainer Natasha rode Hurricane, the four year old I co-own with Beverley Thomas. Hurricane has grown about two inches since we bought him in January, and he’s gone through a few teenage doofus mood swing stages, and appears to have come out the other side of the worst of that nonsense. He’s just gorgeous, but a little uncoordinated, and he’d put both Natasha and I a bit on guard as far as how we approached him. Michael backed us down, told us to give him a chance to make good choices, and sure enough, he did. Natasha worked on addressing bend and the connection, and while not once did we ever discuss expression or engagement, as she worked, Hurricane got more and more impressive. With my recent watching of the Young Horse classes, as I watched Hurricane go, I felt very good about our choice in picking him.
And then there’s Danny. Danny did some young horse classes in Holland, and I certainly could have shown him in the 6-year-old division two years ago. And man, am I ever glad that I didn’t. Danny was put on a 20m circle for most of his 6- and 7-year-old years, and the result now at 8 is a horse I can adjust, make the neck longer and shorter, higher and lower, more and less expressive, more and less powerful, and all with (virtually) no drama. Yes, he’s still got some developing to do, but there was no question Michael asked of us that we couldn’t at least make a fair effort at. We addressed his pirouettes, where he likes to lift his neck for balance instead of really sitting and carrying (and no kidding, because, hello, 8). We addressed how I play with half-steps, and that’s really what it is—playing. I tease him a bit with the stick, get two or three steps of bouncing little piaffe-ish, and then reward. I do not use my leg, because I want that to be the thing that makes the piaffe big once it’s established, not the thing that calls the piaffe into existence; that fire has to come from within him. Danny is going to be a remarkable Grand Prix horse one day.
Between working with my own horses, and then watching amateur rider students of mine riding horses that either we’ve made together or that I’ve made and then sold them, I remarked on how lovely and quiet everything was—no drama, no nonsense, nothing off limits in the training. It’s so lovely to have known our “schoolmasters” since the beginning of their careers, and know everything about them, know that they can address serious collection and make mistakes and repeat repeat repeat without one second’s fear about what the horse will and won’t accept, all because I’ve done it already, when those horses were 5 and 7 and 9. Michael said this several times, and it’s always something I’ve agreed with—the best thing our amateur riders can do is invest in young horses with good brains, and then park them with experienced hands for a few years. Watching my students reap the rewards of that philosophy warmed my heart through and through!
