Working Equitation Clinic

On Saturday, TC and I went to our first Working Equitation clinic! It was held by a trainer in the bay area, so this was my farthest haul with my new trailer yet, a full two and a half hours in the trailer down and traffic lengthened it to three hours on the way home. TC was pretty irritated once we got home, sorry bud!

The focus of the clinic was on Ease of Handling, or the obstacle course. While TC and I have never had any working equitation experience, we were still put in the Novice/Intermediate group. The reason being was that we could walk, trot, canter, steer, and knew our leads. The lower level group was a much more beginner group, and was later in the day, so I appreciated being put in the higher level group so that I didn't get home at an unreasonable hour, even if we did feel a bit over-faced.

TC seeing the obstacles for the first time and
thinking "all of them, I want to knock all of
them over" 

We got down there with a ton of time, so I hand walked TC all over the ranch. He was pleasantly curious about the place, but only screamed a couple of times and stayed mostly relaxed. After our walk, I hopped on and we warmed up in the covered arena. TC told me where all of the buckets, pitchforks, and wheelbarrows were around the outside, but generally was really good.

Soon it was time to go into the lower arena for the clinic! I was a little worried about the atmosphere. The lower arena is right by a road where big trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles (as well as horses! Teach me your ways, people who are willing to ride their horses on that busy, narrow road) were passing at speed. Plus, TC loves obstacles, so his beady little eyes were fixated on all of the obstacles rather than on me. So I hand walked him in there at first. He proved to be way chiller than I had expected, so I hopped on pretty early and never felt the need to get off! Much better than our last experience with obstacles.

I pick up jug, put jug down, TC pushes jug over... thanks bud

He's beauty and he's grace

We started by getting into two groups of three. TC and I were with the only other rider with no working equitation experience and another rider who knew the obstacles pretty well. We first did a jug obstacle, which involved picking up the jug and putting it down. TC let me do this and then wanted his turn with the jug. We then did the cup obstacle, which TC thought was great, he leaned into the pole where the cup was to get me nice and close to it. He helped me out a lot that day... for better or for worse.

We were told that square halts were necessary and I was immediately regretting telling the trainer that we were schooling Second. That's Second without square halts actually.

Moving the cup (and I put it back so that the instructor didn't
have to run over there)

From there we did the serpentine poles (I'm making up my own names for these, sorry people who have done working equitation before, TC was buzzy at first so I had to keep him walking and missed out on a lot of the knowledge of the sport). TC was pretty good in trot, though MAN is it hard to activate his hind legs when we're constantly stopping and starting. We got told that our geometry could be better... exposing another hole in our training- we don't school small figures often, and certainly none under 10m.

I did attempt it in canter, which was going well until TC saw a cone that he wanted to attack. He jumped sideways until he landed on it and I booted him off of it. I mean, the whole day was a constant battle with TC wanting to knock over obstacles and me wanting him to keep them up, so I decided not to canter anymore...

Looping around

We opened the gate, which went well, and then did the L shaped poles with the bell (official name I'm sure). TC wanted to help ring the bell and leaned into it, but he didn't spook or anything. We backed out at a glacial pace, but didn't hit any poles!

From there we did this donut circle exercise where you ride in a donut full of obstacles that your horse is NOT supposed to push or kick down. We walked it to the right and then came out, did a walk pirouette (thank god we could show that we're actually not totally idiotic for schooling Second), and then went back in to the left. TC even did it in trot! After the kicking sideways bullshit with the cone, I was not about to ask him to canter and have him take down the entire obstacle.

TC wanted to ring the bell too! We are kind of the worst at
backing through an L 

There were a couple of obstacles that involved circling around barrels, which went poorly at first and then better when I remembered my geometry. And a bridge that we walked over. TC put two feet on the bridge, sniffed it, then walked off the side of it. It took us a couple times, but then we got it!

Nearing the end, we picked up a pole and went to get a ring from a big plywood cutout of a bull. TC thought nothing of that, though wanted to be more involved with the pole. I finally got him to stop poking it with his face and he was totally unphased by the ring flinging down to my hand.

After that, we ended with side passing over a pole, which TC was great at until the very last step when he finally got to do what he wanted to do the whole clinic: destroy stuff. He knocked down the pole by backing up rather than going sideways.

He loved this part, though would have had more fun if he
could have knocked more things over

We then were given a course to memorize. My awesome student took a video for me! If he looks occasionally uneven behind it's because a) it was a long day, b) he was really tired from lots of simple changes the day before, and c) I'm riding him incredibly underpowered.

It was SUCH a fun day! I don't think we'll be switching disciplines any time soon... but I think it was a really great experience for TC. He's come so far from the spooky, reactive horse that I had for so long. To be able to walk into a strange arena with strange obstacles and not only put up with them, but want to destroy all of them interact with all of them... that's just amazing!

He didn't spook ONCE the whole day, and I don't know if I've ever been able to say that at a brand new place.