I saw so many bloggers last week! It started with the epic
Norcal Blogger Meetup where I met a bunch of local bloggers (plans are already being made for meeting up at Menlo and elsewhere, if you're local and not on the email list but want to be, let me know!). Then on Wednesday I headed out to torment
Kate's students with dressage during one of her camps. On Friday I met Kate,
Emma (who was in town for work!), and
L for tacos. And on Saturday, L and Emma came down to the ranch and Emma rode Rico.
Because the baby horse comes home soon (TOMORROW) and I am going to have a lot to say about that, I'm going to try to dump all this information into one post. Sorry. It's in sections for you so you can skip around.
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| Absolutely necessary part of riding a Grand Prix horse |
Wednesday
Kate had emailed me about coming out to teach during her advanced camp and I was super stoked to do it! I arranged to ride the almost-FEI horse in the morning and then zipped down to her barn.
I managed to find my way to her barn in the mountains easier than I thought (I never lost GPS signal, phew). It's SUCH a cute barn, totally reminds me of a barn I rode at when I was a kid.
I taught I think eight lessons? I really have NO idea, the first four (five?) lessons went by in a blur and we headed off the property to grab a sandwich and talk about ponies (of course) before heading back and teaching the rest. I taught kids of all ages and levels on different types of ponies, which was fun because all of the lessons were a little different. I got to meet internet famous Tango and Kat, as well as the other horses featured on Kate's blog. Including Danny the morgan who I totally loved (and I heard his rider who hasn't ridden him much say "I really want to ride him more" after her lesson. She should, he's really cute on the flat!).
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| Riot loves selfies |
I won't go into each lesson, but there were underlying themes. First, Kate's riders are all really well matched with their horses. Even though some horses would spook, no rider was nervous or overfaced, which is always a fear of mine coming into a clinic. In the last several clinics I've taught, I've had at least one completely inappropriate pairing and it's so hard to deal with that in a clinic setting. I don't want to be the clinician saying "that's an inappropriate match" when it might just be a bad day.
Second, the riders all take instruction- even nitpicky, boring, constant stream of instruction- really well. They all really think about their riding and genuinely want to improve, no one argued with me or struggled to understand what I was saying. The more talkative of them drilled me with questions and asked for clarification and all of them had clear plans of what they wanted to get out of the lesson, which makes my life a million times easier.
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| Rico trying to tell Emma that her quarter ran out |
Finally, they all have great basics down. It's so hard on a rider who comes in saying "I want to go First level tomorrow" and you realize that they have no idea where they're sitting or how to put the horse on the bit. I always feel bad being like "everything you know and everything you do is wrong and let's start with walking on a circle." I've been there as a rider and it sucks.
But all the riders were quiet in the tack, with appropriately independent seats for their level, and knew the basic progression that they were on- so I was able to jump right in with the nitpicky dressage without shutting anyone down. All three of those things makes me certain that Kate is basically the trainer I wish I had when I was growing up (vs the one that I had who just sort of set us loose on ponies, which is good too, but not as good). Really thinking riders with great basics and excellent horses.
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| Rico is so cute |
So the lessons were all about refinement, whether that was getting the horse on the bit and working on self carriage, changing the biomechanics of the hind legs, changing the way the horse was using their topline, or digging into developing bend and energy. And all these topics with KIDS.
That just doesn't happen- I'm not a beloved children's instructor, let me tell you, I basically just open the floodgates and stuff as many words as I can into the short amount of time during lessons. I exhaust myself, and like I said at Peony's lesson, I genuinely only expect a rider to take in a third of it. But those kids, even the young ones, really stepped up and made me SO excited about each and every one of them.
After teaching, I had some time before my evening lesson (it was a 14 hour day!), so Kate and I went downtown to hang out and grab some gelato, which I got way too much of. It was SO much fun, I don't have too many trainer friends so it was so fun to talk about the horse world from that perspective. And I feel like I did a good job of not harassing her too much about getting herself and Kat in the dressage ring. Guys. This horse. She's spectacular. Quirky, sure, but her gaits make TC look like a plow horse. Kate said something about hoping she'd go to Second and I had to resist laughing and snatching her away to be my next Grand Prix prospect.
At the end I got a sweet card from all the girls, which totally made my day! They all
lied told me that they loved their lessons and thanked me for coming out. Such sweet kids!
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| My pony! L painted his toes to make him extra fancy |
Friday
Friday afternoon after my ego bruising lesson, I headed up to L's place to pick her and Emma up and drive them to tacos. But first, I stopped in on the way to pick up Kate! Might as well have a mini blogger meetup. Unfortunately Kate had things to do on Saturday so missed out on riding :( we'll just have to get her down there another day.
L had met Emma before, so I'd heard how great she was, but it was awesome to finally meet. Driving to the restaurant was kind of hilarious because L was giving me directions and I was driving and we kept having minor issues. Emma mentioned "look, the hunter/jumper rider is directing the dressage rider" and then it got real weird, to be expected. L said to half pass left to change lanes but I thought she was just being obnoxious (she was but it was also a direction lol) and we struggled a bit. We eventually made it unscathed even with questionable, though still effective, directions.
Tacos were SO GOOD, we went to the same place that L, T, and I went on Cinco De Mayo. We mostly talked ponies and blogging. After dinner we went back to L's and hung out, but I was a party pooper and had to get up early to teach a lesson so I dragged Kate out and we headed back. More pony and blog discussions with Kate made the hour and a bit drive seem like nothing and soon I was back home getting ready for a long Saturday.
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| Getting ready for some piaffe, Rico is skeptical |
Saturday
When I heard Emma was coming, I told L that we HAD to get her on Rico. So huge thanks to L for arranging the kidnapping and thanks to Emma for being willing to be kidnapped since the ranch is not exactly close to San Francisco. Knowing how hard Emma works with Izzy and especially with things not being so perfect right now, I really wanted to let Emma have a really great time on Rico.
Rico though, erm, hadn't really been ridden much in the last two weeks. I was riding him almost every day for a while and hauling out a lot, but I've been teaching a lot more recently and am taking care of the ranch, which means that when I get home in the evening, I have to feed and then usually just shower and go to bed rather than waiting for them to eat enough and then riding. But Rico maintained enough fitness to do a fun short ride. Hopefully now that it's cooled down a bit, I can ride him more during the day until I get swept away into another office.
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| Rico loves beer |
Like I've said before, Rico is a saintly horse who is perfect in every way. Almost. I told Emma the normal things- he can get behind the leg so no nagging, if he's doing something it's because you're asking him to do it one (and vice versa- if you're asking and he's not doing, you're asking wrong), and for the love of god don't show me his trot before you canter. Once again, just in case you're wondering why he's in a pelham vs a snaffle or double- I sold my wheymouth to a student, and Rico has a long standing tendency to lean a little on the snaffle bit so I throw people in this bit so we don't sit on a 20 meter circle trying to get him off his forehand the whole time.
Emma rode Rico super well! They struggled a little bit with communication at first. which we all laughed about. Rico's very forward almost medium canter that he HATES doing feels like a nice collected canter to Emma so they had a talk that involved involuntary lead changes and some porpoising as Rico tried to tell Emma to stop making him work so hard.
As she got to know him, we talked about the differences in him and Isabel- for example, Rico can be quite sensitive to the aids, but in a very different way than Isabel. So Emma went to turn him and he ignored her, wondering why she was moving her hip in the way that Isabel responds rather than using her outside thigh the way I do. Woops! Just goes to show that good training comes in different shapes and sizes.
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| Cantering along |
Then we did some piaffe and passage in hand. Rico is starting to struggle a bit with this, and it makes me really sad, but he did his best for Emma. I think he's in his last year, if not last couple months of being able to do piaffe and passage. We had a good couple of years after his last GP where he was pretty good about it so that's okay. But it was enough for Emma to play with, so that was fun!
After a little shoulder-in at the trot, we played with tempis. Emma got better and better at figuring out his canter and actually was the only person other than Heidi and I to get ones on him- he threw one in during a line of threes because she was keeping him super straight! But other than that, they were great! She got some fours and threes and even a two.
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| Piaffe! |
We put Rico away and then hung out at the ranch. My brother was throwing a huge BBQ with a bunch of his friends that weekend, so we got to hang out with everyone afterward for lunch and drone flying over the ranch. It actually worked out well because I can't really handle a huge party like that but with horse girls providing excellent pony-related conversation and the ability to zip up to the lake with a smaller number of my friends the next day, it was a great weekend!
Ultimately it was time for Emma to leave! Most of the bloggers I've met have been super local- L and I hang out a lot and I saw Kate three times last week! And I know I'm only a short drive from
Nicole and
Peony, I'm up in the area enough randomly (might be up on the first weekend in August actually) so seeing them is maybe a little harder, but not like flying across the country. Boo, why are most of you people so far away?? But it just means that I need to find myself on the east coast one of these days.
