First things first, this clinic was one of the best I've been to and I was able to take many new theories and skills away from it. Usually if I can get one or two ideas I find it quite a success.
I started off with Cinzano, Wendy Hsue's 4 year old Swedish stallion prospect. First, Heinrich really like him and confirmed that I have him on the right track. Heinrich had me "run" the horse down the long side to get him forward and then once Cinzano was forward to then put the leg on. This will allow the horse to understand what the leg is meant for. Previously Cinzano was a slightly resistance to the leg and now Cinzano is riding off the leg better. The other thing Heinrich had me do was use a little more outside rein (just barely lifting the outside rein momentarily) then I had on previously ridden on circles and corners to keep the outside shoulder in line. The use of a little more outside rein actually played a big difference in the canter!
My second ride was on Deborah Hauk's Hanovarian gelding Nick. The first thing Heinrich introduced me was applying the "Gear System" to the horse. In another blog I'll explain this theory a little bit more. Once warmed up, Heinrich had me start Nick in a extremely collected walk. The pursposed being to get him collected up, but also to have Nick listen to the rhythm I was asking for from my seat. This was challenging for both of us, to hold this collection for long periods of time. From this walk, depending how collected I had it, I could put Nick into a turn on the haunches or piroutte extremely easy.
After we had that down, we moved up to the trot. Again, we held an extremely collected trot that if we had the power and strength could be a "schooling" passage. At moments Nick would come through and actually have some "baby" passage steps! From this extremely collected trot, I would take Nick into a true collected trot, back to the extremely collected trot, out to a medium/extention, back to extremely collected trot, etc. All of the changes within the gait was with my seat.
Once I understood what Heinrich wanted, I started getting some quality work and it felt fantastic. After the lesson, Deborah come up to me and said, "I've never understood why owner's have their trainers ride the horses in clinics and in shows. After watching you and Nick, I completely understand why!". She was so proud of her horse!
On Thursday I rode Joyce Morimoto's 14 year old Swedish gelding, Jumanji. This would be a good lesson for me as I've only ridden Jumanji once a week for the past two months after him coming off a 2 month lay off.
Like the Nick lesson, we applied the gear system to this ride as well. Again, things went really well. We also worked on some half pass schooling and Heinrich gave me a couple of clues on schooling the half pass to keep the forward movement while still maintaining the lateral direction. By taking the shoulder a little more forward at moments on the diagonal line I was eventually able to get a good bend around my inside leg and have the shoulders at a good angle.
Because of the flood at River Run we were unable to hold parts of the clinic there, which meant I couldn't clinic with Cindy Bucceri's gelding Claudius. It would have been nice to work with Claudius, but I am able to take a lot of what I learned over the two days and apply it to Claudius. The last three rides on Claudius have been our best yet where I have gotten Claudius to listen to me and then actually come through in the rhythm that I want. I now have greater confidence in the goals I have set with Claudius ( riding at the FEI level) next year.
I will be taking Cinzano to another farm on Thursday to clinic again with Heinrich which I'm looking forward to.
A big thank you to Wendy Hsue, Deborah Hauk, and Joyce Morimoto for allowing me to clinic their respective horses with Heinrich!
5 comments:
It's always awesome to read what others have managed to get from a lesson - I look forward to reading about the 'gear system'!
Good old Wendy Hsue . . . read today's Fugly Blog (fuglyblog.com). That poor excuse for a human dumped her longtime show horse at auction, with instructions to send him to kill.
Matt, if I were you I would not associate with scum of the earth people like that. You wouldn't want any of her slime to rub off on you.
Cinzano is no longer in training with Matt. He did his best to help bring Cinzano along correctly but ultimately, Wendy moved on to another trainer. And another trainer after that... And so on and so forth. It's obvious that he cared for the stallion's well being- nothing wrong with that.
Hopefully its not the same Wendy? http://www.fuglyblog.com/2010/and-the-loser-is/
for someone who loves the limelight, she sure is getting it now. Epic fail. Of course Matt did nothing wrong. She is the only one at fault. Even though she technically did nothing illegal, she is still a terrible, selfish, evil person.
Matt, by all accounts you are a very nice person and good with horses. Please do yourself a favour & remove any reference to Miss Wendy so that your reputation won't be sullied by association. I'm sure you have excellent clients who would enjoy having photos of their well-cared-for horses on your site. All the best.
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