On Friday, Connor and I hit the road with
Karen and Royale to visit her GP trainer a couple of hours north. I'm going to refer to her as KGP.
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| And it was awesome! Look how far his foot is in front of his nose! |
This isn't a trainer I've ridden with before, but I've seen her at every show. She's shown GP herself and has had several students earn their golds. I'm happy with the trainers I already work with, but I'm always interested in new perspectives, and Karen spoke highly of her lessons, and especially of her coaching at show warm-ups.
So, we went!
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| ROAD TRIP! |
There was a moment in the beginning of the lesson when I wondered if I'd made a mistake, if she was not the right type of trainer for a Welsh Cob. She is intense, in a good way, but in a way that flustered Connor, and I had to subtly and quietly manage that pressure for him. One of the first things we did was rest/bounce my whip on his croup at the trot to get a "sit" reaction out of him. If you know Connor, you know he hated this:
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| Get that whip off my butt lady! Thank you Karen for taking video. |
But after I reassured him he was a good boy when he gave me the right answer, it was so effective at getting the message across to a horse that really struggles with this concept.
I've always heard Welsh Cobs need to learn piaffe and passage before they really get the "sit and lower your croup" message, and what did this trainer say? Exactly that, only in the context of what she thought Connor needed and not in the larger breed context.
Just like my regular trainer, KGP identified that he likes to carry his hindquarters to the left all the time, and she had me do 10m trot circles in haunches in on the right (but not the left), which was SO hard but SO effective.
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| A few steps after we rejoined the rail in this GIF, she yelled out "THERE IT IS! There's your fancier horse!" |
At canter, here too she echoed what my own regular trainer has been saying lately, which is that "I understand it's probably taken a lot of work to get quickness in his hind legs, but you've done that and now it's time to work on collection." She said my default canter looks like we're taking off on an XC course, and I need to "recycle, rebalance, recycle, rebalance" constantly.
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| So Kate, I am definitely not following the motion of the canter with my hands enough here, I promise I've been working on this, honest 😂 |
I got so much out of this lesson - even just things like "THAT'S your Second Level bordering on Third Level trot" and overhearing her say to the woman next to her "I want to see this horse again". We learned so much but we also got a dose of validation that I needed after a confidence-shaking 2018.
But on a more meta level, and my most valued takeaway - I recognize that this same lesson would have been disastrous for me and Connor if I had tried to ride with her anytime before right now. If I wasn't as self-aware as I am now that pulling, clamping and tension are my default reactions to everything, the intensity, pressure and second toolkit nature of this lesson would have pushed me to push Connor to get more and more frustrated and wound up until he shook his head violently and got his tongue over the bit - which he did not do.
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| So consistent even with a super awkward whip change |
There were a couple of "fork in the road" moments in this lesson, where I chose to trip his pressure release valve by giving forward with the inside rein and scratching his withers and telling him he did good. In return, he SHOWED. UP. for me, and even handled things like a giant bucking lunging horse a few feet away from him at a barn he'd never been to before with no more than an ear flick.
In conclusion, KGP is definitely a trainer I need in my life, but in carefully measured doses. Too much of this type of lesson right now, and my biomechanics would regress, but too little of this type of lesson and I won't push him hard enough. My first toolkit-heavy trainers are a better fit on a day-in-day-out basis, but we need this trainer's level of intensity and pressure too in order to keep making progress.
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