Reunion

[glenatron]

I came home from Australia this morning and this afternoon the first thing I needed to do was to visit Zorro.

He was actually pleased to see me- he came marching over and gave me a very gentle little whispery snuckle as I got close. Given how non-demonstrative he is, that was pretty much like a big hug.

He's lost a bunch of winter coat and is starting to look more sleek and summery too, which is nice. He appreciated me working to get rid of some more stray fur with the rubber curry comb- I think he enjoyed the attention.



It took a while to get him with me, so he didn't get left behind when I prepared to change up a gear and didn't get ahead of me when I changed down. He was doing both for a while, but soon enough he was mirroring my changes, rocking forward when I started moving forward, slowing down and stopping as I went back.


For some reason the mounting block was in the middle of the arena. Zorro felt this needed in-depth investigation.

Then I got on.

Now when I left, Zorro was light, responsive and attentive to my cues. Today he felt sluggish, bracey and leaden. Of course, he hadn't changed at all. It turns out I have changed a lot.

So then we worked through it. After we had backed up the length of the school five or six times he was starting to come through with a workable back-up. Especially after a while of explaining that if he didn't try to back up nicely we would go cantering. No, not bucking, cantering. It was good to be back in the bumpy driving seat of the chunky black cob.

With some time and work he started paying closer attention to what I was actually asking for, rather than what I would have settled for in the past, and he came through really well. By the end of the session he was starting to feel more like the horses I was riding in Australia, for a few moments at a time at least.


There's no place like home.

Comments

[spirithorse21.livejournal.com]

I can definitely see an improvement in the way Zorro is carrying himself. He's more compact, and lifting in the shoulders and back. Nice to have such instant gratification of your work!

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

It really is. I'm increasingly of the view that the quality of the riding horse is at least 80% the rider. I can see why Steve prefers to train people to get their horses working rather than just changing what is going on with the horse.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Nods in agreement. When G is training a horse, he a.) prefers to have it for 120 days, in order to solidify the training patterns and b.) wants to have the owner in for regular sessions to not only teach the rider to maintain the training but to break the horse/rider combination of habits and repattern into correct habits. Sadly, many owners of difficult horses tend to have, um, interesting personalities themselves. They also tend to not be as motivated as you and I are about quality movement and correct riding. That pretty much puts them into the continuing loop of paying money for training, taking the horse home, screwing it up again, bringing it back or to another trainer, getting the horse fixed, then taking it home and screwing it up again. I've seen the pattern too many times in almost fourteen years riding with G.

Motivated riders who seek correct riding for the joy of it and not competition, like we do, are a different type of rider. We also do well with challenging and interesting horse personalities. We also have the self-discipline to continue to correct and improve our own riding.

As G says, a good rider can put any horse together and make it look good. Another one of his corollaries is that anyone can ride a horse fast. You have to ride well to ride a horse slow at any gait, because slow, collected movement requires the ability to put the horse together utilizing the five elements (poll, withers, back, hip and hock) correctly.

(fyi, G is Gregg Shrake, Richard Shrake's brother. I tend not to throw the name around too much. He's known primarily in Quarter Horse and Western circles as a clinician, judge and trainer of judges. I lucked into finding him because he teaches classes at a local two-year college and when I heard the name, my jaw dropped and I raced to sign up for his classes. That's why I don't tend to do a lot of outside Western clinics. Hey, when you ride with someone pretty high up in the Western show world who's of his quality, why would you? I tend to measure English clinics and instructors by how much they contradict Gregg. I found a BHS facility in Florida years ago--no longer operating--where the instructors taught very similar seat and position for flat work. They knew who he was, and had a high regard for him, which convinced me that any hunt seat instructor who contradicted certain basics Gregg taught me didn't know squat. He once told me that I had the best ankle and foot he'd seen in an amateur rider--and that was when we were breaking me of bad habits a very poor hunt seat instructor had tried to create in me, which had implications up and down my seat. After that, my principle for an instructor trying to "fix" my seat was "if it contradicts Gregg, I ain't doing it."

Riding with a show judge can be interesting. Going to a show with him is even more so, especially when they're judges he's trained. He often deliberately does illegal stuff when he rides at a show where the judges are judges under his supervision or training, to see if the judges will catch him. Testing their skills. The last show I went to, he ended up having a stern talk with the judges after because they didn't catch his incorrect work. Considering they didn't call him on riding in draw reins in one class....and he consistently warns judges he trains that they have to watch him when he rides in a class because he will do things to test their ability to catch mistakes.

The personal horses he's bred for himself and his wife to ride are gorgeous, beautiful examples of well-trained quality Quarter Horses with excellent self-discipline and good minds. I was shocked when he offered Mocha up for sale to me, because I'd always thought of her as his horse. She's out of a mare he bought from Bob Loomis. It's the only way I would ever have been able to own a horse of her caliber. As it were, he had to justify selling her to his wife by pointing out that it was to me, and I'd been at the barn for seven years at that point. Mocha is special to both of them, and she holds both of them in high regard.

And man, the stories he can tell....especially from when he and Richard were competing at high levels, before they became known as trainers and clinicians and judges....)

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with Richard by name at least. Very good to have an expert mentor like that available to you on a regular basis.

I found it very informative watching the NRCHA competition we went to with Martin and Jennifer- I had no idea what I was seeing really and having them to fill me in on the goals and what to look for was really interesting. Also Martin had some pretty good stories from when he was taking part in that contest. There aren't a lot of people around with that type of top level experience to share.

[serennig]

So that's G. You are lucky.

Sounds like he's a sneaky bastard, at a show, though. :P

I've yet to find a single person I'm willing to call my riding hero -- a true role model or coach that seems to just get it. There's plenty that have come close, but there's always been some gap, or contradiction, that I can't get over. Doesn't stop me riding with them, doesn't make them bad instructors or horsemen in their own right, but I know I haven't found the one in whom I can have perfect faith. Might not exist, either, but boy would it be awesome if it did.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Part of G's rationale for doing that is to do a quality check on his own judge training. He takes judging very seriously; I've had some good long talks with him about what it requires. He's hinted a few times that I might want to consider it but I don't feel that I possess the show record that would really make me good at it.

I do disagree with him about some things, but by golly, he's at the foundation of my riding program because we both learned a lot of the same basic things. I've disagreed less with him than with anyone else.

Sometime I would like to sit down with him and compile a book of stories about the 50s and 60s in Western Oregon show world. There was a lot of stuff going on here then, and a lot more involvement with the Western show world than you see now (Bob Avila was training near here for a while). Things are heavier on the hunt seat and dressage front, though.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Yes, that last picture looks better, though your hands are getting a wee bit loose...but it is a relatively straight line from elbow to bit.

yes, I nag about this. It's something I think is important for higher level riding. But my, I do like the way he's using his hind end! And he's clearly carrying himself.

Now we just need to start working on your heels....though I think that might just be one unfortunate picture moment. You definitely look better on him, though.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

My legs are better without stirrups usually - I could really use a saddle with the fenders set further back but I've had a bad enough time just finding a saddle like mine at all so that will have to wait until I'm very rich...

I think my hands were looser there because we were at the end of the session and I wanted to give him a bit more release. He had quit pulling on me so I was letting him have a little more rein so that he could feel that was a good place to be. We had finally hit the point where if I had shortened that rein at all he would have just followed it...

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Or until you can buy a saddle here in the States when you're over here for a riding vacation and ship it home, which might be your best route, especially if you get the opportunity to sit in a few saddles (which is what I prefer, which is why I don't tend to buy mail order). My Crates sometimes gets hung up in a spot I don't like, but I can usually get my fenders back where they need to be most of the time...just on days when I'm having a bad time. Maybe if you come into a little money you can come over here and have someone like G help you--he's got a good eye for saddle fit, and for picking out a saddle, I'd recommend you look to someone like him. He's good for fit in part because not only does he know the specific performance demands, he really knows quality Western saddles and, as a high-level judge, he knows how saddle fit affects your seat. We've talked quite a bit about it.

Western saddles sometimes have oddly hung stirrups, and it really depends upon what discipline they were primarily designed for. A cutting saddle will put you into more of a chair seat. I like reining saddles myself, because they tend to have the stirrups hung in a more correct position than either pleasure or cutting saddles. Roping saddles can be funky. Barrel racing saddles tend to have smaller seats.

You might try sliding your feet back a little and dropping the stirrups further. G likes to have the length at a dressage-type length, bottom of the stirrup hitting just below the ankle bone when you let your feet hang. Sliding your feet out and picking up the stirrup on the ball of your foot might be good. But again, you said this was near the end of the session, so that's a factor. Not a major niggle.

And that was end of the session after a bit of a layoff for Zorro? Wonderful! Very productive session, then! He's doing an excellent job of self-carriage. I know that Mocha gets tired at the end of a session and isn't always into carrying herself as well as she does nearer to the beginning, especially if we've done a lot of collection work and her hocks are getting fatigued. End of the session can be a challenge. You got him to stop pulling in one session after a layoff, which is very, very nice.

I think you will be seeing some good things with the boy here this summer.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I've got a pretty good idea of the type of saddle I would prefer - something along the way of a ranch saddle rather than a competitive discipline one. Those seem to put your leg more directly below you by design because it's more practical for a long day out working, maybe also because if you're in a western tradition you are closer to the spanish designs. Certainly the most comfortable saddle I've ridden on was a George Michel one and I'd be pretty happy to lay hands on one of those.