A bit of a nail biting session - and a thinly disguised sales pitch

Today was a bit of a nail  (hoof) biter for us. Luckily I couldn't bite my nails as I needed my hands on the reins and Remy needed his hooves on the ground. High winds, and lots going on with a busy National show starting on Friday. We long reined Remy first, and that went well.

I got on and immediately felt that Remy was quite distracted and tense. He couldn't figure out where to look first: In the open spectator pavilion to our left where a Pilates class was going on, which meant sudden appearances of arms and legs over the balustrade. In the round pen to our right someone longed a horse that had the tail tied to its side, and this was not a smooth session. And then there was the new tent construction for the show.

It's hard for me not to get suckered into Remy's distractions and lapses of attention. In the back of my mind I do have his infamous 'jump and spin'. Roz was excellent in getting us on track and her exercises forced us to focus on the task at hand. Especially the shoulder in, then straight back to the track, then shoulder in again made Remy pay attention. Same with shoulder in in trot for part of the diagonal, then same in walk, and back to trot. We managed even to do decent canters, and finished with good stretchy trot both sides. I think we both were quite relieved when we got out of there unscathed - at least I was. And I don't have any nails to speak of I could bite, anyway.

Last night Paulette, Jota, and I went to audit what was advertised as "Training Sessions" at a famous (some say infamous) Danish Olympian's barn. It turned out that it was not so much about training as a thinly disguised sales pitch for the horses, but it was quite interesting. The two German moderators have different backgrounds; one is an international rider (I saw him riding at Global the other day), the other is a consummate sales/marketing guy who had worked for one of the most successful horse sales people in the world (Schockemoehle). Their opinions sometimes differed, i.e. regarding the walk. One said "Walk on the buckle" the other "Don't give everything away". I do think in that case both are right, it depends on the context. I also liked comments such as "No one is dying when the horse is taking the neck up", and "Most horses are not lazy, they are blocked by their riders". However, this was combined with the thinly veiled sales pitches like "I don't know why this horse hasn't been sold yet, it is clearly superb".

A feed company sponsored the libations, Prosecco being the drink of choice it seemed. Luckily I am not a fan of Prosecco so it wasn't hard to leave for my 'Remy duty'. Now if it would have been Veuve or Moet... Remy might have had to miss the turn down service.