Yesterday Remy and I -accompanied by JP and Ziggy- went to ride in a clinic with a well known dressage judge. From time to time it's nice to get the judges experience - but yesterday was not our day. Remy got rattled by the resident stallion grumbling at him, and from then on he just sucked back. It was like he deflated. I did switch out bridles, from the double to the snaffle, hoping that might help. It was a bit better, but not much. Through all this the clinician just said "I don't know what your problem is". Lots of forward trot and canter work did help and we finally got moving - or so I thought...
From the horse to me "You are riding sloppy", "What is this supposed to be?", "A shoulder-in? Well, you have to tell me", "Your back is awful", "That wasn't a nice flying change". What I didn't get was what I had come for: Constructive tips on how to improve. Basically in the end, Remy and I left with our respective tails between our legs. JP and Ziggy had their work cut out with us on the way home -ok, mostly me - Remy was happy munching his hay on the trailer.
Thankfully, we had dinner that night with our friends and neighbors Ed and Angie, and the lovely evening with them, the Koelsch, and delicious food cheered me up considerably. Fun facts: A group of Americans of German, French, Polish, Hungarian descent drinking German beer and eating Mexican food :-) Later a Tylenol PM did the rest and today was a new day.
And indeed a new day it was, like a switch had turned. Remy was just cooking along in the outdoor arena, happily working in his double bridle (I wanted to see if that might have been the issue), no problem with our shoulder-ins, and especially the canter felt great. Later Roz sent me a video clip from the lesson with the comment "this should cheer you up". And yes, thank you, Roz, it helped restore a great chunk of my confidence.
And then there is the 'third experience': JP and Chambord had their lesson with Lisa today and they both came home super happy. JP's chest was puffed out and he seemed to have grown a few inches :-) Chambord swaggered off the trailer and I swear, his chest was puffed out, too!
JP proudly told me that they mastered Lisa's "Circle of Death" exercise with aplomb and Lisa called him her "star student". That explains the puffed out chests and swagger...
This made me very happy and I thought with a tiny bit of envy: "These guys know how to have fun". JP doesn't get rattled when he and Chambord have a bad day, and they do have those, too. Stormy weather and rain pounding on the roof of the indoor arena translates into "better get off NOW and call it a day" for JP as Chambord gets super charged and adds 'airs above the ground'. JP and Lisa are able shrug it off - next time will be better. Note to self...and if I can't shrug it off, there are always JP, Ziggy, friends, beer, and food to the rescue!
No comments:
Post a Comment