Last week we made a road trip to Meriden, Kansas, outside of Topeka, to visit my Centered Riding mentor, Carol Wilson. I've been needing some guidance on my work with Raven, and Carol is one of the few people I trust to advise me on such a hot and sensitive horse. Nothing has been going poorly with Raven, in fact just the opposite is true, she's been coming along great. Her progress has been so swift that I needed some assistance with furthering her training.
Dewey and Sara came as well. They are making good progress together too, but Dewey benefited from a long road trip since he's not had that experience before. As usual, Sara had every riding outfit coordinated. Dewey was dressed to impress each day in polo wraps that matched his saddle pads, which matched Sara's vests.
The last reason I mention, but the first reason for organizing the trip, was to look at an Arabian gelding named Ladd. He's fifteen years old, 15.1 hands tall, and completely bay with no white on him. He is a Polish Arabian, and is incredibly intelligent, calm, and eager to please. One of my Centered Riding colleagues, Ann, had him available to purchase, but she is located in Iowa. Since Carol Wilson is her mentor, too, we decided to make a mini-clinic of it and we all trekked to Kansas for riding instruction and to look at Ladd.
Ladd was to be for our Colorado Carol N. She has retired her Connemara/TB from jumping, and needed something with different conformation who could comfortably do the job of eventing at intro level and showing in crossrail divisions. Once we had settled into our cabin in Perry Lake State Park (after an obscene amount of driving the first night trying to find said unmarked cabin) and gotten some well deserved rest after the eleven hour trip, we headed over to Carol W.'s to meet Ladd.
My procedure for assessing a horse is thorough. Ideally we'll have several days to look at him, as we did on this trip. The first day I have the seller show me the horse, how he behaves on the ground and for grooming. I watch her tack up, mount, and ride him. If all looks good, I'll get on the horse and try him. Since this all went smoothly, I let Carol N. get on him and take him for a spin.
Since Ladd looked to be a great match for Carol N. in size, temperament, and training level, I continued on with doing my physical exam. I'm not a veterinarian, though because of working as a veterinary technician for many years before I went to training horses full time, I feel comfortable doing a cursory exam on a horse we're looking to purchase. I have a good sense of what is acceptable to me for each client, and I know when I need to contact a veterinarian for additional diagnostics if needed. Fortunately Ladd looked great on all counts, and the few very minor issues I found weren't concerning to us. I always make sure to assess a horse with the future discipline in mind. I'm looking to see if he is suitable for the job we want him to do, not looking for a horse to "pass" or "fail" an exam. No horse is perfect, the important thing to remember is that we need to determine if he will be happy, safe, sound, and comfortable doing the job we want him to do.
Once we had decided he looked good after his exam, Carol N. was allowed to put her newly purchased halter on him. Then we took him to the arena again to see what he thought of jumping exercises. He doesn't have any jumping training, which is actually favorable to us because I don't need to retrain anything. He was curious about the poles and small cross rails, but not spooky or concerned about them. With just a few repetitions Ladd was happily making his way over the small gymnastics I'd set in the arena with Carol N. aboard.
Carol N. took a few riding lessons with Carol W. (my mentor). This allowed Carol N. to get a different perspective on Ladd in addition to my own, and learn from another Centered Riding instructor. Things went really well on all counts, so we purchased him and brought him home to Colorado!
Some video of Carol and Ladd can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxXSYLbdf7E
Dewey had an interesting week. He technically is seven years old now, because all thoroughbreds are a year older on January first. Physically he's like six and a half, because his actual birthday isn't until nearly July. Mentally he's like three. His longest trip prior to this was the hour and a half to Denver from home, so with this as his first big trip he was excited to be in a new place. Because he was jazzed and ready to frolic with his new found friend in the mirror at the end of the arena, I rode him before Sara got on each day. Once he had taken care of his jollies he did pretty well in Sara's lessons.
Some video of Dewey's trot work can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etMTxltcrIw
Raven did great. We did dressage the first day, jumping the second day, and dressage the last day. This was particularly helpful to me with switching between jumping and dressage seats, as I have to do at competitions. Raven was her usual hot-tamale self the first day, but by the third she was almost needing some encouragement to move forward! Some of the most helpful things I got out of my lessons were:
To imagine my center as connected to hers, which dramatically improved the quality of her through-ness.
Using a power triangle for steering gave us extremely straight trots down centerline.
I also discovered that if I spread my toes apart in my boots I could get a nice trot lengthening from Raven, and if I wiggled my toes in my boots her gaits became much more springy.
A short clip of Raven's dressage work can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0wMtKfGSC0&t=0s&index=7&list=PLSz03UJfRRFSi72-rjWPQIAm8UElpu-st
The last day we worked on developing a good quality 10m circle, progressing to shoulder-in down the long side. Getting a centered riding perspective on this helped us tremendously. Holding the same position in my body as on a 10m circle, but then sending the energy from my center down the rail gave us a couple great shoulder-in steps of higher quality than I've been getting at home as we have attempted the exercise.
Raven's jumping video:
https://youtu.be/lgzFKRIRzSo
Jumping using dancing knees and ankles made Raven's landings after fences nearly soundless, which must have been much easier on her joints since it certainly was on mine! My unmounted work jumping off the mounting block to the ground helped me to land on the center of my foot rather than my toes, which in turn stopped my from gripping with my knees over the fences.
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