Fun. Focus. Footwork. With Lucinda Green.
I spent this past weekend at the Gibbes Farm in St. Matthews, SC where the Lucinda Green clinic was held. It's a gorgeous facility and we were lucky enough to get onsite stabling which made the weekend very convenient. The farm itself is a private facility with a BN-I cross country course. It's really quite amazing and everyone in the area goes there frequently to school. There are 3 bank complexes, 2 water complexes, a coffin, and a TON of different types of xc fences to school over.
The first day of jumping was quite hard for Leo and I, but that's why I was excited to sign up for the clinic. Lucinda focuses on exercises and questions that I rarely school at home. Her philosophy is that an event horse needs 2 important skills in order to get out of the sticky situations you will doubtlessly find yourself in on cross country: focus and footwork. Focus means that the horse is listening to the rider; footwork means the horse can think for himself and know how to read an obstacle and adjust his feet accordingly to get out of sticky situations. She also emphasized that it should be fun for the rider. If it's not fun, find something else to do with horses that is fun. She said no one should waste their money and time on a sport if they aren't having fun with it.
In any Lucinda clinic you can count on skinnies, arrowheads, tight turns, angled jumps and no known distances. Her goal is to make everything ride awkwardly so the horse learns how to make adjustments and move its feet quickly and the rider learns to react quickly and gets comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Leo was very backed off and extra careful about everything the first day. We had some run outs and refusals, but overall I was pretty happy with Leo because he managed to sort out all the stuff Lucinda threw at us. Focus is hard for him and the exercises were so varied he realized he couldn't assume he knew where to go. I then had to really ride (or squeeze the tube as Lucinda would say) coming to the jump in order to give him the confidence to believe that's where I wanted him to go. It was a great education for the both of us!
The second day, Leo was spot on. He is not a fan of standing around waiting and early on I ran into some problems when Leo was the last in order to do something. This resulted in his old tantrums of running backwards and sideways. After the worst of the episodes, Lucinda just made sure Leo was the first to do everything. In between our rounds, he walked in circles non-stop. Asking him to stand still resulted in him walking backwards. Oh Leo.
We started with the bank complex - walking up and off the bank. Leo was pretty good with this despite his love of running everywhere. Lucinda wanted us riders to be "Rag dolls" and do nothing but keep our horses to a walk and add leg if they stopped moving forward. She wanted the horse to figure out where to put his feet. Then Lucinda added 2 skinnies: one at the top and one at the bottom of the bank. Going up, Leo was great. Going down, he was great but I really had to ride for the last skinny because of his lack of focus :) The other good thing about this exercises is that I learned I can grit my teeth and get it done with Leo! I'm very proud of myself! We then did a mini-course: xc jump to skinny, up bank, skinny, down bank, couple of galloping fences. Leo was brilliant thru this.
Moving onto the water, Leo was brilliant again. Later Lucinda said he was almost silly forward / cocky at the water. We moved to the ditch and the horses had to walk it again. Then she added skinnies before and after. Leo was great here. Then she added a skinny, 2 strides angled to a large ditch, 2 strides angled to a roll top. Leo refused the ditch on the first attempt and Lucinda said it showed a weakness in his footwork. The 2 strides were really short for him, and he didn't know how to do one stride with footwork. On the second attempt we did 1 and 1. Yikes! Then we did the roll top 1 1/2 strides to the ditch, 1 bending stride a log pile skinny. Lucinda had us to it twice because she said the first time I only got it done by sheer determination not because Leo understand the question. He was quite good the second time.
Overall, Lucinda said that Leo is "quite a nice horse but a difficult ride." Her advice:
My favorite Lucinda quotes:
The first day of jumping was quite hard for Leo and I, but that's why I was excited to sign up for the clinic. Lucinda focuses on exercises and questions that I rarely school at home. Her philosophy is that an event horse needs 2 important skills in order to get out of the sticky situations you will doubtlessly find yourself in on cross country: focus and footwork. Focus means that the horse is listening to the rider; footwork means the horse can think for himself and know how to read an obstacle and adjust his feet accordingly to get out of sticky situations. She also emphasized that it should be fun for the rider. If it's not fun, find something else to do with horses that is fun. She said no one should waste their money and time on a sport if they aren't having fun with it.
In any Lucinda clinic you can count on skinnies, arrowheads, tight turns, angled jumps and no known distances. Her goal is to make everything ride awkwardly so the horse learns how to make adjustments and move its feet quickly and the rider learns to react quickly and gets comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Leo was very backed off and extra careful about everything the first day. We had some run outs and refusals, but overall I was pretty happy with Leo because he managed to sort out all the stuff Lucinda threw at us. Focus is hard for him and the exercises were so varied he realized he couldn't assume he knew where to go. I then had to really ride (or squeeze the tube as Lucinda would say) coming to the jump in order to give him the confidence to believe that's where I wanted him to go. It was a great education for the both of us!
The second day, Leo was spot on. He is not a fan of standing around waiting and early on I ran into some problems when Leo was the last in order to do something. This resulted in his old tantrums of running backwards and sideways. After the worst of the episodes, Lucinda just made sure Leo was the first to do everything. In between our rounds, he walked in circles non-stop. Asking him to stand still resulted in him walking backwards. Oh Leo.
We started with the bank complex - walking up and off the bank. Leo was pretty good with this despite his love of running everywhere. Lucinda wanted us riders to be "Rag dolls" and do nothing but keep our horses to a walk and add leg if they stopped moving forward. She wanted the horse to figure out where to put his feet. Then Lucinda added 2 skinnies: one at the top and one at the bottom of the bank. Going up, Leo was great. Going down, he was great but I really had to ride for the last skinny because of his lack of focus :) The other good thing about this exercises is that I learned I can grit my teeth and get it done with Leo! I'm very proud of myself! We then did a mini-course: xc jump to skinny, up bank, skinny, down bank, couple of galloping fences. Leo was brilliant thru this.
 |
| Walking off the bank |
 |
| Walking up the bank |
Moving onto the water, Leo was brilliant again. Later Lucinda said he was almost silly forward / cocky at the water. We moved to the ditch and the horses had to walk it again. Then she added skinnies before and after. Leo was great here. Then she added a skinny, 2 strides angled to a large ditch, 2 strides angled to a roll top. Leo refused the ditch on the first attempt and Lucinda said it showed a weakness in his footwork. The 2 strides were really short for him, and he didn't know how to do one stride with footwork. On the second attempt we did 1 and 1. Yikes! Then we did the roll top 1 1/2 strides to the ditch, 1 bending stride a log pile skinny. Lucinda had us to it twice because she said the first time I only got it done by sheer determination not because Leo understand the question. He was quite good the second time.
 |
| Photos thanks to Cheryl Ray and Brook Kahl! |
Overall, Lucinda said that Leo is "quite a nice horse but a difficult ride." Her advice:
- Leo's Footwork: She said Leo is like an old man in that he needs better footwork. He doesn't yet know how to adjust his stride and be flexible with his legs and placement of his feet to make good choices. She said as I move up the levels, it will be extremely important to focus on the development of his footwork. She said lots of little fences and awkward lines will help him learn this. Essentially, I have to do more of what we did the first day.
- My Position: She explained that while I keep Leo's head up, he drops his shoulder and is then able to dislodge my position. When he drops his shoulder it also becomes extremely hard to package him. This she said was the biggest challenge with him - low in front with an extremely long stride will make it difficult for me to get the canter stride I want. She said because of all this, I have to physically be stronger, particular in my back. She recommended starting Pilates. She also said I can't ride him in 2-point. Funny how I heard this from Ashley and Sally too! Habits die hard. She said I have to make sure my shoulders are behind my hips when approaching my fences and between fences I should be sitting upright. Hands up, shoulders back.
- Our Equipment: Lucinda said because Leo is such a difficult ride, I need more help. Turns out she was talking about equipment. She said I need a different saddle because it was too hard for me to get in the position she wanted me in to prevent him from pulling me out of the saddle (don't I know it!). She said she always found Prestige to be difficult to ride in because she couldn't get her thigh around the horse the way she wanted. She thought it was because the flap wasn't forward enough. She suggested a Devoucoux Chiberta 17.5" with a 2AA flap. I told her I had had a 2AA flap on trial and had to send it back because my thigh couldn't fill the knee roll. She was surprised because she said I had quite a long thigh for my height. She also said I could try a Waterford bit even though she felt like the current bit was doing ok.
My favorite Lucinda quotes:
"That's the fun of it [cross country] - you never know when things are going to go wrong!"
"In the oh-shit moment, sit back, squeeze his eyeballs out and let him be an athlete."
Comments
Post a Comment