We just finished a fantastic clinic in Tipperary with Tanja Penders. We had tropical weather, sunshine, a lot of cake, and very happy horses. Here are my notes from Ozzie & Matilda. Thank you to Tanja for being a horsemanship legend!!

MATILDA:

Friday morning: I needed to finish a little video recording, so after the groundwork I hopped into the quickly saddle and did some shoulder in and backup with Matilda. Then down to business. I had spotted that she has a habit, after you ask her to backup, to move her weight forwards again after a backwards step. So I was keeping an eye on this but it seemed to have resolved itself which is great. We walked in a circle, moved the hind out, then did a backup with no forwards mvt at the end, then moved the shoulders across and went the other direction on a circle. Then after this, everyone in the group was given instructions to walk around the perimeter, and the first person was to trot around, pass out everyone and end up were they started. he goal was a forwards trot, and a nice bend in the corners. It was very cool, its lovely to do stuff like this with the whole group and it reminded me of pony club which I adored as a kid. Matilda did a particularly beautiful trot going left. 

Friday afternoon:  Tanja took Matilda as a demo horse, and did in hand trots with her using two reins. The outside rein is to make sure she doesn’t over bend, the inside rein is to ask for bend. Both reins, can be used in time with her feet to ask her not to drift out on a circle. This is great homework for me. Then the one thing Matilda has trouble with (but its getting much better) is cantering a circle. She was frightened before I got her, and used to gallop off sideways and drag you if you asked her to canter. The sideways gallop has stopped, but she is still nervous and worried. So Tanja worked on that a bit and we got two gorgeous, relaxed trot to canter transitions. Then ended it. 

Saturday morning: My farrier came, so he trimmed my 3 horses feet and kindly had a look at a clinic horse also. One really good bonus about coming to a clinic, is that you’ve got about 10+ experienced horse people looking at your horse for a few days, and they have a lot of knowledge. If you had a badly fitting saddle, or need help with something horse related, there will be someone there who can help. I use a flag with Matilda and she’s grand, but it’s a small flag. She wasn’t confident near the big flags that had arrived from Mayo and Kerry 🙂 so time to practise with those. I then tried the in hand two reins in trot and don’t drift out. Matilda is great. I am improving. Then Tanja took Matilda and did a little canter, and again you can see the improvement in relaxation building from yesterday. Tanja said M just needs to do a lot of riding in slow, medium and fast trots, and she can get worried when the energy increases also. So back in the saddle, and off I go trotting for ages in all speeds, loose rein on the long sides, and then a little collection and ask for the bend in the corners, then a loose rein again. As everyone else did their thing in the centre, we had the most lovely time trotting around and go into a great rhythm and she was fine with it all 🙂 Then I continued trotted with circles, change bend, then change direction. I noticed she was falling in going one direction, so I made a mental note to ride with a bamboo for the next session to help fix that. Genius horse & very happy rider.

Saturday afternoon: So I asked Matilda for a groundwork canter on her easy side, and got a beautiful relaxed canter transition! Then I asked on her tricky side, so I got two very fast trots, but I didn’t want to push her up into canter and scare her, if she wasn’t offering it. So I asked Tanja for help. Then Tanja took over.  The upshot was now most of the mental worry is disappearing, there is also a physical thing due to her conformation. Her hindquarters are quite high so going right she can find it hard to make the transition. Tanja said, not to worry about it, don’t really practise it very much and if I did try it, use a longer rope to make it easier for her physically. Matilda coped really well emotionally with it, I was very proud of her. I had to hop out to rug our older horse then, so I asked a spectator to walk Matilda around the perimiter for a few minutes. When I came back, the spectator was hugely impressed with how Matilda stayed beside him the whole time on a loose lead rope, and never pushed into him… just followed him around like his shadow. He said he’s never seen a horse like it 🙂 That’s the 100 miles a month for you! 🙂 Then a little riding. We did trots in circles with bend and I had the bamboo, and lots of change directions. She was super. Then for fun we started something new. I started teaching her how to ride with no reins, using my weight, my legs and if I needed to, a touch of the bamboo on her neck. She started to figure it out!! So cool. Then Tanja set up two cones in the middle, and as a group, we had to go through the cones, change bend and then change direction. It was all done at walk, and it began like the most relaxing walking meditation for the group of horses. I loved it!

Sunday morning: We did a little canter groundwork again, and today for the first time, you could see she was relaxed, the worry was completely gone. Wow!! 🙂 It was so cool to see this. She is a wonderful horse. The riding, just about 10 mins, and we continued preparing to ride without reins, using my seat, legs and backup with a touch of the bamboo if needed. She is really started to get it! Soon she will be just like Ozzie 🙂 

For the whole clinic, we made such great progress. I’m so happy she continued to build confidence and relaxation, our communication with my seat and legs cues is really improving and she is just lovely to ride. Most important, she loves the clinic (didn’t blink when everyone arrived), lots of rests, yawns, is a legend when someone is horse-sitting her and has the most wonderful trot. Thank you Tanja for all the help!

HOMEWORK:

Groundwork – forget the canter circles. Continue the 100 miles walk. 

Groundwork – in hand trots with two reins. 

Riding – big trots around the arena with bends in the corner. 

Riding – use a bamboo and focus on bend and balance in trot circles both directions. 

Riding – Continue to make sure the weight doesn’t tip forwards after a backup step. 

Riding – 2 cones in the centre. Walk through them, look the direction you want to go, create bend in body by stepping the opposite direction. 

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I had a super clinic with Ozzie as well. Here is what happened: 

Friday morning: When Oz trots he has a habit of holding tension at the top of his neck. It’s quite visible. So that became a goal to try and relax that and help him. We did an exercise where we had to do one step back, then one step over, and basically end up backing a circle. So I did it with Patrick and got the spectators to count how many steps we got right. Good fun for all 🙂 
Friday afternoon: Back to fixing the neck tension in walk. It was already much improved. While I rode, Tanja did in walk work with Oz in trot. So I was just sitting there iwth no reins, and Oz was trotting around with Tanja. All I can saw is Tanja is much fitter now after the weekend with the amount of running around she did! After that, I did a mixture of a few steps walk, a few steps trot, a few steps walk… just to make the transitions seem more ‘run of the mill’ for him, and to show he didn’t need to tense up in the trot. This strategy really worked well, to the point I was riding around with no reins, and doing a few steps walk, trot, walk, trot, etc and the neck tension was gone. Yay! He can anticipate things and then you see it sometimes with tension in his body. 

Saturday morning: We started some trot to canters in the saddle. He is much improved. But still better one direction. Transitions can still get messy going to the left, and we can end up in a very fast trot instead. He also can tend to fall in esp on the left. Good things to work on so. 

Saturday afternoon: More cantering. OK to the right, falls in and rushing in trot on the left. the idea was to walk through the 2 cones in the centre of the arena, and then canter afterwards. But there was a lot of falling in. So Tanja rode Ozzie 🙂 Oz couldn’t believe it was possible to canter to the left without falling in, so they had a discussion about it. After working through this and coming to an agreement, Tanja got some lovely canters without falling in, and transitions to the left were improving a lot. 

Sunday morning: Today I worked on canter today with Ozzie. So I need to get more precise. The idea is:

1 – Walk with a loose rein, with gentle bend in his body on a circle. 

2 – Ask for canter transition with my energy

3 – If we get to canter in a few steps, super. then back to walk and relax. 

4 – If we get a fast trot, then abandon the canter and back to step 1 again. 

5 – If he starts falling in in walk or trot, abandon the canter goal and back to step 1 again. 

So the idea is to allow him the opportunity to do what he chooses, but if he falls in, slow down, forget canter and push him out and stop the falling in. If he rushes, slow down, forget the canter, and start again. but he always makes the decision. Most important things – stop rushing and stop falling in. Abandon canter to fix both of these. Get a few nice steps in canter and (the next step) while cantering ask him to step out and keep the nice bend. Relax after nice canter transition. I’m really exciting to work more on his because I know once Oz mentally figures it out, we are going to have the most amazing balanced and relaxed walk to canter transitions. 

Another cool exercise.. go around the short end of the arena. Approach the long fenceline at a diagonal. Stop at fenceline. Rollback towards fence. Turn 180 into the fence, and walk or canter back the way you came. Very cool. 

HOMEWORK: 

– Riding, walk and trots with no neck tension. 

– Riding – canter transitions with strategy as outlined above

– Riding – Diagonal to fenceline and rollback. 

Ozzie, worked really hard, I am so proud of him. A wonderful clinic, I’ve never seen so many happy horses and riders 🙂 Thank you Tanja again! Check out our upcoming clinics on this website & join our newsletter to be notified when rider & spectator places are available.