Best Ever = Loved Jan Brink! Enjoyed Henk van Burgen (years ago).
Worst Ever = (back in my eventing days) Mike Plumb. What an a**hat.
There are others I’ve watched and ridden with and have enjoyed, but this is the top and bottom of my list.
I’ve only done clinics with two people, but was very pleased - Janine Little and I’ve done two clinics with Jules Vysnauskas. Janine helped me so much with my horse becoming -straight- as she was a wiggle worm as well helped me with my circles. Jules has helped me a ton with my riding position and a few problems with horses that I rode before getting my own horse.
I’ve mainly cliniced with event trainers, but one of my best experiences was with Brian McMahon a dressage instructor.
Others on the best list: Clayton Fredericks, Mary D’Arcy, Ralph Hill, Kathleen Zins.
Worst (that I’ve ridden with): Clark Montgomery
As far as auditing,
Best: Sinead Halpin (can’t wait to ride with her)
Worst: (so glad I didn’t pay to ride with these!) Lucinda Green, Phillip Dutton
[QUOTE=blueeyepaint;6933252]
My Best clinic ever was one of Mike Matsons musical clinics. Everyone smiled and had a wonderful day. He made the people and horses happy.
My Worst ever clinic was a JP Giacomini. I’m not going to say more.:no:
Tell me of your best and worst.[/QUOTE]
COTH’s Mike Matson? What does he do in a clinic and how does he have time, given the scouring-the-web-for-horse-crap that he does for us?
What was Giacomini like and where? I have Lauriche-like J. P. Giacomini saddle that I love. Andy Foster built them under his nailhead and I think he was around Santa Cruz/Pebble Beach, CA selling these custom saddles in the 1990s. Did he give clinics there, too?
A google search doesn’t reveal much… but some pontificating about horse training. Maybe that’s all you need to know about Giacomini as a clinician.
Yes, COTH’s Mike Matson. He sets up his computer to speakers (that he brings) in your arena. Plays different music and YES your horse will have definate preferences to what music it likes. You go home happy with a CD disk of 3 different tempo musics, walk, trot and canter. Fun all the way around, watching and / or participating.
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[QUOTE=Toadie’s mom;6934792]
I’ve mainly cliniced with event trainers, but one of my best experiences was with Brian McMahon a dressage instructor.
Others on the best list: Clayton Fredericks, Mary D’Arcy, Ralph Hill, Kathleen Zins.
Worst (that I’ve ridden with): Clark Montgomery
As far as auditing,
Best: Sinead Halpin (can’t wait to ride with her)
Worst: (so glad I didn’t pay to ride with these!) Lucinda Green, Phillip Dutton[/QUOTE]
Thank you for all being honest. I was thinking about signing up for the Lucinda Green clinic by me this summer but after seeing these comments I don’t think I will
I didn’t have a good experience with Boyd Martin.
I LOVE Bernie Taurig.
Ridden: Best was Hilda Gurney-so interested in helping you do things that are correct-ie, good for the horse. I also loved Ashley Holtzer, and not just because she remembered having ridden my horse as a greenbean at a German sales barn :lol:. She was funny and very kind.
Worst was a toss-up between Dr. Max Gahwyler on my first horse and Sue Blinks on my second. Really only because both times I psyched myself out and rode like doodoo. They were both very good teachers-especially Dr. Gahwyler.
I really enjoyed auditing Robert Dover, but I never wanted to clinic with him. I’m sure he didn’t mind 
[QUOTE=Velvet;6934693]
Best Ever = Loved Jan Brink! Enjoyed Henk van Burgen (years ago).
Worst Ever = (back in my eventing days) Mike Plumb. What an a**hat.
There are others I’ve watched and ridden with and have enjoyed, but this is the top and bottom of my list.[/QUOTE]\
Amen - as you well know - with regard to MY experience of Mr. Plumb.
Forgot to add another to my “worst” list: Arthur Kottas. Again, glad I was just auditing. He was rude and belittleing. One woman left in tears after he berated her for an hour about her riding (I thought she was pretty good). When he couldn’t think of anything else to scream at her about he told her she should be ashamed of the way her horses legs were wrapped. I was shocked. What a snob.
Ah yes, Herr Klimke… Richard A.G. Watson trained with Herr Klimke for many years, before riding with the SRS for 2 years. Richard absorbed so much from him.
Surprised about two negatives for Lucinda Green because the best clinic Imever had was with her. I have only done a few, but she had me and my big gawky gray mare going over coops downhill into water, showed us how to really gallop and jump out of stride and how to let the horse jump in front of us and float the reins. Gave me a lot more confidence and safety.
Worst was watching Mike Winter do a young riders clinic. Brutal on the horses.
My worst…I won’t name the person…was partly the circumstances and partly the response of the clinician. It was several years ago at camp and there were two dressage arenas (outdoor) with lessons plus a round pen doing a lunging lesson with a rather upset horse. My mare can be a hot head and she got wigged out by the horse in the round pen, who was galloping, bucking, squealing. I didn’t have a place to lunge and tried to hand walk her into calmness, but that wasn’t happening. When it came time for my lesson, I wanted to stay at the walk until we had settled and the clinician wouldn’t allow it. I was afraid of the possible response my mare was going to give - she had bolted several times with me in the past - and I was riding with tension. I told the clinician that I was afraid, but she kept pushing me to trot and trot we did…it was ugly, it was not helpful. I attempted to excuse myself and she wouldn’t accept that either, so we finished the lesson. I then took the mare back to her stall and didn’t ride the next two days…told the organizer to scratch us. I must not have been the only one who didn’t like that clinician’s style because she stopped being invited to camp. They also moved the round pen to another part of the campus where it wasn’t close to the dressage arenas.
My best…honestly, I ride with two clinicians - one regularly (Liz Tukey) and one semi-regularly (Marina Parris-Woodhead) and I learn so much from both of them. It is always a positive experience and I come away with new tools and inspiration for the next few weeks on my own.
The best absolutely has to be Karl Mikolka back in the 70’s. It was really more of a demonstration of dressage than a clinic. Got me hooked!
The worst has to be Pat and Linda. Again, more of a demonstration than a clinic.
I don’t really want to say my “worsts” because none really bad, except an eventing clinic I rode in with a regional trainer who was a bit different. But I learned at least one thing from it.
Some were meh and I’ve forgotten them. There was a jumper one, well call the clinician Todd, who was rather harsh to a rider, but she wasn’t paying attention and possibly deserved it–couldn’t hear everything. She was at a level of jumping you should probably know what you are doing or you will get pretty hurt at some point. Also, I couldn’t believe how badly turned out some of the riders were. Like twilight zone, am I really seeing this, weird.
The other was promoted as a very high level USDF sponsored clinic series I audited, but it seemed like the Olympian only wanted to promote the local pros and the least prepared rider was the one who had co-sponsored, so nothing critical or that interesting was covered. It was all very “positive” and superficial. This could be the unspoken criteria for those, though.
Auditing favorites: Greg Best was probably my favorite–I helped set jumps so I could hear all the good stuff. Then Conrad Schumacher (ranged from local pro on a very young horse to young riders on upper level horses). That one was probably the most geared to auditors, and I really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I also enjoyed Jane Savoy, athough she had to teach the same lesson to each rider level (i.e. get the horse in front of your leg). Not her fault, and a good thing to remember. Also, some of her mental strategy stuff has really stayed with me even out of the horse world.
Worst: I had a similar experience as Lori T, but with Anne Kursinski. The group ended up being twice as big as we were told (8 riders instead of 4) and the majority of us were more or less ignored, myself included. I got way more out of her book than her clinic…and it was a lot cheaper!
Best: John Williams. I’ve cliniced with him multiple times and always had a great experience. He is very dedicated to teaching and knows exactly how much to push you.
Linda Zang is fabulous, both to audit and to ride for. I learned almost as much watching as I did riding. She is extremely down-to-earth and pays just as much attention to the training level OTTB as she does to the FEI warmblood.
Oh, and I liked Lucinda Green too!
Oh, I forgot to add one to the best: Ulla Salzgeber!
I did a Lucinda Green clinic, and it was one of the best horse experiences of my life. She simplified riding so that my horse and I were skipping over stuff I hadn’t thought was in our realm yet. I thought about riding this sport differently after her clinic.
But - I heard from those with prior experience with her that Lucinda does not suffer fools gladly (well, close-minded riders). And if someone was not ready to give her methods a chance, I imagine it would be a difficult clinic for them. Lucinda has a very definite point of view.
I think every clinician can have a bad moment or a bad day, just like any other human. What matters to me is what can ‘normally’ be expected of the clinic experience with that clinician.
[QUOTE=OverandOnward;6937148]
I think every clinician can have a bad moment or a bad day, just like any other human. What matters to me is what can ‘normally’ be expected of the clinic experience with that clinician.[/QUOTE]
Agreed…and I also think, at least for me, that my impressions of a clinic can be affected by how well (or poorly!) my horse is behaving that day. If he’s perfect with what they’re asking, that’s great…but when that happens, push us, don’t ignore us in favor of those that are having problems, even if that means we have to wait a few minutes while they figure things out. And if we’re the ones having problems, how the clinician chooses to handle that can make a big difference!
Oops…double post!
I went to a cool symposium with Gayle Lampe, Denny Emerson, Richard Shrake, and Lynne Palm and is was neat. I enjoyed spending time with each of them in their own realm and was interesting to see how people of different disciplines could cross over and offer insight and input into other disciplines. Such passion!
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