So what are Boyd’s clinics like? Are they friendly to weenies like me? Such as, does he really push people, or understand their mental limitations? Am I going to poop my pants? I would be riding in the BN group, and I’m still a newbie. Any insight into what his clinics are like would be great- thanks!!
It wasn’t exactly a clinic, but some of the riders at my barn that were at about the same level had a group lesson with him a couple of years ago. Since it wasn’t a full clinic setting with multiple days and groups, we focused strictly on x-c skills. He was fun and encouraging and not pushy at all. He does advocate the straight-legged galloping position for the rider, which I didn’t care for, but he didn’t rag on you for not changing to his style or anything like that. I think the best skill we learned that day was how to ride defensively over the first element of a coffin jump so you could be ready to sit back and push if the horse has trouble with the ditch.
I don’t know what kind of exercises he does in clinics and how helpful they might be, but he is very cheerful and funny and made all of us very comfortable. I think you’ll enjoy it!
While there are plenty of people who ADORE him (possibly because of his good looks and fun accent), he is not my cup of tea, as far as clinics go for lower levels. I find he likes to have riders do some serious questions, although not big at all. I’ve sat on the rail at a lot of those lessons/clinics (he used to do a day of lessons every 6-8 weeks at a neighbor’s), and felt like a lot of BN/N and even training level riders weren’t getting anything they really needed, but were thrilled because they were surviving some hard questions (tough lines, lots and lots of skinnies, adding or leaving out strides, etc). Maybe as a one off clinic it would be fine (and maybe his format for actual clinics is different), but most of the people I saw rode in those lessons exclusively or with bad help in between. They were missing a lot of the fundamentals.
My former boss paid for me to ride with him on my old prelim horse one time, and it was one of the most befuddling rides I’d ever had on that horse. I felt like I didn’t get the kind of feedback I needed to correct mistakes (my coach was standing at the rail and whispered a hint to me as I went by at one point, as we were really struggling with one exercise). My very game, honest horse stopped at one point because he found the question we were being asked so confusing. And he likes to use humans as wings on skinnies, if the horse runs out, which my horse found VERY disconcerting (I actually asked him to remove the humans, as I knew my horse- who would jump a single upright block cold- would get it without wings).
All that being said, I have UL friends who ride with him regularly who LOVE him and get a lot out of him. And, as I said before, maybe an actual TRUE clinic type setting would have a different feel. I like Boyd a lot, both as a person and a horseman and rider. But I’ve just never been all that impressed with the teaching I’ve seen for lower level riders. Take what I say with a grain of salt.
Thanks for the feedback! Well, considering that my horse not only likes to pull out of jumps sometimes for funsies, and also has no sense of self-preservation and will run into horses, people, fences, etc…I’d have to tell him to remove the people too. :lol:
Glenbaer took my little black pony to a Boyd clinic last year. This happened at the insistence of JMP. I didn’t know anything about Boyd’s teaching style and was a little nervous as the pony can have strong opinions about instruction.
It turned out to be a very positive experience for both horse and rider. 
Liked Boyd, liked the exercises, liked the focus.
The exercises aren’t big but are technically demanding, or at least they were at the T/P level. Of course, we’re used to technically demanding, precise riding so it was quite compatible to what they’d been doing with Mike.
