Yes, it is true, I met Chef’s trainer and convinced her to come up to my place for a lesson on my horse.
I met her down at the Santa Barbara Horse and Flower show (about an hour from my house). It was the day before the show started so she was just schooling a couple horses and getting settled in. We talked a lot and I had fun following her around on a quest for a girth big enough to fit one of the horses who’s owner forgot to pack one.
I loved watching her ride the babies, she was so gentle and calm. The horses seemed to go VERY well for her even with all of the bright yellow and red flowers and crazy flags waiving everywhere. I showed her a few pictures of my horse and she asked a few questions about some of my problems with him. I told her how I wanted to have him go eventually and she said “I can help you with that.” I was so excited!
She planned to drive up early morning and spend an hour or so with us. I got Chase all ready and paced nervously until she arrived. Once she got here all nervousness ceased and the work began.
After a warm up much shorter than usual and completely lacking any ‘engine starting’ galloping and ‘response time shortening’ transitions, she had me trotting circles around her trying my best to do a haunches out. Yeah right! Like my horse acctually listens to my leg, HA! I think that showed her that she had a lot of work to do on us. She didn’t look too happy. I was worried and extremely tired.
During most of this trotting with my spur and dressage whip firmly planted on Chases side with his butt going nowhere fast, she was setting up a contraption that looked like my and Chases worst nightmare. It was a simple one stride with tiny X’s. Going across the middle(sideways) of that was a bounce made out of ground poles. Off each corner of the one stride was either a ground pole or a tiny X. It sort of looked like a big star.
Let me start off by saying that my horse really hates ground poles, he is uncoordinated and rushes them and then trips on them. She had us canter the bounce poles and circle around, trot a pole and canter one of the tiny X’s. Then she expanded so we were cantering the bounce, cantering the pole to the X, circling around to the bounce, circling the other way to another pole and X, and so on.
My horse basically looked like on of those cartoon characters with all of the running legs underneather them and the funny expression on their face. It felt terrible but she made up keep on going and going and going. I was tired, Chase was puffing hard and pretty darn pissed at me for making him do this strange exercise.
After a little walking break we went at it again. This time however, he knew where his legs were and was balancing himself for the tight turns. He was even throwing in a few flying changes. It was starting to feel pretty good. By the last time though, my reins were soft, he was balanced and doing changes and he wasn’t rushing or doing anything obnoxious at all. It was wonderful!! I was very happy and Chase seemed proud of himself.
I gave him the next day off and headed down to the show to hang out with my new trainer (I told her she HAD to be my new trainer because she was brilliant). I brought as many fun munchies as I could find to say thank you becuase I knew that Earl Warren has some of the worst horse show food ever. Mostly fruit and some cheeses, drinks and wine. I met some of her clients who were all extremely nice and fun. They seemed to welcome me like I was part of the family already. I did feel like I was home.
The next several times that I rode my horse he was like a new animal. He felt like he was really moving off my leg and very soft in his mouth. I felt like his back was coming up underneath me and he was really using his hind end. I was doing the exercises with the softest hand imaginable with great tight turns and no rushing.
I have convinced her to come up again in early August and hopefully I will get a trailer someday so I can go down for lessons at her place too, it is only two hours away. I think with the help of Chef and her trainer my horse might actually become quite rideable!!! Thanks Chef!!
