Live Stream of Wellington Young Rider Clinic January 4-7

At least two of them are working and riding as pros.

Has anything come about yet of who initially put the clipped video together? Because based on the two comments I read of his… 1) he does in fact appear to have a grudge against Katie, and 2) (and this is 100% assuming) I don’t really imagine based on those comments that he would have the ability to splice together a video like that? Again. Judging a book by its cover here and maybe I’m wrong and he’s a well established video editor :woman_shrugging:t3:

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Then if they were having issues stopping on a straight line… perhaps there’s a flaw in the whole system that allows them to be a pro. A pro should be able to do a gym line or at least fix the issue and improve. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.

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Yep, our brains were not meant for this. It’s like the salem witch trials only worse because it’s global.

I’m hoping the hysteria dies at some point. Now that I said that, I wonder what stopped the witch trials? Just time?

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The qualifications (as I understand them) are a minimum of showing 1.30m+. You should be able to draw names out of a hat and assume they can do a series of bounces. And honestly, they did! No one died, crashed, or tried to make it an oxer. It was the precision needed in the ride away from the jumps that was lacking, and this is actually super common as most students tend to put all their emphasis on approach and take-off, and then take a mental breather when they leave the ground.

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Haha I’m probably guilty of that despite my coach telling me to keep riding after the jump. For me the lowly amateur it’s Yay I did the thing, It’s over! But alas it is not. :joy:

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I tend to think that this was a bad day for some of them.

Even on a fully made-up horse, I think they’re at a level in the jumpers where you need to have a degree of proficiency to get even a seeing eye dog around at those heights. But someone who actually does the jumpers (I never wanted to even as a junior) can correct me.

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Actually, what stopped the Salem witch trials was they accused the Governor’s wife of witchcraft. Strangely, they were shut down fast after that.

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I am infamous for getting distracted by succeeding at something and then I stop riding altogether :woman_facepalming: :joy:

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No, that IS the kettle of fish. That that was not the takeaway from this whole thing is what blows my mind. And even if KMP was the wrong choice based on previously stated opinions and the GM support (admittedly possible), I’m not surprised they wanted a coach from previous generations. The ones that taught and trained without all the gadgets and hardware and lunging and short cuts that we are constantly bemoaning.

Yes! You are decidedly not alone!

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Interesting! I didn’t know that. Thank you!

It definitely is one of the kettles of fish … there are multiple kettles of fish in this situation!

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I’d fail this test so badly.
I’ve been known to get increasingly outrageous when I see some random person listening to me.

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I have mixed feelings about this (not saying that I disagree). When I say that, I mean that I find that a lot of horses are ruined by repeated overreaction from riders who aren’t prepared to handle situations in more nuanced ways.

I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve had to physically discipline my horse in the five years I’ve owned him. The most recent was back in the summer when he bit me hard enough to rip a belt loop off my breeches (he’d been on stall rest for multiple weeks, it’s not like him normally). I smacked him, he was shocked because that almost never happens, I settled him, and then we got on with our day. As a general rule, because I don’t physically discipline him often (because there’s rarely a need to), it’s a lot more impactful when I do.

He learned as a 3yo that he has to contain himself while being handled by people because he tried to turn into a kite during a hand walk after a few days on stall rest due to an infected cut, and I just turned around and marched him right back to his stall. I only had to do it twice before he figured out that good behavior = continued freedom and nonsense = the box for the rest of the day. I don’t punish him for being a bit of a goofball and having a play, but he knows he’s not allowed to be explosive where humans are involved. Out in the field, sure. In hand or under saddle, absolutely not (and you can hear it in his breathing. My trainer laughs at how hard he tries to keep it under wraps and he gets alllll the cookies for it afterward).

I just don’t put him in situations where I’m actively inviting a need to discipline him in an aggressive physical manner (since one could argue that putting him away for acting out is a physical form of discipline). That doesn’t mean that I don’t show him new things or push him out of his comfort zone, but we try very hard to be calm about it. If he doesn’t understand something, 99% of the time we’re in a situation where I can let him investigate and parse through it, and because of that 99% of the time, all I typically need to do the other 1% (say, in the show ring) is sit back and close my leg and he goes ā€œOh, okayā€ and keeps moving even if he’s still not sure.

I know a lot of people who would respond to the uncertainty in that 99% by breaking out the crop and using it. In my experience, that just creates a more nervous/reactive horse the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that (and even if it deadens them, the reaction is a lot bigger when it does finally come). A lot of times I think people really do need to just press the pause button, take their time to walk their horse up to that scary jump in the ring at home and let them sniff it (or, in my horse’s case, pull the fake brush out of it and turn it into a toy as soon as he’s close enough to reach :woman_facepalming:), and go from there (see also: when he turned the water tray into his own personal splash pad).

Obviously you (g) can’t do that in the show ring (well, you can at some local unrecognized shows where they’re nice about things like that as long as it doesn’t take too long) or at a (typical) clinic, but I personally think that if people were more patient at home (or just generally when schooling), a lot of the reactivity that can come up would be less pronounced in general. I also think there’s a tendency for some people to equate patient and permissive when in reality they’re two different things. To me, patient equals ā€œI’ll give you a chance to stop, take in, and process this at your own pace, but then you have to do it,ā€ while permissive is ā€œDobbin is scared of this jump so I’m just not going to go over it and will give it a wide berth in the future.ā€

I’d love to live in a world where horsemanship on the whole is a combination of patient and firm, but patience with horses is a skill in and of itself and it doesn’t seem that it’s often taught properly either.

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It’s incredible - I do the same things in my daily riding, without really thinking ā€œIM GUNNA FLIP HER OVERā€. Young mare can pull like a freight train if you don’t set the boundary. I stay light, but I’m not begging her for anything. It goes: half halt. HALF HALT. WHOA AND BACK WHERE WERE YOU MENTALLY HELLO DING DONG ANYONE HOME?? TUNE INTO CHANNEL ENDLESS PLEASE (back to work) half halt. oh, lookie, now you remember, good girl.

That’s all the clinician was asking for. DING DONG ANYONE HOME, I SAID WHOA AND I MEANT IT BUD.

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:joy:
In that case, I’d tell you to keep being you. Just don’t run for office.
Though these days… that goal post seems to have moved, too.

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One wonders if there will be a myriad of clinics in horse flipping due to the demand for instruction as a result of this.

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I know I would sign up! But first, I need to find that dental surgery clinic. I never figured out how to do that move…

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My neighbors got a puppy two years ago. I can’t speak to physical discipline but I sure as h*** heard them. When things got out of hand, which seemed to be often, every ā€œnoā€ came at a YELL. Through the wall, into my apartment, YELL.

All I could think was, the day you really need this dog to listen to you, she is not going to know that this is LISTEN-TO-ME SERIOUS.

I once gently asked in the hall if they were going to puppy obedience classes and mentioned one or two. They seemed pretty offended and a few months later, had a new dog. I don’t know what happened to the first one.

So I fully get the need to figure out the when, how, and to what degree.

As a returning rider, I struggle with this. In my first riding life, I could do ā€œask/tell/demand.ā€ Now I am full of doubt because I don’t trust my judgement and am afraid to use the stick lest the problem is I had been unclear. I have even heard ā€œuse it once now and you won’t need it for the rest of your ride.ā€ FOR CLARITY: one behind the leg at a disobedience

I’m not blaming this on a lot of exposure to the notion that every problem is a reaction to pain or confusion, but for a retrograde old product of the 80s and 90s, it’s not like I don’t worry about what’s ā€œfair.ā€

Yeah that excuse didn’t work so well for Sea World. Saying Orcas are gigantic carnivores who outweigh a truck seemed to not negate the negatives of the movie Blackfish.

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