Does anyone remember this article? https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/conversation-katie-prudent/
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Very, very well.
It is the context into which I am putting the comments Iāve heard quoted.
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Beezie was tough, but she gave equal amounts of criticism and praise. For example, when Camilla fell off and the multiple times her horse refused, she asked her to hit him with the stick and then gallop forward a couple of times. At the end of her round, Beezie complimented her for continuing with the course and working on an unfamiliar horse.
When Mia had to adjust her helmet mid course, Beezie first analyzed her course and then said āIām going to pick on youā¦ā and talked about adjusting her helmet and the importance of well fitting equipment. She framed it as sort of āyou shouldnāt have to worry about your equipment in your round because you could have a time fault or something else.ā
Compared to Katie, I thought Beezie gave better direction. For example, when Katie asked Luke to start on the grid, she didnāt specify what she wanted him to do, and then she went back and said āhe misunderstoodā because he thought he was trotting through rather than cantering bounces. I did completely agree with her frustration, though, when riders were cantering through the turns making no effort to stop, or circling. If this is a clinic to prepare the rider and the horse to jump a big course, I wouldnāt even see circling as an option. I was riding with a fairly old school trainer once and I remember my horse spooking and running sideways in the middle of a line. I made a circle and went back to my jump and my trainer was upset that I didnāt just go. She said you have to be ready for things to go wrong and still get to the jump. Katie didnāt frame it that way, but I did understand her intention.
I think I would have been just as mad as Katie if I was teaching a clinic and kids werenāt watching each other to learn what to do better and what the trainer wanted. When I was little my trainers always told us not to talk when other people were riding and watch the person doing a course in our group lesson so that we can be ready to go next. These are the kids that are supposed to be up and coming on our team and they couldnāt follow her directions. Katie already had that negative idea of riding these days as evidenced in her Chronicle article and I think that some of these kids not listening definitely made those feelings she has more prevalent.
Overall, I liked Beezieās day the best. She was kind, tough, understanding, and informative. She almost used a ācompliment sandwichā even though I donāt think that was her intention. All of her critiques were grounded in how to do the course better, or how to eventually ride on a team.
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The horse world in general seems to fight tooth and nail against change. It is okay to know better and do better, it is okay to not do something in the traditional way, change is not the devil
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I donāt ride H/J but I watched most of the clinic plus what was going around in Facebook. I actually learned a ton. Really educational even if you donāt ride H/J.
I was surprised at the basic listening skills missing from the riders. Some of the riders seemed to not be able to follow basic coaching which is surprising at their level, maybe it was the wind but I doubt it. They should speak up if they canāt hear instructions. They arenāt kids but young pros. Also very surprised at how frustrated Katie Prudent got with them. She seemed to find them incompetent.
I found the comments about flipping horse and using the stick distasteful for a live broadcastā¦ know the audienceā¦ but I knew what she meantā¦ commit and quite waffling in the saddle. Be the leader in the saddle and make the decisions vs the prey animal.
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I only just watched the clip and was kind of surprised that I did not find it as appalling as others. I suspect itās because Iāve heard far worse in a much more aggressive tone. I think the choice of the word ālickingā was poor. There are better ways to convey being timely and committed in using your stick. On the āI would flip him overā I also found it to be a poor choice of words, and āsit him downā would have conveyed the same message to a rider who did not appear to be well matched and was having trouble sitting/getting tall and then just kind of giving up and circling instead.
I am surprised that her other commentary is being considered bullying or demoralizing. Perhaps it is because I found her tone to be mostly pleasant but a bit frustrated.
Sure KMP could have gone back to Riding 101, but that shouldnāt even be necessary at this level. These riders should be quick thinking and have a strong foundation riding new horses.
On adjusting the stirrups - I had a former Olympian in the UK let me know that I would definitely end up eating dirt riding any green Irish horse if I didnāt learn how to adjust them correctly. Can I do it now? Yes as long as my leathers arenāt super thick 
Iāll have to see if I have access to watch the clinic in full because itās probably a great learning opportunity. Are any of the recordings available with just a USEF membership?
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Not all of them.
They should all be capable of listening and paying attention to the others in their group, though.
I did not catch the part where the kids who were doing jump crew were chatting with each other instead of paying attention, although someone mentioned it after the fact. I will say that certainly would have made me go ballistic.
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I thought she was so patient here. Anyone should have looked at those bounces and explanation should not have been necessary. Itās a basic gymnastic that should be understood on sight. She was like, oh you misunderstood, ok. Thatās not what I was saying home at my computer.
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That is exactly how I was taught and I taught my daughters to do it that way too. So the ālittle peopleā are doing it correctly. 
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Iād argue that it does, but the lack of discipline goes way back to nailing down the basics before expecting to be considered accomplished enough to be there.
That can be done without the draconian approach of various BNTs of the past.
You canāt skip over putting in the work and still perform at a high level, though. It will come back to bite you.
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Funnily enough, I audited a clinic not long ago with a rider who has been to the Olympics three times. So far.
But when he got on a horse to ride it, he adjusted his stirrups the āwrongā way.
I think I may have let out an audible gasp, but I did not feel like it was my place to correct him. Maybe next time. Lol.
Plus I think thereās a world of difference between knowing the correct option and choosing not to do it because of your own soundness or flexibility issues, which may have been the case with him, and just being completely ignorant in the first place of the fact that there is a right way and a wrong way, or more accurately a safer way and a less safe way.
Itās easy enough to get hurt around horses even when youāre doing everything the right way. Thereās no reason to make your odds of survival even worse out of ignorance.
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My mother taught me to do it that way, and she had learned it from her extremely old school trainer when she was a young rider.
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Iām not super familiar with the big names in H/J, I thought this clinic was for the up and coming proās.
So I stand corrected.
The clinic specs that were posted earlier in the thread stated that it was for riders from 16 to 21. So according to the USEF Rules, anyone with a riding age of 16 or 17 is still a junior, not a professional. Maybe someday they will be professionals, but not yet.
Itās also possible that some of the top qualifiers may have been unable to attend the clinic for whatever reason, which means they would probably work their way down the list of potential riders rather than leave empty slots in the groups. So that means they might not all have been riding at quite the same level.
Taylor Cawley, for example, is most definitely a junior. But when she got hurt the week before the clinic, she was not able to participate, so they filled her slot by inviting someone else.
Itās for juniors and the under-21 set jumping 1.30m+. Most of this group will go (or has gone) pro, although some will become amateurs for the purposes of receiving scholarships to ride on NCAA teams. Many of these juniors already get paid to ride and show.
For all intents and purposes, this group is the cream of the crop who ride at a very high level. Mia, for instance, rode in the 1.55m class last night at WEF, as did one or two others from the clinic.
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If you have a subscriber or competing membership, you can watch both sessions for Anne Kursinski and Beezie Madden and the second of Prudentās sessions on CMH/USEF Network. Prudentās first session is currently unavailable due to ātechnical difficultiesā or similar.
I watched Prudentās sessions last weekend and I definitely noted and disliked the āsome horse need a lickingā and āIād flip my horse overā comments. I didnāt catch the ābirdbrainsā or āmentally weakā comments directed at the riders at the time and I donāt think theyāre okay either. And I think theyāre indicative of an old school style of teaching and training that we should move away from. I donāt think we should coddle riders or horses, but I donāt think we should insult riders or beat horses.
Her second session, which is still available doesnāt have any comments like that, or at least none that go over the line for me the way those four or so did. And I thought there was a lot of useful information in the second session.
But, she said what she said in the first session and the second session being better doesnāt erase that.
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For what it is worth, my trainer and I set up Katieās bounce and one strides to 2ā6ā (bounce) and 2ā9ā one strides and a 3ā four strides and my 1.15 horse and I managed to get through without trouble. We did not try the short/long, long/short exercise though we may later. So for those who claim the grids were too hard, I bet to differ.
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I think in the case mentioned and upon watching the video, Katie was coaching a rider who was a bit overfaced and timid. The phrase ārun them into the wallā is action-oriented and implies the rider taking swift action and being the leader, something the rider was struggling with. āUse the wall to help you stopā is very different of course, and much more passive. This is super curious - I have heard this phrase used MANY times by MANY instructors and not a single instructor or rider over my 30 years of riding has interpreted it as literally run a horse into a wall and break their neck. Iām genuinely surprised people donāt understand the intent here and are word-smithing. Real life and horse-riding is not word-perfect. Bizarre. I guess if you wanted to speak to the clinician and say - āhey Clinician, when you told that rider to ārun them into the wall if they donāt stopā, was your intent that the rider and the very valuable horse she was on run directly into a fence, flip over and break both their necks? And that they do it on a national live stream?ā
I donāt know Katie at all, and spend most of my time in dressage but Iām genuinely surprised people are jumping to this. Maybe they have first-hand experience with Katie that would suggest she does in fact run horses into fences regularly, breaking their necks. The world is strange so who knows, but this take genuinely baffled me.
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Right - Iām with you. Like - do people really not understand the intention and guidance here? If anything, she was trying to keep the rider safe. I wonder if the disconnect is because a lot of well-resourced riders sit on incredibly consistent, well-trained horses who are maintained by other riders.
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to be clear ā i read ādisciplineā here as using punishment not as commitment to something
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