Thank goodness for the hose on the yard and Young Instructor Of The Year once again

Sweaty, sweaty day. Some nice breeze from time to time made it all bearable to a point. 

I am focusing on staying super positive and patient when teaching beginner riders and must say that I think I found the key to better that - what works for me is to really concentrate on how to improve the details and to let the riders make mistakes. 

Because of my background and how I was taught I sometimes forget that a lot people do it for fun only and they have no strict agenda of progress. I relaxed my demands a bit and it has been working a treat. What's even better, I noticed certain riders work better without too much pressure and we get the results that are of more quality! Go figure. Still lots for me to learn.

At lunch time I had my driving lesson and my instructor concluded it was my best drive to date. Good. I am looking forward to taking my driving test, and yes I was silly enough not to do it in my teens. 

So lots of fun today. I survived thanks to the hose which I duly used to hose myself down in between the lessons. Hacked the ex-race horse again and was tempted to test his speed but the ground is so hard at the moment that I chickened out. And good job I did as we came back to find he lost his shoe - again. You got to love Thoroughbred's feet...;)

Gave him a bath toes to ears and he loved it. 

Finished the day on teaching livery lesson and they voted for jumping so cue the fun of dragging heavy poles around the arena! I do like teaching them though, when they are focused they really try and that's worth the efforts.

I rewarded myself on the way back home reading today's Horse & Hound and catching up with feed time ;) 

Pic. above: my preferred way to travel: nice snacks and good reading materials :)

After some uhmming and ahhing I decided to apply for a place on this year's Young Instructor Of The Year (2009). If you read this blog regularly you will know I've done it last year and although it was a very good experience I knew straight away that I didn't have much chances going through further than the regional stage. The candidate who went to semi-finals from my region had his own yard, competed regularly and was a very good rider. 

BUT, it's the last year I'm eligible to enter so I decided to give it a go again. The South East qualifier is in September at Hadlow College. If my application is successful I shall do it there. All in all it's the experience that matters and it's always good to watch other coaches in action!