Day 115 & 116: Weekend, Hambleden Part 2, video editing and chatting by the river

Day 115: Saturday

Saturday afternoon. Richmond riverside. Coffee and chats with one and only Suzanne! 

Today was a rain and rainbow kind of day. Wonderful in so many ways yet sad with my Gran's funeral taking place thousands miles away. With everything happening so fast it was impossible for me to fly over and attend. I think of her often. I am not even sure about the whole funeral celebrations. Either way, I would have liked to be there for my Dad and the rest of the family.

I think she would have liked today...

Richmond, London - 25th April 2015

A lovely new rider got in touch for Jasper following my shout out for him on Aspire blog so she will be joining in on Development programme. He is a fab horse that I am very much looking forward to working with and seeing the pair progress and improve. Being a 4 year old and a very green chap, his work isn't going to be incredibly exciting but it should be a fun adventure in bringing on a youngster and teaching him all things ridden-horse-life.

Jasper and his new rider

I am also playing with the use of music to improve the feel of rhythm and focus in my two young riders. We started with some simple drill sequences last week just for me to check if they can multitask and remain safe. Today, I let them ride with an earpiece in one ear so they can hear their chosen soundtracks which they found themselves and matched with their horses' beat in walk, trot and canter.
We will now build upon this experience which went incredibly well for one rider (hugely increasing her relaxation and in turn, horse's way of going) and good for the other and work towards some very simple floor plans to give them an idea of a dressage to music training.

From June I will be re-focusing to jump training with them so I want to make the most out of the flatwork training until end of May.

Day 116: Sunday. Video editing and writing day.

One of the girls have now trained with me for a full year so I put together a 5.5min footage from her starting on Aspire training to current sessions. She is such a pleasure to teach and I am very excited about her progress and good things to come :)




Below is also a finished video from Hambleden Horse Trials with Emma and Shabhash.

I will write a blog post about the event on Aspire blog to discuss the day from coaching perspective. We now have one month to the next event and I hope we can address Shabby's tension in show jumping phase (and Emma's!). It was the first time I saw him over a course and let's just say, there is a lot to work on ;)

Considering his lack of mental calmness and general decreased focus on the rider at a show, he contained the craziness to some degree. He went superb and clear across country (albeit too fast raking time penalties) which is Emma's favourite phase. Now I just need to get her to fall in love with the dressage and jumping ;)





I hope you enjoy watching them :)
Wx