Clinic

I have a post on showmanship that I'm working on but it will have to wait another day or two.

Ty and Karen Hornick were up to do a clinic this weekend.  I had originally wanted to ride in it but thought that it might be too much for me an whatever horse I could take.  I regret not at least doing 1/2 of the rides (It was 2 rides per day 2 hours per rides).

Even auditing was really good, I really learned a lot (or at least found out ways to use old exercises in new ways).  I forgot how much body control you need to lope that slow, and made me realize that even though Lucy and I need lope miles, I also need to get more control over her hips and shoulders. 

Some of the stuff they did was very basic, lots of pushing the horses shoulders around in small circles, both at a walk and a trot, then doing the same thing while pushing the haunches around.  This built into square corners at a walk and trot.  Then moving into a lope all while doing the same exercises.

They also built on the spur stop, and how to use that along with the body control the other exercises developed to put more slow into the horses jog and lope.

Cant wait to go work on Lucy tomorrow!

I managed to get a ride in on Friday night and it was really good, we loped a bunch in our bad direction.  We had some really good moments when we 'clicked' we just need to build on that as much as possible over the next couple of weeks (and months) to come.