Yes, you read that correctly- Peter Atkins, the one and only. Of the Run Henny Run campaign, if that jogs any visions of awesome [
get your Henny wear here]. We picked up Ashley Shaffer and her mare Duelli in Milo on the way down to the lovely
Rest and Be Thankful Farm, and here's a tribute to my driving: six hours down and only missed one turn: the driveway. George Cheney was our wonderful host and his blog is even more horribly delinquent than mine, so you should give him a hard time about it.
I love clinics that aren't like, do this fence and now do that one, now put your heels down and do that one... Clinics that make you think differently are the best, and this was definitely one of them. Every new aspect of the lesson came with a physics lesson, which made me feel like deep down eventing was the reason I got a 3 and not a 2 on that AP physics exam (sorry Mrs. Lewis).
From the beginning:
What does a horse need to go on the bit?
Um, how about, the bit? In other words, Marina, stop throwing the inside rein at your horse when he does something right. He can't work into the contact if there's...only half a contact.
Can you hold a bowling ball at arm's length for a long time? And just how much does a bowling ball weigh?
Why, no, I can't, and isn't that odd that a bowling ball weighs 8 pounds, the same as my head. Insert physics smarts here: torque equals force times distance. The farther away something is from your body, the harder you work to keep it there. So if my head is that hard to hold away from my body, imagine if my whole upper body gets farther away from the Neil+Marina combined center of mass, how much more work that creates for everyone to stay balanced. And how odd, when I don't throw my upper body at my horse (making him have to lift both our front ends at the same time), how we no longer have the baby horse awkward jump? Mind blowing... just kidding, it makes more sense than anything I learned in high school (sorry Mrs. Lewis).
Moving on: quality gaits are what you need for a good everything: good jump, good flat, etc. And you get good at whatever you practice. So unless you practice quality gaits all the time...you get really good at being sub-par. A little Peter Atkins wisdom for you there.
And then on to water: I was actually impressed with BBSH (that's Baby Black Super Horse to you) not taking forever to make up his mind and splash in. Things I learned about water: oh, screw it, have a video.
Yes, that's right, splashing. To desensitize Duelli and Neil to being splashed...although BBSH kind of seemed to like being splashed. Also to sucking it up and being brave about not being able to see the bottom, and having their feet land differently than the would on turf (the hoof wobbles a bit more - imagine the whole pencil in a glass thing. Air's index of refraction is 1 and water's is 1.22, meaning what you see is not what you get as far as where you think your foot (hoof) is going to land because light rays get bent...toward the normal? I think that's it. If I'm wrong, well...sorry, Mrs. Lewis).
Next came banks, where I learned several things:
1. Landing with leg on is important, especially if your BBSH likes to land bucking like mine does.
2. A two foot bank is really a five foot jump....mind F#$&! Not really. Every jump is an arc, a perfect parabola. Ask Mrs. Lewis, I even proved it in a physics project once. So if the jump is two feet, and the horse needs room to unfold his legs at the top, the top of the arc needs to be five feet higher than where you started. It's the same both ways: up and down.
3. This means, if there is, say, a double bank- steps or whatever, you have to kick on SO MUCH to get the momentum to make the second five foot jump. The horse gets his momentum back from the acceleration of gravity on the second half of the parabola of the jump (got enough prepositions in that sentence?). So if you don't regain that momentum landing (five foot jump up, three foot jump down, you get it, right?) you have to recreate it with your human gas pedal.
After banks came ditches, where, as had been apparent throughout the lesson, telling my horse he's a GOOD BOY became really important. Neil is a bit of a diva superstar if you don't know him but underneath it all he's a bit insecure and he likes to know when he's doing his job right. To the point that he'll do his job right if you tell him he's a GOOD BOY before he's even done it...a bit backwards, yes, but in the grand scheme of radical ways to fix a horse's attitude, it worked, and it's free.
The results have been ridiculously good. I actually haven't jumped at all in the last two weeks- focusing on the flat, but Neil has been radically reformed since this and the Caitlin lesson. Not perfect, but majorly reformed. No credit goes to the figure 8 noseband....well, a little. But mostly to Peter Atkins. As with every good lesson, my position is in rehab again, my stirrup length was changed by four holes, and I have a slew of new things to say to students which will make them think I am super smart, even if I totally stole them. BBSH had a 6 hour ride home, wraps, bute, and some hand walking to make a full recovery if you don't count being totally sleepy for the rest of the week. But, on the plus side, I'm totally prepped for my Middlebury physics class.
Sorry, Mrs. Lewis.
