Making a Conscious Choice to Push or Relax

Evaluating your current level and carefully selecting your time to grow.

By Kali Kiger

Remember how I’ve been talking to you lately about changing your warm-up and getting you different reins? That’s because you are going through a growth spurt.

I know you hate circles and lead changes, but that’s because they are new and they are hard. These things are hard for horses and you sense that when you are riding!

We have taught you to be kind to horses and we know it feels unnatural to ask for so much! Who wants to fight about something as dumb as a circle??

We put off working on circles and lead changes for as long as we could because we know how to do a lot of other things to help make learning more fun and kinder. But…it’s time.

To put this in perspective, let’s IMAGINE a different life story…

Let’s say you had never heard of PonyPros and went to a regular barn where the ONLY adventures offered were shows.

You want to go with your friends, right? What is the easiest class you can enter and still go to the show?

Can you do everything required in a basic flat class?

Could you do this in a ring with 8-20 other riders?

*remember, ribbons only go through fifth place.

Let’s say you could do everything in the flat class, but all your friends were jumping and you wanted to enter a jumping class

with them…

…How high would the fences be in a hunter class for you?

http://www.usef.org/documents/ruleBook/2012/16-HU.pdf

How long do you have before you have to graduate to the next fence height? Is it coming up quick?

A barrel on its side is 2’6” , a barrel standing up is 3’. A course has 10 jumps.

Let’s say those fences seemed a little high. Maybe you’ll try dressage instead! After all, it might be easier than a flat class

because there is only one horse in the ring at a time.

How many times to do you see the word “circle” in this dressage

test? (it is the lowest level)

What are your circles judged on? (look in the

third column)Note how many of the circles are at the canter.

How many more levels are there in amateur dressage?

Look here

Well, that doesn’t look so bad, right? You could learn to canter a circle if you practiced a lot, right? At least you wouldn’t have to

learn to do flying lead changes……………Or would you?

How many flying lead changes do you have to do in this dressage pattern?

Can you also find the words collect, extend, counter-canter, shoulder-in, and half pass?

Wow! Dressage is really hard!

Let’s say you want something a little easier. Maybe a Western sport like reining?

Western people must not do so many circles and flying lead changes…

This is the 2011 Youth Reining Pattern.

The pattern is the same for the whole year. There is only one

pattern to choose from – there are no other options.

How many circles do you have to do at a canter in this

pattern?

OMG! Can we ever get away from circles and flying lead changes???

Gah!

Ok, back to hunters… at least there are only two circles: one at the beginning and one at the end.

Think about where you are at in your training today.

Imagine doing a hunter round.

(remember, a hunter round is like jumping 10 sets of barrels at the canter without stopping)

Does your horse trot sometimes? Does he stop at a jump every now and then? Do

you ever knock a rail down? Do you sometimes miss your lead?...

…What score would you get?

• 100 is a perfect score in a Hunter round. What score would you get if you…

• Broke gait and trotted?• Your horse stopped or ran out on a jump?• Missed a lead change?• Knocked down a pole?

• Find out here• Are you surprised how much these seemingly

small things affect your score?

….Answers to previous slide

• “The hunter round is being awarded a holistic score based on the overall impression, with 100 being the perfect score. ”

• "A rail down in a hunter class is an automatic 55. If a horse breaks the canter and trots on course, it’s a 50. A refusal gets you a 30.”

• “While a baby green hunter might be forgiven for skipping through a lead change, where they take a step behind at the trot to catch up onto the correct lead, in any other hunter class that would be seen as trotting on course, and be scored as a 50.”

Wow! Horseback riding is really hard. Other riders practice the SAME thing 4 days a week for an hour because they only do one

horse sport.

Plus, you are disadvantaged because it’s hard for a horse to do advanced work when he only gets ridden twice a week (horses start losing muscle mass after just 72 hours

off).

Aren’t you glad you ride at PonyPros where you have A LOT of options for what to do instead of struggling all the time to be

good at just one thing?

At PonyPros we believe in translational learning, not just transformative learning.

Translational learning means that we translate the same idea MANY different ways so you don’t have to do so much rote memorization.

Still, there are times when you have to take it upon yourself to transform if your goal is to get to the next level.

If you want to really get better (transform), you have to put in time, focus, and work.

If you aren’t ready to do that right now, you can keep growing sideways instead (translate), but you have to let go, bring a smile, and be happy with simplicity (or you are going to drive yourself and everyone else crazy).

Either choice is fine, but you have have to commit one or the other: work hard to grow or be happy with your current level.