The second round of USEF training sessions wrapped up in California on Friday. Tiana has once again generously written for Eventing Nation about the sessions. In 2010, Tiana Coudray won the Jersey Fresh 3* and placed 6th at the Boekelo 3* with Ringwood Magister. This year, Tiana is a High Performance B-List rider and we will hopefully see her at Rolex. Visit Tiana’s website to learn more about her program. Thanks for writing this Tiana and thank you for reading.
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From Tiana:
Round two of the California training sessions started Thursday at Royal Oaks Farm in Hidden Valley. It’s two driveways away from El Campeon where we were last time and once again we were treated to good footing and a lovely barn. Allie Slusher started off with her mare Last Call and looked to have a good lesson. “Fergie” is a balanced, beautifully moving horse and the work seems easy for her. Marris Burns rode next, and since she’s stabling at El Campeon for the winter, she had to survive a treacherous hack down the busy main road to get to Royal Oaks. She arrived with all limbs intact and Young Gun “Max” was only mildly rattled by the semi trucks ripping by at 45 miles an hour. Her lesson continued where they left off two weeks ago, working on thoroughness and straightness.
Next Allie rode a green horse that I’m told went well and then I had a lesson on Master Hill “McCool”. He was a bit of a pretzel when he came out, but a little bit at a time we got him straightened out until he was going really well and evenly in both reins. My left arm appreciated that! Maxance rode Beacon Hill “Taylor” next, and looked to be getting comfortable riding with Mark and with what he wanted to see from her. They looked as good as I’ve ever seen them. Next I rode Finian and he was near about perfect. I had a bit of a pleasure ride doing what ever I wanted while Mark leaned up against an Oak Tree watching and having dialog with the rest of the group. After a while Mark came out into the ring and helped me with my downward transitions from extended trot and canter by having me ride a little shoulder in to get a better collection through the corner. I have some homework to do making the right side as good as the left, but all in all, it was a great ride and Finian felt amazing. Max finished up the day with her pinto Project Runway who is having to leave behind his pony past and become a big horse. I think Mark dubbed him a “wiggly little bugger”, but they made good improvement and he was looking pretty submissive by the time I made it over to watch.
Friday morning we had a major storm start to roll in, and we had varying intensities of rain all day long. Max jumped Taylor first and I’ve decided to call him Benjamin Button because he looks younger and more supple now than 3 years ago. She’s working to ride him a little deeper to the jumps and he’s improving his form significantly. Allie Jumped Fergie next but I missed her whole lesson. McCool followed and Mark had me completely floating the reins to him in front of and over the jumps. I struggled some with keeping the straightness and length of stride, but McCool got better and better over the fences. I have the problem of taking lessons like I’m playing a game of Simon Says. If Simon says loop the reins and don’t help the horse, I completely drop the horse and let him leave three strides out. Now I know that Simon doesn’t want me to leave three strides out and years of jump lessons have given me the skills to make those three strides happen, but then again, Simon said “don’t help him”! I eventually found a compromise where I was still riding the horse, but getting a really powerful, round jump from him. More homework for me.
Marris jumped next and worked on getting Max lighter and easier to ride in the gallop so that she could also soften and get Max to jump up and around the jump better. We finished up with Finian also getting the gallop good enough that I could have a soft rein to the jumps. By this point I was reading Simon’s subtext, and things were working out much better. I had a few jumps that were so good I let a giddy little giggle escape, and then Finian thought it was that time of the party to kick off his shoes. As he bounded up over a big oxer, I watched his left front shoe go sailing out ahead of us. That brought my lesson to a quick end, but fortunately we’d gotten a few good jumps in and could leave it there.
That wrapped up a short training session for us, and we set out driving home through a nasty storm. I think we averaged 45mph for most of the drive because the visability was so bad, and had two serious near misses with swerving cars and buses. I have rarely been so happy to make it home and get the horses in their stalls. We’re supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow and though it may only be 1 cm on the ground, we’re all getting our sleds ready! Don’t judge us, we’re a little eager for this snow thing.
