Thanks to Taren Atkinson for sending us this James Atkinson clinic report from the Colorado Horse Park. As always, we love reader submissions! If you participate (or spectate!) at a local event, clinic, or other eventing-related activity, please send your recap to [email protected]. Thank you Taren for writing, and thank you for reading!
Colorado Horse Park 2-Day James Atkinson Clinic
by Taren Atkinson
Colorado welcomed us with beautiful weather – sun shining and high 70’s – for the first day of a two day clinic focusing on teaching steeplechase and pace for riders at the Training and Preliminary level. CHP offers a Training 3-Day event every year, and it has been such a hit for local riders, so they requested more practice with pacing to prepare for this years competition. James was on hand at last year’s event to school riders who were entered in the T3D over steeplechase, and many of those riders signed up for the clinic this weekend as well. Three out of the four groups that James taught Saturday got to gallop around and jump steeplechase, and had a blast. The first Novice group practiced their pacing with green horses. It was great to see the riders getting their horses out and in front of their leg to the steeplechase, and then take that feeling and apply it to other single fences and combinations.
The 2nd day of the clinic was supposed to be on the cross-country and be a reinforcement of the previous day’s work, but Colorado had other plans for the riders – 2 feet of snow overnight turned a day of xc into a day of indoor riding through a grid! The grid was extremely helpful, though, and the riders worked on it and angle fences. The grid James set up was a trotting in 18′ one stride to a 21′ one stride, cross-rail to verticle to oxer. After the horses were comfortable with the grid he added on two fences, one set up 2 strides on a right bend and one set on a 2 stride left bend from the oxer. The riders were learning to look early and steer to the verticle after the grid, and then were challenged to make the turn to the verticle, canter around to the other verticle and jump that to the grid oxer on a 2 stride angle. James hardly moved the grid fences, just had the riders angling through the grid all over the place. It was challenging for the horses and riders, but by the end of all the groups it was clear to see the horses landing from a fence and waiting for their rider to give them information, which improved rideability and adjustability.
A big thank you to Vivien VanBuren for setting up the clinic and her fabulous work all weekend to keep riders and us happy with water and food, thank you to CHP for being accommodating with the change of plans on Sunday, and thanks to the riders for participating – excellent riding!
Here is a link to a video of the second group on Saturday, all Novice/Training level horses getting a taste of steeplechase!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vINXJNfIPbw
