Doug Payne & Crown Talisman
As you all well know, I’m down here in (sometimes) sunny Aiken, trying my darndest to get a leg up on my preparations for the spring along with a load of other crazy snowbirds. So obviously when the Training Sessions came to town, I was the girl for the job in terms of stalking watching and reporting. I watched all of the Training Sessions last spring with the old regime, and I was eager to see how the magic of DOC would affect our riders. I was only able to catch the last two rides of yesterday, so please forgive the awful lighting in my photos and the lack of coverage for riders at the beginning of the day.
I first watched Doug Payne on Crown Talisman, or Tali, who is a horse with incredible ability, but tends to get affected by his surroundings and pressure situations. Tali has competed successfully at the 2* level and is looking to move up to Advanced this spring. He becomes tense through his back and hind end frequently on the flat, and when encouraged to relax, he throws his body parts hither and thither with gusto in an attempt to distract Doug. DOC worked with Doug on a twenty meter circle for a large portion of the lesson, asking him to collect and lengthen using only his seat, in an effort to refuse Tali the right to use the bit to brace against. It seems simple, but asking certain horses to just go straight and quiet around a circle without a fuss is more challenging than it looks. Coach O’Connor also rode Tali after working with Doug for a while, and he did the same thing, where he wasn’t specifically asking the horse for any movements outside of staying straight, even, and rhythmic. This proved to take longer than desired, as Tali is a tenacious horse with a lot of energy. DOC preached that when the horse becomes fragmented in their approach to flatwork in this manner, there is nothing to do but use consistent, even pressure and allow no “out” except down and straight through their neck and body.
After quite a long time patiently waiting for Tali to acquiesce, Doug re-mounted and performed a few minutes of work to feel the changes that David had created in the horse’s way of going. He stressed that with this type or horse, consistency is the key, and day-in day-out work with single minded purpose is the way to get him to relax through his body.
(Turn your volume up, my phone didn’t pick up the sound that great)
Holly Payne & Santino
Holly Payne was the next rider, and she was on her lovely 2* horse, Santino, or Sunny, who is looking to move up to Advanced early in the spring. Sunny is quite opposite of Tali, in that he tends to be a bit lazy, laid back, and if anything, too loose in his body parts. Once again, DOC explained the importance of having a horse that is evenly weighted in both reins, seat bones, and straight through the body. Sunny tends to hang on the right rein, and is generally tougher to ride off the right. Coach O’Connor said that most riders, when they experience a significant stiffness one way or another, tend to work a lot more than they should on that rein. They flex, and pull and fiddle, and generally obsess about why the horse won’t bend that way, and it almost never works. He said that the way to correct the stiffness up front is to address where his hind legs are, and make sure that they are pushing off evenly. Hence, straightness!
Another point that Coach O’Connor emphasized was the importance of a proper downwards transition. He said, “If you have to lean back and pull, you’re doing it wrong, and you haven’t prepared him correctly!”. The idea is to practice compressing the stride, and collecting the body with your seat until you can simply sigh, and proceed into a downwards transition that puts you in the proper balance for the next gait. If you practice and it takes you 15 strides to get the correct canter in order to ask for the walk, you do that until it takes you 13, then 10 and then finally two or three. There is no point in practicing transitions that go SPLAT!
All the riders will return today, for more flatwork practice that will progress from where they left off yesterday. I will be attending to catch a different couple of riders, and hopefully improve my video skills.
Schedule today: (also available at the USEF High Performance Facebook Page)
Wednesday Schedule:
8:00 Jennie Brannigan/Cambalda
8:45 Phillip Dutton/Mighty Nice
9:30 Phillip Dutton/Fernhill Eagle
10:15 Allison Springer/Copycat Chloe
11:00 Erin Sylvester/No Boundaries
11:45 Doug Payne/Crown Talisman
12:30 Lunch
1:00 Boyd Martin/Trading Aces
1:45 Boyd Martin/Master Frisky
2:30 Emily Beshear/Here’s To You
3:15 Susan Beebee/Wolf
4:00 Holly Payne/Santino
5:00 Will Faudree/Andromaque
