The legendary Jimmy Wofford and his labs. Photo by Samantha Clark
From Lauren:
One of my dearest friends, Jenn O’Neill of Chris Newton’s Antebellum Farm, often compares coaching kids at the Starter level to herding cats. If you have dry cat food in a plastic bowl that you can rattle, herding cats is really much easier. So now that the Jimmy Wofford clinic has come and gone from my partner and I’s L & N Equine (www.landnequine.com), I think that, in the future, I may compare clinic organizing to herding Starter competitors…in dressage warm up…in the dark. Jimmy offered clinic participants a fantastic learning experience and, despite the cold, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Clinic participant John Crowell (Dorothy’s husband and a fantastic rider in his own right on a very talented young mount, Henny) really “enjoyed Jimmy’s unique ability to break riding concepts down into their simplest terms making them easy for you to understand and remember” and he felt that the manta “for the weekend was Rhythm and with Rhythm jumps happen”. Clinic participant Lee Shaw on her fantastic prospect, Bud, shared her experience at the clinic, saying that “I had a great time! Parking was ample and easy, facilities were great, having food there was genius, and I came away with a lot of winter homework.” In a nutshell, the clinic was a success. I do want to send out the warmest well wishes to Sharon Anthony who took a tumble off her adorable Thoroughbred, It’s Teddy. We all are wishing for a speedy and painless recovery for her.
To give EN readers an idea of what the clinic entailed, details are as follows: The clinic involved 3 groups, two at the 2’6 – 3’0 height, and one at the 3’+ height. Day 1 was focus on gymnastics, schooling over the following grids:
Day 2 featured XC schooling for the lower level groups and show jumping practice for the 3’+ group. The XC schooling included three jumps on a serpentine, an uphill and downhill bounce, a narrow ramp that caused a lot of concern, and two colorful flower fences on a 5 stride bending line. The show jumping challenges were as follows:
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Each group included eight riders and lasted two hours. Each morning before the riding began, there where question and answer sessions that lasted one hour and included white board drawings and one-liners. Now, for all of you aspiring clinic organizers out there, I will get down to the nitty gritty. I did my absolute best to provide an opportunity to ride with, as some Eventers say, GOD at cost to me without up-charging for anything or anticipating making a profit. Riding in the clinic was payment enough for my time and hosting did not actually cost me money, so I did my best to pass that on to the participants. Jimmy is arguably the most expensive Eventing clinician in the world ($500 more than Lucinda Green and $800 more than Leslie Law to give you an idea!). So that, in and of itself, was a lot of expense to offset. I asked $350/rider for the weekend and included catered, all-you-can-eat Panera breakfast, lunch, and free stabling. I charged for shavings, asked that stalls were stripped upon departure, and also charged $5 for breakfast and $10 for lunch for all non-riders. I pretty much broke exactly even and look forward to well-attended clinics in the future. I hope this provides a basic guide to clinic organization and as long as you are accessible via email and phone, flexible, and kind, the whole clinic organization experience will be entertaining, only slightly stressful, and akin to herding Starter riders in Dressage warm up in the dark. May the horse be with you!
