Max Corcoran has been extremely generous to send us reports from the Ocala training session and beautiful Meredyth South farm. I can’t thank Max enough and I’ll let her jump right into her report from Tuesday. Also, thank you for reading!
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Thanks to Joanie Morris/USEF for the photo
From Max:
Circles, circles, and more circles…
We all think a full day of dressage should be boring – but the riders showed so much improvement on Tuesday, it was very encouraging!
A foggy morning burned off to be another stunning day. Riders started their day with a lecture on dressage movements followed by one on one meeting with David. Half the riders met Tuesday and the other half will catch up with David today. David spent a great deal of time in the lecture discussing the geometry of movements and how accuracy can also gain points.
The riders were again divided into two groups of three and one group of four. The groups change everyday, giving everyone the opportunity to ride with different people.
Each group started with a warm up of walking and introducing very simple lateral work at the walk to help get the horses connected and begin to move their backs. Each group was made to wok in a drill team format, which proved a bit exciting for one horse. From there they went into trot and did the same simple lateral work, but then added some lengthening and shortening to continue to get the horses off the forehand.
The lateral work continued with some shoulder in which led to the exercise of haunches in – going straight – haunches in – back to going straight, which is a perfect introduction for half pass. The crew worked more on leg yields and some 10-meter circle; David emphasized the geometry of the circles.
Canter work also consisted of lengthening and shortening. A lot of time was spent in the counter canter – many people find themselves struggling to find comfort in cantering on the wrong lead.
The lessons ended with work on the centerline – the continuous theme of straightness was reminded.
Joe Pegan of Kentucky Equine Research gave the lunchtime lecture today. He touched on the topics of basic nutrition and special needs of the sport horses diet. Joe has been in charge of supplying and advising nutritional needs for the horses at the Olympics and the Word Championships for well over a decade.
Today brings more jumping – the morning will see some course setting and meetings with David. The lectures tomorrow will be focusing on the woes of the young professional; sponsorship, social media, owner relations, etc.
More soon…
