EN’s good friend Stephen Bradley has joined our team of guest bloggers for the upcoming 2012 season. You may read Stephen’s first blog entry here. Thanks for writing this Stephen and thank you for reading.
Photo by Stephanie Bradley-Green
From Stephen:
Hello Eventing Nation!
I’ve been trying to think of a topic for my next blog and wanted to keep it focused on the horses, so I went through my barn looking for inspiration and settled on Leyland. As most of you know, Leyland arrived in my barn less than a year ago, and while it hasn’t been the smoothest journey (including a missed fence at Richland and a fall at Plantation), there’s been a lot of learning along the way. So in this blog, I’m going to touch on some of tools that I’ve learned along this journey, and how you can apply it to your own life, whether you’re an amateur or professional rider.
Before Leyland, most every horse that I’ve competed at the upper levels has come to me as a youngster or very early in their careers. Both Brandenburg’s Joshua and the great Sassy Reason (my Burghley champion) had only competed in a handful of Preliminaries before I got them. And my first Advanced horse, Hy Flying Friend, was a racing Appendix Quarter Horse that I got straight off the track while I was still working for Bruce Davidson, Sr.
I think at first glance, one might think that getting a horse that already has experience is the easy way to go. In this case, Leyland had already jumped around some of the biggest tracks in the world, including Rolex and Burghley. But, just as us riders are often set in our ways, so are our horses. And the more experience either rider or horse has, oftentimes the more set in their ways they become. And such was the situation with Leyland and myself.
We both wanted the same result, we just had very different ways of getting there. Instead of re-training Leyland to do things my way, I often compromised with him, and with time we began to speak the same language. In my daily riding and training, one of my main mantras is, “If your horse is trying to work with you, then you should try to work with your horse.”
Every rider, whether professional or amateur, has their own program and way of riding, and it is our job as the cognitive thinkers of the partnership to learn to adapt to the horse we’re sitting on. Our horses will only change if we train them to. So, as riders, we have to train ourselves to ride to the best of our abilities, so we can be clear in our requests to our horses. And being clear and reasonable in your requests is the most fair thing you can do for your horse.
But as most of you know, the riders are often the harder ones to train! So if you’re struggling with a concept, don’t be afraid to get creative in your approach to the solution. For example, if you’re having trouble keeping a steady trot rhythm, try posting on the wrong diagonal and it will help you steady the rhythm.
Getting back to Leyland, it was definitely a daunting task to get a horse in May, and then compete at a 3* that fall. And while we may not have gotten to a 3* due to qualifications issues, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. Rather than going to Fair Hill or Galway, Leyland got a month off from work, and got to just be a horse. And with the pressure of competition off, I was able to really spend some time solidifying our relationship for the future. Thankfully, Leyland’s previous rider, Amy Tryon, has been very gracious with her time and knowledge of him and has given me tips along the way.
So, what’s next for me and Leyland? We’re heading down to Aiken in February and will start out with a Preliminary and Intermediate horse trials to get the kinks out; then we’ll bump back up to Advanced and try to get in our qualifying runs for Rolex. But horses can be horses, so we will need a certain amount of luck on our side! I can’t thank Leyland’s owners, the Nicholson family, enough for their patience and support throughout this “getting to know you” process.
Until next time,
Stephen
