Day 2 of the Silva Martin clinic dawned overcast and slightly chilly, but we were ready to go with Monkee at 7:15. Everyone looked well rested and ready to go after a relaxing evening of pizza and wine and good conversation. Both horses (Guppy and Monkee) were much improved from yesterday and were already thinking Silva’s way. A few more words of wisdom from today’s session:
1. In the canter to prepare for a transition to walk, it helps to ride a 10- meter circle first, collect the canter, and then ask for the walk coming out of the circle. This way the horse is already back on his haunches and prepared for the downward transition to be crisp and correct.
2. A super exercise to engage the inside hind leg is to do a shoulder-fore on the longside right out of the corner, for about four strides, and then go straight into a working trot (with the body straight), and then back to the shoulder-fore, back to the working trot, etc. until you get to the end of the arena. On the short side, really go forward for a stride of two, then ask him to come back and repeat the shoulder-fore out of the corner.
That’s all I remembered to write down because I was so into watching how beautifully the horses were going. Got more videos on the camera that refuses to upload, so I’ll just post the crappy Blackberry videos again and you can imagine that they’re good quality.
Silva on Monkee explaining how she likes to warm her horses up...not the extreme LDR that some riders do, but more of a stretchy deep trot that allows the horse to let go in his back and neck and be physically ready to really go to work.
A little warm-up canter:
Guppy time:
I'm sad this clinic is over but hopeful that Silva will be spending more time in the SoPines area from now on :) God Bless,
Ry
The boys look amazing! I'm so glad you were able to be at the clinic. :)
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