Hints & Tips

 

·         Cow­boy Magic – this is my favorite thing in my tack box. I’m so par­tic­u­lar with horses tails – I hate break­ing the hair when brush­ing. Cow­boy magic might be expen­sive but you use so lit­tle. Put a 10 cent piece size drop in your palm and rub your hands together then through the horses tail. You’ll be sur­prised at how much (or less) you’ll use. It leaves the tail incred­i­bly shiny, soft and full of boof. A large bot­tle can last me with one horse 6 to 12 months, depend­ing on how many comps I go to.

 

·         My favorite tool to have in the sta­bles – my gernie. (high pres­sure cleaner) I use the gernie on every­thing I can. Wash bay, work boots, sad­dle blan­kets – these come up brand new with a gernie. Espe­cially around the edg­ing and in the stitch­ing. And don’t worry, I’ve never had a gernie dam­age any­thing I’ve cleaned with it. I’ve bleached and soaked but noth­ing gets things as clean as the gernie can! Even rugs. I’ll often have a clean­ing day and pull out all my boots and sad­dle blan­kets. It’s really bad prac­tice to con­tin­u­ally put a dirty sweaty sad­dle blan­ket on your horse. Espe­cially if you use the same one for dif­fer­ent horses.

 

·         Prac­tic­ing your tests. I always go over and over my tests at home so by the time the com­pe­ti­tion has come, all my lit­tle errors have come and gone at home so all there is left is to ride is a good test. Be care­ful not to make your horse sour from going over and over the tests though. Break the tests up and ride parts. EG: I might do a cen­ter line but halt 3 times. Or while rid­ing the 15m can­ter cir­cle, I might break it up with 3 strides of big can­ter, 3 of small can­ter etc. Halt some­where and rein back. Break it up for them and you. Ride some move­ments early so the horse doesn’t get uses to can­ter­ing when they get to the cor­ners. Things like that.

 

·         Ride for your­self and your horse. Never change how you ride your tests to suit the judges.

 

·         Ride your horse accord­ing to how it’s going in train­ing. Don’t just ride the test because it says to can­ter across the diag­o­nal, trot at x, then can­ter new lead. Con­sider your horses train­ing progress and ride and train accordingly.

 

·         In QLD we have to ride accord­ing to the weather. In sum­mer, we ride inter­mit­tently. Lots of breaks and stretch­ing. For both horse and rider. Give plenty of electrolytes/salt replace­ments for when they sweat. Don’t overdo it in the heat! Win­ter: remem­ber not to let the horse stand around for too long. Keep them walk­ing. They get cold too!

 

·         Know when it’s time to stop. Don’t push too hard for too long. We can some­times be stub­born as rid­ers but some­times we have to know when to quit. Your body can get fatigued if you are fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle so even though you think you have your legs on and the horse is ignor­ing you, you may just be phys­i­cally exhausted and your legs just feel like they’re on. Then you get nowhere but bad rid­ing. Stop, have a rest and maybe try again. Oth­er­wise change your mind and deal with it another day.

 

·         If you accept it today, you’ll more than likely get it tomor­row but twice as much.

 

·         Train your horse the way your horse needs and wants to be trained, not the way any­one else says is right.

 

·         When some­thing goes wrong in a show, it’s actu­ally the best time because you learn from it. You ask your­self ‘what can I do bet­ter?’ When every­thing goes OK, you don’t ask your­self that ques­tion.“Anky Van Grunsven”

 

·         Always tie a horse to some­thing break­able like string or bal­ing twine and then to the hitch­ing rail. You never know when a horse might get spooked and pull back with all its might.

 

·         Tran­si­tions. Lots of them. They are so impor­tant! Tran­si­tions can help the horse to become much more soft and sup­ple, they help to get and main­tain the horses atten­tion, improve impulsion/engagement of the hindquarters.

 

·         When warm­ing up, get into your zone. Don’t worry about any­one else in the warm up. Keep an eye on them so you don’t run into them but remem­ber how you ride at home or with your coach. Don’t sud­denly change every­thing. Keep it the same with back up plans as you would have at home.

 

·         When you get to the com­pe­ti­tion it’s a good idea to walk your horse around for as long as you can. Let them eat the grass and have a good look around. If you have things to pre­pare, ask your part­ner. Par­ent to help you walk them. Check with the gear check as to how times are run­ning, scratch­ings etc. It’s a good idea to check again when you first get on just in case they are run­ning late or early. There’s noth­ing like stress­ing your­self out if you sud­denly have to rush your warm up or if they are late, exhaust­ing your horse unnec­es­sar­ily. Keep an eye on the time at all times and maybe which horse is in front of you in the ring.

 

·         Ride at home like you’re in com­pe­ti­tion. Ride at the com­pe­ti­tion like you are at home.

 

·         Reward your horse!! I can’t stress enough how impor­tant this is. I see so many peo­ple who never reward their horse. Just a sim­ple pat/stroke when they have done some­thing good or have at least tried. This lets them know they are doing the right thing. You can never reward enough!

 

·         Don’t be afraid of mis­takes – every sin­gle mis­take is a per­fect train­ing opportunity

 

·         We can do longer peri­ods of low inten­sity work, but we have to do shorter dura­tion of high inten­sity power work – 3–5 mins; with a walk period with con­tact – The breaks allow the mus­cles to gain oxygen

 

·         When the mouth becomes open, the judges think the rid­ers have come too strong in the hand and they fix­ate on this and dis­count the rest of the pic­ture. The mouth is not the prob­lem – the fault lies in the basics. That’s why it is so impor­tant to fix the basics

 

·         If it is nec­es­sary to use the spur, it should be used as an emer­gency when the horse doesn’t respond