Daniel Meech Clinic

Sorry for the lack of photos, the camera has packed up. There maybe a few pictures but you will have to wait. Overall, the whole experience was humbling I guess. I thought I had a reasonably solid grounding, but my word perhaps not. My problems all stemmed from my casual kiwi attitude to riding. I just don't do enough. The first lesson was on Rascal and it started with lots of flatwork, trying to get the horses really collected. I thought I had collected, but this as collected beyond that. Which is hard work, especially because my horses aren't fit to this sort of collection so I was working my ass off trying to hold her together.

I will in the next few days draw up the exercises we did but we started with trotwork over trot poles and then added a small fence to that so we trotted over the poles, 9 feet to a small jump, 9 feet to a rail that we cantered out over- making sure you get the right lead of course. The next exercise was a grid with a small bounce, short stride to an upright, normal stride to an oxer. My biggest flaw here is that my position has stared to collapse in front of the fences, which of course causes my horse to collapse. He wanted me to sit up all the way to the base and hold my horse collected all the way to the base. I normally allow the horse to lower it's head before the fence but he prefferd that I don't do that. This and my lack of eye to the fences were my biggest issues. He kept saying stop getting so deep- make your decision earlier, but I don't see my spots early enough for that I guess. He must have a phenomenal eye.

The next exercise was a figure eight over two fences making sure to get good spots and land on the correct lead. I really sucked at this exercise, it took me about a million goes to get it right. Finally, there was a line of 3 fences on a slight uphill slope. Short six from upright to oxer and then a flowing four to the upright out. I can't remember what problems I had here, mostly just a complete lack of organisatino to start out with. I would get my strides but it wasn't smooth. It doesn't help that as mentioned before my eye isn't super, but on Rascal it's absolutely terrible. Something about that horse hides your takeoffs. Rascal jumped pretty well, a little hesitant and slow off of the ground but the more I held her together the more confident she was. The last run through of the exercise I did it nicely and he said to me that I could have done that the first time. Haha no kidding.

Finally, we did the exercise the other way- flowing four strides to the oxer and a short six down hill. It was hard to get the 6 strides initially, you really had to collect early. Such a basic exercise and to struggle with it was a bit disheartening. I'm not sure why I couldn't do it better to be honest, apart from the fact I think I tend more to ride the canter and take off point I get instead of being organised and strong and dictating more what they do. I'm not disciplined is probably the best way to put it.