Star Date: 5707, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Earth, USAFinding a trainer, the most annoying frontier. This is the voyage of a ship of fools. Its tedious mission: To explore the strange world of dressage. To seek out new trainers and end disorganization. To boldly go where many horses have gone before.
Ok, so this is a slightly cynical exaggeration. It's been a while since I last posted; last week 2 new trainers ventured into the crazy solar system that is Nic's training. Nic and I also had a show on Sunday, and I was just generally stressed about the whole kangaroo court of finding a new trainer and preventing La Résistance from a sudden resurgence.
So, here's an update: I tried 2 new trainers last week, each FEI, with impressive backgrounds. Both had a different style - a different way to get Nic to do what she should be doing. One style worked much better for my horse than the other style (one was able to Napalm La Résistance out of existence), so I've decided to go with "Napalm trainer," and for the sake of this blog, I'll refer to her as "Napalm."
The other trainer taught much like Trainer did, however, I think Trainer's way of training Nic became more about force than about coercing Nic to round and become supple. His training wasn't that way when we started working with Nic. I only started to feel that way in the last month; the rider would have to wrench Nic's head to supple her jaw. As we all know, that just isn't how suppling should be done; dressage isn't really about force.
Even though I warmed Nic up by myself (I work better that way, anyway), I used Napalm's methods at our show last Sunday. Even though the mare was distracted, Napalm's methods helped focus her, and our scores very much improved. Ironically, I've used Napalm's methods in the past with other horses before I bought Nic; I'm ashamed I didn't think of them myself. My lesson here is to not assume one path will lead to Rome (in this case, a round and supple horse), and to question when something just doesn't seem right.
About our show: Nic did much better - my goals were:
1. No bucking in the canter transitions
2. Higher scores on the freewalk
We worked consistently on those two issues to improve our scores, and we did improve our scores. We got a 63.2% on Training 3; the judge was an "I" (international) judge. I've heard some rustlings that our scores were inflated; I compared them to the scores from our last show, where we received a 56% in Training 3.
The scores for our trot movements were the same; as expected, the difference was in the scores for our free walk (coefficient of 2) and the scores for our canter transitions (no bucking this time) and the score for my riding. Because Nic was more on the aids (thanks, Napalm), we received scores 1-2 points higher.
There is only 1 score that seems odd: we received a "7" on our left lead canter transition, while at the last show we received a "4." It's possible the transition was that much better, but I don't believe it. Otherwise, the scores reflected my expectations based on the amount of work I put in to schooling Nic on the elements on which we scored poorly last time.
We received 4th place in both of our classes, which is validation for me, considering the events of the past 2 weeks.
