Chris Burton Clinic

What a week! I feel completely exhausted, broke and school holidays only just kick off tomorrow so no rest for the wicked!

Well, I'll say one thing....Chris Burton sure can ride. The man hopped on two horses in my group over the course of the weekend and had them going beautifully within about 2 minutes. It was a complete pleasure just seeing how he works. That being said, he's so quiet and subtle you have no bloody idea what he's doing!

There are a couple of things I will be taking away from the clinic. The first was a very simple but quite difficult exercise using two poles. Simply put two poles down a fair distance from each other (around 25-30 metres, I'd guess) and work on adjusting your horse's stride in between the poles so you meet the second pole on the number of strides you choose. Chris had us putting 4, 5, 6, 7 and even 8 and 9 strides for the over-achievers. He said, do this every day as a flat exercise, a warm up, whatever, but EVERY DAY, and you'll be the most accurate jumping rider around. So, now when I watch Chris ride on DVDs I'll know how he gets so good.

The other main lesson that came out of the clinic for me was having my horse in front of the leg. I had exactly the same lesson from Clayton Fredericks a year ago, but clearly haven't quite nailed it! Assegai is a spooky horse that backs off fences and is prone to stopping and cat leaping. It drives me crazy!! So, we need to work on having him extremely responsive, to just go forward when I kick regardless of how scary he thinks the jump is! What I really liked about Chris' training technique for young or inexperienced horses is the gentleness and time he takes. There was a lot of yelling (by Chris) at those of us who pushed to quick to get their horse across the little ditch or into the water. There was even whacking with a big long stick! But the idea of giving one kick and if any kind of forward movement, or even if not much at all happened, you are to simply wait. Keep the horse straight to the obstacle with the reins and kick if he steps back, but just sit there and let him work out the fence, letting him have his head - I had my reins at the buckle! It was quite effective - Assegai walked himself into the water after a minute or two, no stress, no kicking and reefing and belting with the whip. I liked it.

So, a couple of days off, I reckon! Then a couple of rides and it's Christmas. I'll have to do the young filly's hooves tomorrow so I'll post some pics. I don't do the best trim job but my trimmer won't be out for a couple more weeks and hers are pretty ordinary right now! She's such a big galumpher that her hooves have a tendency to flare out if they aren't trimmed every couple of weeks at the moment.

Thanks for reading!