Bernie Traurig Clinic Day One

So, Bernie Traurig came to Tamarack to do a 2 day clinic February 22 and 23. I rode Millie and Cordi in it both days. Both horses were wild and needed lunging before I even rode them! Millie was first and I knew I needed to kill some energy so I planned to take her to the ring early and lunge her. Good thing because she was so high! When I got on her she was pretty settled but still had a lot of energy, luckily we spent a long time warming up and working on jumping flatwork. Millie was the demo horse for one exercise, Bernie had me take Millie on a small circle around him and do an opening rein with direct pressure and when she would give and bend her neck in, release and allow her back to the normal bend. We did this a few times to get her more supple, luckily she was very good and proved to be a good demo horse! We worked a lot on halting and backing up, turns out this is a great exercise for Millie, it gets her much more responsive and more alert of what I am asking. We even did it in the lines when she was wanting to get too forward. The first day of the clinic was all about gymnastic lines, and planning distances.

We started with a pole on the ground, six strides to a cross rail, then had to do a bending line to it in seven and a direct line in 5. This went pretty well, I had to halt Millie after the cross rail sometimes if she was getting running. We did some single jumps and then went to the box trotting four strides to an oxer eventually adding a long five to an oxer. My biggest problem throughout the clinic ended up being that I wait the first few strides and then have to gun it the last 3 to make up the distance. I think one part of this is that in lines of more than 3 or 4 I don't count until the last 3 strides. I really needed to practice landing and counting to 5, 6, 7 or whatever number of strides there is because when I count and get to 4 or 5 I get really confused because I am not at 3, 2, 1 I am at 5, 6, 7. I don't know if this will make sense to anyone else but....haha. The other part is I just don't react quick enough to GO and then balance the last few strides. This came up on both horses. So all of the exercises we did were focused on executing a line in X number of strides, usually having to steady of move up to the distance. It wasn't until the second day that I really got it!

We also addressed the problem with Millie drifting left (which I hadn't realized we had!). Bernie had me trot a vertical with a take off rail and really open my right rein and have her land on a small circle to the right. On the first part of the circle he wanted her to give in her neck and bend right. We did this several times until she softly stayed to the right and didn't even think about drifting left.

So I rode Cordi right after Millie and had to run up and switch tack quickly. I was bringing Cordi down and she seemed a little up but I didn't think too much about it and got on. Once I started trotting she got really excited and would leap and buck, she did this a few times but then we all stopped to get our headphones for the sound system and when I went back out to trot she really jumped in the air and then stuck her head down and bucked. Denny told me to get off and go lunge her in the Dressage arena. She galloped and bucked around for 10 min straight. When she finally settled down I went back to the arena and she was fine. Cordi also got to be the demo horse for the opening rein with direct pressure to get the horse to give. When we were working on jumping and landing on a certain lead, I was very good at having a leading rein to the right and Cordi landed on that lead every time. To the left I needed to put a little direct pressure on the opening rein to get her to land reliably on the left.

 I had similar issues with messing up the distances by not going forward soon enough. On one of the approaches I sent her forward and she swished her tail and half bucked, Bernie said she really needs to go forward off my leg better. He had me take her around the arena and do transitions from the gallop to the canter and canter to gallop several times. At first she would buck and kick out and he had me just push her though it and really go forward. This helped a lot and really got her moving off my leg with no protest. This then led to her not responding to my half halt, so Bernie had me do several canter walk transitions. At first I couldn't get then very promptly but she got better, again something I really need to work on!

I felt like an idiot and that I just couldn't get the distances right the first day after my rides. I watched the rest of the day and saw that people and horses of all levels made similar mistakes as I did and that made me feel a lot better about it!