Flatwork Clinic, Rose Cottage Stud, 1st Nov 2008
Sat, 1 November 2008
I must be mad but there I was at 6.30am in the morning, picking up the horse box from my mums’ home, in the freeeeezing cold, so I could go to a flatwork lesson with my sister, Kelly. It was 3 degrees when I got up but felt more like minus three with the wind chill factor!
After much rushing around (to warm us up), we headed off to Rose Cottage Stud at Binfield with Toby and Hector. I am sure both the boys could have quite happily stayed in their cozy stables with lots of grub but off we went to educate our brains in flatwork – to which I must add both of us are in need of flatwork training. To our surprise it was a pleasure to see Rose Cottage Stud now has a lovely new tack shop on site, The Millwheel. We did have a look in the shop after the lesson and treated ourselves to some new gloves, couldn’t resist spending a few pennies!
Anyway back to the lesson. I did think that Lucy Gavrilovic would have quite a task trying to teach an old dog new tricks, as we have been riding for more years than we care to count but only ever had a couple of flatwork lessons. I always called myself a happy hacker until a couple of years ago when the jumping bug got me. But to my surprise Lucy found abilities within Toby and I, that I thought neither of us would ever have! Even my sister, who at the start of the lesson said she only really wanted to walk and trot, ended up doing canter transitions and enjoying it! Hector was applauded for doing counter canter at such an early stage in his basic training! Lucy explained things to us in such a way that even my brain cells could manage to understand. I came away with lots of ‘notes to self’:- lengthen stirrups for flatwork; keep lower leg closer to girth; make hands a pair; use shoulders more; lighten aids; elbows and hips can actually slow your horse down or speed them up! Brilliant and informative is all I can say and all explained in an easy to understand format. I now see my excitable Toby in a completely different way, he actually listened to me.
I can’t wait until the next flatwork lesson and who said flatwork is boring!