You, Your Horse and the Recession

You, Your Horse and The Recession

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Is lack of finance preventing you from progressing with your horse’s training?

Money for lessons difficult to find?

Are you getting the most out of the few lessons you do have?

OR

Do you use lack of finance as the reason why you can not make progress?

Let’s face it horses are not the cheapest animal to keep, so it is vital that you get the maximum pleasure and satisfaction from owning them and for many of us that includes the joy of improving the way you work together, improving your schooling and raising the level when you go out and compete.

Often if money is tight you either compete or have lessons when what you really need is both!! If this all sounds familiar :-

Welcome to my free tips for the cash strapped horse owner wanting to progress!!

I frequently get told by riders “I am really keen to go up a grade when I compete” or “I really want to improve my riding and the way my young horse goes but I can’t afford lessons” and many similar remarks.

My response is “so what are you going to do about it?” Apart from trying to earn/make more money what else can you do? Get a positive mind set.

These comments remind me of when I was in much the same position. My lovely horse George could no longer compete at the higher levels of eventing and I wanted to focus on dressage with him. Many said I must be joking when I told them my plans – one even said it would be like trying to train a rugby player to be a ballet dancer so why was I bothering. So firstly I suggest ignore negative comments particularly from those closest to you and start to think out side the square.

I have to admit I did have a some what mature (16years), very strong – in build and ‘mind set’ horse and I am quite a small person – ok ok I was somewhat over horsed!! But to me he was very special and I did not want to sell him so a new career was planned. (to view George aged 22 years still competing and ‘doing dressage’ go to the home page top right)

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My funds were well… less than limited to be honest but I knew I had to have help so I focused on who I wanted to train with even if I had very few lessons it was to be with someone that I was confident that could educate, support and develop our skills, someone that I could continue to work with over a long period of time for maximum continuity and progress. A few lessons here and there from different trainers no matter how good they were was not the way to go.

This done – I put away very small amounts of money, schooled George often with the limited knowledge I had until I had saved enough to visit my trainer who was based on the south coast of England some considerable distance from my home in East Anglia for my first 3 days of lessons.

I think that was the hardest step. It was like putting your hand up and saying this is what you wanted to do with my horse and being brave enough to ride in front of a top international trainer. I was sooo nervous – George was strong and difficult and I was tense and well to be honest fearful!!

Every day I had a lesson on George, a lunge lesson to work on my position and a lesson on an advanced dressage horse or one of the 5 Lipizzaner stallions, When not riding I watched every other lesson, watched my trainer school horses, asked questions and took notes. I wrote up notes after my lessons with George – these notes proved to be of great value during the long spells between lessons.

When I got home I cut out 20 small pieces of card that would fit into my pocket – on the card would be movements, exercises and corrections my trainer had given to me. I would read the card before I got on - looked at it again during my ride to keep me on target and focused. If I got stuck with anything I made a phone call to my trainer who was very good at supporting me – most trainers are as long as you do not pester them too much and have clear logical questions to ask.

On this first visit to my trainer I met another rider from my area; we teamed up for the next trip, shared travel costs and wrote up notes for each other during our lessons. We schooled together from time to time, watched each other ride tests and competitions. We also cheered each other on and shared disappointment and supported each other to get back up and try again. Two motivated people can feed off of each others enthusiasm if the relationship is open honest and respectful. (Thank You Gill)

My trainer started to give dressage clinics around the country and when he was in our area we would go to these courses. If I had a little money I had lessons if I did not I went to watch, listen, ask questions and take notes. The trainer often gave evening demonstrations and George and I were sometimes one of his demonstration riders – this gave me more miles on the clock ‘under the trainers eye’ and the opportunity to ride in front of large audiences which was good experience for those bigger competitions to come.

The few lessons I had in those early days were all absorbing and I sucked every drop of information from them. I suffered terribly from what I call “try too hard syndrome” becoming tense and the movement and feel I was trying for just could not happen. Staying soft and in harmony to enable the movement or exercise to happen could be my biggest challenge.

The motivation would be high on returning from a session or course with my trainer but I knew it would be some time before I could afford to have more lessons. I looked around for more ways to learn and understand dressage.

As I am dyslexic I am not a great reader so I found myself studying the dressage rule books and looking at the dressage test book studying the movements of tests several levels higher to give me the chance to visualise those movements and what they would be like to ride, what would they feel like, almost smell like to experience?

I challenged myself to understand the dressage jargon – ‘terms’ often heard flung around – for example ‘Not quite coming through from behind’, ‘impulsions’, ‘cadence’ etc etc. what the hell did it all mean!!! I used books to find out the meaning: - the books I found helpful were:-

‘Training the Horse and Rider (I used this one like a bible) – and ‘My Teachers My Horses’ by Alois Podhajsky
‘Training the Horse - the first two years’ and Advanced Dressage by Anthony Crossley – Anthony trained with the same trainer as myself and a friendship was formed and he helped me a lot in later years with my Lipizzaner and several other horses.
‘Riding Logic’ by W. Museler

Magazine articles about dressage were cut out and put into folders and revisited often – video’s and lectures, demonstrations and clinics given by different trainers were all watched and notes taken.

After just a few trips down to my trainer I was able to work in return for some lessons or have a chance to ride a more advanced horse in the arena while my trainer was teaching other clients – all invaluable ‘more miles on my dressage riding clock’!

At competitions I watched between my own classes, I got the nick name of ‘the dressage sitter’, watching all levels and becoming irritated if people wanted to pass the time of day causing me to lose my focus. Being close to the dressage arenas I found myself being asked to ‘call/command’ tests for riders, again all good things to do and to gain experience.

There was only one international dressage competition in the UK in those days so this was a ‘must do’. It exposed me to a range of different European dressage methods. I learned most from watching the riders work horses very early in the morning and when warming up before competition. My trainer was also competing and available to discuss and watch with me, directing my ‘eye’ to various methods of training and riders styles.

I watched wonderful horses like Corlandus, Granate, Marzog, Slibovites, Alrich and Amon. They were the international equine stars of dressage at that time. It meant time away from home and travel cost but I shared them, and got cheap accommodation to be able to live eat and drink world level dressage – for me it kept my sights high and my motivation firing on all cylinders and in later years taking the opportunity to work and train overseas.

Having your dressage test and lessons videoed was fairly new in those days; in fact the one on this web site of George is the only one I have of him. Not many people had video cameras and you paid a professional to do this – a cost I did not need. When things were quite tough and I wanted to do something I would make some reductions on the grocery bills or sold items of saddlery I did not use any more.

If cash is in short supply there are plenty of things you can do to make progress and educate yourself. I hope sharing some of the things I did will help you. So the next time you hear yourself saying or thinking I can’t afford it’ STOP IT! And get focused on what you can do.

If you have more ideas on how to progress without spending money and you would like to share them with others or if you would like some free advice about your riding click here and contact me

Go well with your horse

Cheers

Jeanette