Alyce McNeil clinic

The day before the Alyce McNeil clinic, I did some flatwork with Clover. It was cold and windy (and yea, it even snowed a couple of inches the day before), and I was stiff all over. It was a tough ride until we both warmed up a little.

Saturday was still breezy, but not as cold. I was in the first session of the morning, a BN to N group with Min and Wen on their respective horses, and a couple other younger riders from Green Acres. Alyce started us right off the bat with some rider warm up exercises, and discussed the importance of rider fitness. She's a fan of yoga techniques, and emphasised correct abdominial breathing. She also told us to do 100 stomach crunches every morning as soon as we got out of bed (unless we had to pee first, haha). She's a big advocate of having a strong back, and you need to have strong abs to support your back. One of the yoga exercises she showed us was a spine roll, start with feet shoulder width and knees bent, fold your hips and let your head and arms hang as low to the ground as possible. Let your back stretch out, then slowly come up again one vertebra at a time.

We remounted and entered the indoor for some flatwork. After sorting ourselves out to all go in the same direction, Alyce had us work on slowing the walk down, using our seat and the barest of rein aids. She has us alternate between slow walk and working walk, while having us ride a square—with actual corners. She quickly noticed that Clover was not the most forward-going horse in the group … she had me smack Clover on the croup to get her more forward, without bucking like she usually does after a whip aid.

We then went into the longest stretch of sitting trot I think I have ever done, not that it was too grueling by any means. We still worked on the square, and getting our horses to follow the rein. Alyce had us stretch our horses' necks to the inside and out, and had us maintain the bend while in the trot. She had us do some changes across the diagonal, emphasising the change of bend midway through the diagonal, and then onto a spiralling-in circle. From the circle, she had us work at the canter, spiral out, and halt from the canter using no rein aids. I was surprised to see later on the video that Clover and I didn't look as bad doing the halt as I had imagined—I didn't make any obvious moves, and Clover stopped after a couple of trot to walk steps.

Of course, then I messed up by mistaking a turn on the forehand for a turn on the haunches, but eventually got myself straightened out and Clover in the right direction, after a moment of confusion. Oops.

We headed out to the stadium course and Alyce talked about stirrup length and position over jumps. She said that our legs should be tight, enough that she would not be able to move them away from our horses' sides. She did say that the thigh, calf and ankle should each have an equal 1/3 weight. With that, she had us walk over a cross rail, and fold at the hips and elbows just as our horses stepped over. She had us repeat it several times, critiquing our position, then had us do it eyes closed, so we could feel when to fold, and not anticipate.

Then we started to walk the x-rail, and trot on to a small oxer, and progressed to trotting the x-rail and canter on to the oxer. Alyce told most of us over and over again to let go of our horses' faces! She said that the order of rein aid should be finger, hand, then elbow. After watching the video, I could see how much I was actually holding on to Clover, and how much I still need to work on my release. And I'm still not getting off her back enough in between fences. I need to shorten the stirrups and work on leg strength.

Finally, we took turns riding over a short course. I screwed up right off the bat by taking the wrong approach to the first fence. Alyce corrected me and told me not to worry too much, I just learned something new. The course rode ok, considering it was our second one of the season. Clover sucked back before a couple of the fences, and Alyce reminded me that I had to ride to the fence—and use the bat to reinforce forwardness. It looked better on video than it felt when I rode, so I was a little encouraged. She also told several riders not to think of the jumps, just to ride the lines and react as needed, to feel rather than think when riding.

I was disappointed that we never made it out to the x-c course, but I think Alyce wanted to get the flat work and jump position basics well-instilled into everyone at the clinic. And it all transfers over to x-c. My trainer will be taking us next weekend to school before King Oak in a couple of weeks.