The last of the Peter Atkin's October clinic at the Bea Hive, water complex.

Me having a little chat with Peter about a statement he made about hating boots on XC.  He said he sees boot cause more problems on XC.  That is the first time I have ever heard such a thing and had to ask.

Peter and madness in the water. I LOVE this conversation! Peter noticing that Jr. is not happy on gravel. Dorie states he is barefoot. Peter tells her if she knows her horse is bothered by rocks then she needs to always walk through the water find the best path through and throw out any large rocks in the way. I thought that was So facinating and shows his level of care for each horse.

Fantastic end to a fantastic clinic.  Amy from Moose on the Loose had her post about the clinic posted on Eventing Nation, which was super cool.  It was the post that I gave the link to previously.  It fired off quite the debate on EN which as Amy stated got people thinking about their riding.  Like Peter or not we have to agree that getting our minds working about our riding is always good!  I hope you enjoyed the clinic.  It was no small feat to upload and post all of the info but worth it if it was helpful to others.

The banks.

Favorite 'thing for me to remember', you stop kicking at jumps they start running at jumps. A few 'little' jumps on the way back toward the water. Another Pep talk with Peter He asked Sara if she just wanted to hang around novice and training the rest of your life, or do you want to go somewhere? LOL my answer would have been, I would be happy to be successful at Novice. I wonder how that would go over? We are almost done with clinic videos. Only water left to post. Homefront news, I spoke too soon about the weather. It rained all day and all night. Which put a damper on my riding plans. I did not enter the EN Dubarry contest because I am just not that creative but after yesterday evenings feeding, these were my thoughts. 'You know Amy rubber boots are only helpful if they don't have holes in them.' Just about then is when I stepped ankle deep into a puddle and felt my entire boot fill up with freezing, muddy/poopy water. Next thing that went through my head, 'I wish I would have won those Dubarry's'. But even still I cannot complain, sunny and 50's today and sunny and 60's over the weekend. Tomorrow we are off to the State Park to ride the trails. I am trying to decide to just take my 8 year old daughter and Moonlight or to take a friend and her daughter along with us. The problem is this friend cannot ride her horse(the one I talked about a while back that has issues that she is not capable of handling or riding). So she would ride Moonlight and my daughter would have to ride our mini which can be no fun after a few miles since he is so bouncy. I plan to ask my daughter what she would rather do since she is the one that would have to deal with the sore ribs after 9 miles of bouncing around on Snappy.

Practice what you preach! He sure does. And ditches.

I can watch this over and over and over again.  It gives me chills every time.  In any lesson with Peter he is adamant that you praise, praise, praise your horse.  If you watch this video he practices what he preaches.  He praises Henry after almost every single fence.  For all that this man has to think about on a XC course like that, he makes none more important than letting his beloved friend know how good he is doing.  Some links to Peter stuff.  Interview from Eventing Nation, Run Henny Run FB page to follow all their events, Run Henny Run merchandise(which has made it to my Christmas list.  I want the Rolex DVD and the shirt please!) all good stuff and fun for any eventer to check out.


First is a VERY short clip of Peter placing Sara's leg right where he wants it.  It give you the exact place he says to have your leg.

Next is Peter explaining that a newly built jump will most likely through a horse for a loop. They can smell the difference. A few jumps on their way to ditches. A Peter pep talk. On to ditches...Sorry abou the first one I was trying to take off my jacket. In homefront news I am getting very excited about starting the young haflinger in the spring. Gives me something to look forward to all winter! Steady had yesterday and today off which is pretty much torture in this beautiful weather we have been having. So I catch rode yesterday on my daughters horse and plodded around with him for a bit. It was good and I need to remember to do that fairly often. Just like any lesson/kid/beginner horse they can quickly get some bad habits. Luckily he is such a good boy he is a pretty quick fix kinda guy. Then cause I felt guilty riding my daughters horse and she hadn't ridden in over a week I gave each of them a 20 minute lesson before dinner. Great way to spend the evening! Tomorrow I will ride Steady again just flat maybe some trail riding will be nice. I am thinking that my daughter and I will get to squeeze one more trip down to the state park for a trail ride. I didn't expect that to happen this late in the season but I will not complain!

If you are sick of hearing about Peter Atkins, don't go visit this blog.

If you are tired of hearing, "Peter this, and Peter that, Peter, Peter, Peter!!!"  Then I have a blog that I suggest NOT going to.  She too is part of the Peter Atkins following.  She is a great writer and I have been encouraging her to blog more often.  But if you are crazy like us and cannot get enough of Peter then go over to read Amy's latest posts about the clinic.  She rode in the clinic that I have been posting about and has some great posts about it.  Head on over to Moose on the Loose, a great blog about Amy and her Pinto Moose and their eventing adventures.  It is also one of those blogs that blogger will not allow me to comment on but I really really want to.

In other news Sara Ivie came out yesterday.  She came a little late.  She showed up about 4:20 and chatted and she had me ride in my saddle first.  She evaluated my saddle and said I did a very good job with what I had to work with.  She said the shim pad with him is pretty much a must at least for the time being.  Then she had me ride in some of her saddles.  It was very interesting to me to feel a distinct difference in each one.  The difference in the way it felt for me but also the difference in Steady.  There was distinct tension in him when the saddle was not fitting well.  Resistence to rounding his back.  Then when they fit him well he was relaxed and even stretching some which is not something I get often out of him.  The 'conquest' was the narrowest tree she had which was narrow and still was not narrow enough.  WOW that was eye opening.  She said he needs and extra narrow!  As far as fit for me the twist was not good for me in this tree.  It brought my knees out away from the saddle but I did like the fact that I was not put in the backseat like I am in my saddle.  That made it easier to post correctly and get out of the saddle at the base of a jump.  She suggested that part of the reason I feel I am throwing myself forward at the base of the jump is because I am in the back seat so much that I have to kind of fling myself up to keep up with him.  Same kind of concept in my posting.  I always struggle to get that just brushing the saddle post and too often feel I am hitting the saddle then coming back up.  But I did not have that problem in any of the County's it was easy to have that brushing the saddle post I am always striving for.  Out of all of them of course I like the highest end 'sensation' but I also really liked the middle one which is the 'inspiration'.  As far as fit for Steady well she said I would need to have a custom saddle made for him to get an optimal fit.  Extra narrow tree, extended tree points, shoulder gussets and extended panel.  Of course right?!  I do agree with her and it made me feel better that I was not just crazy thinkign that he is impossible to fit because she had trouble and didn't have a saddle in her truck that would fit him even halfway decent.  But to fork over $4500.00  for a custom saddle is just not an option right now.  Some day?  Probably.  Now?  No way.  It is hard and a bit discouraging knowing the truth about my saddle but at the same time I am very glad I know.  My saddle fits OK.  The biggest problem with it is that there is a bit of a bridge in the middle of the panel.  Making pressure points in the front and under the cantle.  Then add to that, that it kind of puts me in the back seat, plus Steady already struggling with his lumbar going out and causing him issues adds up to definitely not optimal fit.  Pretty much what I found out was that he has a high wither, uh duh, hollow behind, lacking topline, oh wait I already knew all of those things, but it was good to get a professional confirmation of all the things I had read and studied and worried and stressed over with Mr. Steady .  I did find out that for as big as he is, he actually has a short back.  So the smallest seat size I can get away with the better for him.  That was great information to find out that I had never considered.  All in all she spent 3 hours!!! at my house trying saddle after saddle after saddle.  I was very impressed with her patience and determination to find something that will be best for not just my horse but me too.

So now my wheels are turning about a new saddle and it is going on the wish list.  My biggest concern about my saddle that I learned yesterday is that jumping is a problem.  I didn't realize that some of our jumping issues were so much connected to my saddle.  Riding in other saddles I could feel and see the difference.  He is holding his breath over jumps in preparation for landing because of the pressure on his lumbar region.  He is not jumping round and upon landing his back end is "left in the next county" as Sara put it.  Then he kind of runs off inverted and bracing.  Then in two of the other saddles we did not get that same reaction over the jump or after.  That is the hardest thing because now I know that jumping is causing him pain and it is hard to ask him to improve on something that he is doing because he is trying to avoid pain.  Grrrr...  So we will be doing flat for a while and slowly going back into jumping small stuff just to get a baseline of when, why and how the pain is being caused.  I know he was probably sore to start because we had jumped pretty hard two days in a row and I was planning to give him at least a week before jumping him again but I didn't realize she would have me jumping to evaluate.  So I am going to give him at least a couple weeks of just flat, then start from there.  All in all I am very glad I had her come out and would happily recommend her as a saddle fitter.

Soon to come are more clinic videos/posts, we still have ditches, banks and water to cover.  So stay tuned :)

Peter Atkins; The skinny on the skinny.

Video #4

"You cannot steer to a skinny."  "You do not steer straight you ride them straight."  All things that Lee Ann emphisised to me in my XC lesson.  Great mind think alike!  And definitely something I need repeated to me on a regular basis until I change my long time bad habits of steering.  Steady and I have been spending time galloping in the open field with my had planted at his neck and me steering with my body instead of my hands.  It is such a cool thing and it works.  Unfortunately I too often revert back to steering wheel hands.  And so we keep practicing.  I captioned this video, 'Dorie and Junior get put in timeout'.  It cracks me up when Peter says, "Nope, timeout!"  to Dorie.  Dorie is my friend for whom I was video taping the lesson and you I am sure have seen how awesome her and her very young horse Jr. are at XC.  They are just fun to watch! 


Video #5
"Longer reins and kick them to the jump."  It is so cool to watch a lesson with someone like Peter because you get to immediately see his teaching work.  Another thing that he is adament about it to "never beat a worried horse", and don't punish a horse for your mistakes i.e. looking at the jump, not riding straight, not kicking them to the jump. By beat he means use a whip on them.  I think that is facinating because I have seen many a trainer utilize the whip in situations where horses refuse out of worry and/or rider error.  But I have never seen Peter ever tell someone to whip their horse over a jump.  Along that same line you will hear throughout all of his teaching how important the horse is to him.  He truely cares about the horses and that is a huge factor in my respect for him.

"Do you all feel how effective your eyes are? They look where you look."  This is facinating.  Horse are AMAZING creatures.  To think just the movement of your eye can effect them so greatly, wow! Something he emphisized big time in a later video.

"Kicking the front end where you want them to go.  The back end is going to follow."  "Activating the front end with a soft rein.  They'll keep going and jumping"  GOOD STUFF!




Video #6

Treat a skinny like any other jump.  Your horse only jumps 2'6" width of any jump so it is no different than any other jump if the jump is wider than 2'6".



Video #7

Video #8

Video #9
I appologize in advance about this video.  It is hard to watch because I am running after Peter to keep up and trying to get all the jumps in.  I used the video stabalizing tool on youtube to try to make it a little easier on the eyes.

Free lesson!

There is so much great information packed into these videos it's like taking a lesson of your own.  I already posted the first video of this lesson here is several short clips from the same lesson. And youget to watch me and Steady fumble around in front of Peter.

Grids with Peter Atkins. Video, FINALLY!!!!

I took a long break from trying to upload any video from camp because of all the fits it was giving me.  I have been bummed about it because the amount of information that is in the lessons is something worth watching.  You get to see the real Peter in a lesson.  I went back and watched again today and I was amazed at how much I not only retained from it but have put it into practice and have made huge strides toward the exact things he was touching on.  I had so many light bulb moments during camp that I think that was the reason I was less than thrilled after leaving.  I was completely overwhelmed with information which in turn made me feel like a freaking idiot that probably didn't belong in the sport of eventing.  But I have moved on since then.  After a few weeks of  wallowing in the mire and tretcherous summer heat we started back at it.  And one day at a time have really made huge improvement in a small time. 

It seems from the get go Peter started "picking" on me be I just kept a sense of humor about it.  This was the first lesson on the first day. So without further ado this is the first of many videos of lessons from event camp.  This one is about 17 minutes long so if you want to watch the entire thing that gives you an idea.