pace clinic @ loch moy!

This past weekend, former barn mate Rachael and I hoofed it over to Loch Moy for a pace clinic with A Bit Better Farm's Kelley Williams. I've been looking forward to this clinic for a while, but maybe not for reasons you might expect.

the group is ready and rarin to go!

I've never competed in a recognized event, and our starters around here don't typically time cross country. Which obviously I've taken as an advantage in the past - like opting to walk Charlie through waters first before heading for the flags. It's nice to be able to exploit the "schooling" aspect of starter trials to the fullest!

charlie looking eerie in the pre-dawn light

There's a downside, tho. Namely: it's easy to fall into a trap of not riding a horse forward enough for a level. Even tho the tracks and jumps for each level are in fact designed to be taken at certain speeds. Not riding forward enough can make the jumps more difficult for the horse, and potentially less safe.

Plus, on top of that - and maybe more to the point - Charlie and I have been struggling with forward anyway. Our whole issue at Plantation was that I couldn't get Charlie going forward. Independent of all the jumps, Charlie was napping and sucking back against my leg and refusing to go forward away from the starting gate. A serious issue which devolved into very ugly uncomfortable jumps and ultimately refusals. It was not pretty, and not something I want to relive if I can avoid it.

the frogs were extremely noisy and he had feelings about that

So a pace clinic sounded like the perfect activity. I picked up former barn mate Rachael on the way to Loch Moy (tho sadly her mare Birdie threw a shoe so she brought youngster Cherry instead) for a bright and early ride time of 9am. It meant a very early morning for me haha, but what else is new ;)

lots and lots of feelings about the frog-filled jungle of his pasture lol. damn tho he looks good!

We arrived early enough to settle in (and put Charlie's studs in! it was pretty easy with the fresh stud holes! more on that later!) and get acquainted with our other group mate, who apparently lessons with the clinician somewhat regularly. Which I felt was a good sign. Then we all hopped on and started warming ourselves up on Loch Moy's schooling course.

not really any feelings hangin at the trailer before the lesson tho, just straight chillin <3

Kelley met up with us out in the field on her Kubota and began introductions. Getting to know each of the riders and horses, and walking us through our objectives for the day and ultimately what pace is all about.

We would primarily be working at steeplechase speeds vs cross country speeds. The distinction being: steeplechase tends to be simpler than cross country in that there's less terrain or complicated turns, and the jumps have very inviting faces with the extra brush on top to encourage the horses to jump more cleanly.

So your typical steeplechase speed for a level, say Novice, is faster than the cross country speed at the same level. In other words: Novice steeplechase speeds are around the low end of Training cross country speeds. For me and Charlie, Kelley wanted us to focus on getting the hang of 470mpm.

terrible picture but the only example i have of the style of steeple chase jumps we worked over, the rest were little logs

Our track was pretty simple: 1000m set on a somewhat narrow section of the field, on a slight incline. The far turn was just before the 500m mark, and was honestly pretty challenging bc it was a tight-ish turn going downhill. Turns out the studs were a very good call lol.

The first 500m was fairly smooth and all on rising ground. Each 100m was marked by a small log jump. Then the tricksy turn around before the 500m mark, then coming mostly downhill but on kinda wavy ground before reaching the second turnaround back to the start/finish line. Again with each 100m marked by a small log, so nine logs in all (no log at the start/finish line). I think ideally this kind of track would be more of an oval rather than a straight shot out, tight turnaround to straight shot back. But it worked for our purposes.

overlooking the full gallop field we used for our 1,000m track. you can see some of the little logs in the distance

Kelley started us on the track, one at a time, with no jumps involved, and told us where our minute markers were for our respective speeds. Again my speed was 470mpm, so my first minute was just before the 500m log, ie right in the middle of that tricky turn. My second minute would be after the 900m log but before the start/finish line. Final time should be 2:07.

She also set a flag at what should be our 30sec mark, and that's where she positioned her kubota, and told us to really ride for that first 30 seconds. The idea was that we should be leaving the box (no running starts!) and immediately be going for that pace. Like we might even be aiming for three gears more than we need for a couple strides.

borrowed optimum time watch

Especially with a horse like Charlie, Kelley's thoughts were that I needed to focus on that first 30 seconds more than anything else, and from there I would be able to slow him down as needed. But first he has to GO, dammit!

The repetition in this clinic definitely proved helpful for him, as did the fact that we "left the start box" each time. Going from basically a standstill or walk to a gallop. That's typically not something Charlie's been very happy about (despite, ya know, being a retired race horse) so the practice was great.

Our first loop around the track (with no jumps) we were already 5 seconds down at the first 30sec mark, which per Kelley's instruction would tell me that I was going 10 seconds slow per minute, meaning if I changed nothing, I'd be 20+ seconds over time at the end of our 2min track.

sweaty and tired finishing up, but watching the other horses still go-go-going!

Tho, Charlie being Charlie, the second half of the track going back toward the trailers was much faster, and we made up much of that time by the end. But the second half was also much more unbalanced, what with the downhill and sketchier terrain.

We did it again a second time, really aiming again to be spot on that first 30sec. Which we were! Yay! But then again went way too fast the second half. Imagine Charlie from our first run of the season at Loch Moy: Just bookin it haha. Which I'm not complaining about tho! It's been ages since he's dragged me around like that and it felt reassuring lol.

Tho when Kelley asked me about it, she observed that it didn't necessarily look like I was getting run away with (bc he's a safe and trustworthy horse and I was basically just cruisin with him) but that it maybe wasn't really the proper pace. I admitted that I could have done more to slow him down, and that I would not have been super comfortable jumping from that unbalanced and too-fast pace.

looking back to the water - same water i sat by for the YEH class a couple weeks ago

Which took us to the final portion of the clinic: repeating the same track, focusing on getting that first 30 seconds, but this time with the jumps added in. Kelley wanted us to basically be stepping over the logs out of stride. She said it was very imperative that we be able to soften our hands to the jump - that the horse was in self carriage and using their own eye to adjust on approach.

This worked out pretty well for Charlie - especially on that first up hill portion of the track. Apparently it's pretty common that even when riders can figure out the appropriate timing on the track without jumps, they naturally want to slow down a bit when the jumps are added in. That wasn't a huge issue for me and Charlie, tho we were slightly slower.

charlie refused to be photogenic, but i wanted a picture of this little X into water that he tackled

He did get stronger as he went tho - leaping at one jump and then nearly killing us at the next before I was able to get him wheeled around that tight turn at the far end of the track. Then coming back down toward the finish line we were.... wild and woolly lol. He was jumping the jumps tho and being a good boy. That's what I like!

And actually after we crossed the finish line, Kelley wanted us to keep going and come back up the first half of the track again but this time going over the actual steeplechase jumps (roll tops with brush) instead of the logs. That actually went much better for Charlie bc he still kept coming to the fences but didn't leap at them and actually adjusted and jumped well from an appropriate distance (not too long, not too tight). Good boy!

srsly tho, complete refusal to be pretty

It seems simple just writing it out like this: three spins around a 1,000m course, sometimes with and sometimes without jumps. But it was really useful. Charlie benefited from the repetition, and I finally got that feeling back of having him really pulling me forward to jumps.

Plus I got a pretty good feel for 470mpm. It's faster than we'll need to go on cross country, but it was a useful exercise to feel like even at those speeds I still needed to keep riding him forward and soften to the fences.

I also learned from the clinic that my biggest focus on any cross country course should be establishing our pace in those first 30 seconds, and that once Charlie's in gear I can settled more into "managed maintenance" vs how things went at Plantation where I had to keep pushing and pushing for more.

oooooh but we actually used the stud stuff!!!

Kelley's homework for me has to do with practicing this stuff purposefully on terrain. She said I should use uphills to just gallop on - really letting Charlie go. But for downhills, I need to work on getting himself to be more responsible for self carriage without bolting off to never never land. She wants me to practice cantering down hills such that I can work on pushing my hands forward for a stride or two, without Charlie changing pace.

I had opted to ride in a simple loose ring snaffle for the clinic, rather than my normal elevator with curb chain, since I figured I'd rather us be too forward vs too backed off. Kelley encouraged me to continue schooling in the snaffle, and reserving the elevator for competitions, so that I can really work on getting Charlie out of the habit of wanting to lean on the bit (or, more likely, my habit of not wanting to let go). She thought it was great that I schooled in the hackamore sometimes too, but said she thinks it's harder to get a horse to stop leaning on the noseband vs leaning on the bit, so I should be cautious.

All in all, lots of good stuff to work on there!

little square road studs all the way around. this is obvi a front shoe with the leather pad

After our lesson was done, we took advantage of already being on Loch Moy's schooling course and hopped over a few things. Charlie was pretty sweaty and tired so I kept it to a minimum - just a couple passes over the small ditch. Some cantering through the water. Even jumping a cross rail into the water, which caught Charlie by surprise but he was very good to it. Then one last little N rolltop just to finish with a little height.

Right away tho I could feel a big difference in how Charlie was going to the jumps. We weren't going quite as fast as we had just done in the clinic - but he was holding himself up, covering ground, moving forward to the fences. He didn't even really seem like he wanted to be finished after our last jump!! Purrrrrfect ;)

stud out, plug in

So I liked the lesson a lot. Might actually try to set something up with this trainer again just to keep working on this stuff, since so much of it relates directly to where Charlie and I struggle (like practicing leaving the start gate!). We'll see tho.

Mostly it's just really reassuring to get my horse feeling back to his normal self. And I do think the studs helped. The ground is soft from a lot of rain (soft but in a very good way) and the grass was pretty wet for our early morning ride time. Plus that far end turn was really dicey being a tight downhill turn at a gallop.... But Charlie never slipped!

He actually felt quite confident in his footwork, plus was busting out lead changes left and right and all over the place lol.

charlie and cherry were ridiculously cute together in the trailer too lol

Lots to be happy about for sure. It also seems like exercises that are really easy to reproduce at home. Trainer P has mentioned that one of the fields on our home xc courses is measured out to a certain distance. But really just measuring out a 1,000m loop including each of the 100m marks would allow us to keep practicing. Bonus if we can weave some jumps in haha.

Have you ever done a clinic like this? I guess it's intended to help riders who are planning their conditioning and whatnot for a long format three day event, so that they can get some practice in advance. But honestly even tho that's not on my radar I still got a lot out of it.

Think you'll set up a course for yourself at home to practice? Or do you feel like we covered any issues that you normally have too - like being too slow out of the start gate? Or that adding in jumps slows you down more than you'd expect? Or maybe your issues are the exact opposite? lol..