We have never done anything together as a livery yard with our horses. We have quite a variety of horses and activities, from mainly hacking, to mainly schooling, dressage, hunting, and of course, endurance. So it’s rare for us all to be doing something together. I organised Ross Cooper from ROSCA Horsemanship to come to our yard and do a 2hr clinic. Some of the horses on our livery don’t have transport and some don’t feel confident riding in an arena with other people so we decided upon a groundwork clinic to give us more ideas for training activities over winter that wasn’t just lunging over poles.
Although we were still missing two people it was so nice to spend time with our horses together and have a joint experience. Ross spent time with us all individually and gave us some good ideas for proprioception, balance and suppleness training.
It was great practice for Estrid to be in vet gates, with lots of horses she wanted to be friends with milling around and trying to keep her focus on me. Interestingly all of the horses were quite tired after the 2hr session, even the fit hunting and endurance ones, they had all had to use their brains and bodies in a different way and you could tell immediately how beneficial it had been.
I was so relieved that everyone enjoyed, so much so that we’re going to organise another one but groundwork obstacles next time.
Beth Endurance 