The 1st of the Hack Up 'RingCraft Stepping Out' was a success.
Spending the day on Nottinghamshire with Emma Jablonski helping folk get more in a test environment.
This was a clinic that people were booking up for in July!!
The alarm went at 5.20am and I sped off to Nottingham with the 1st of 12 folk coming up the centre line at 9am. With Emma warming them up and priming them for 30 minutes beforehand to ensure they're getting the best quality work fron the horse, the ear pieces were put on each rider in turn, and the test began.
There were a variety of tests from Prelim 19 through to Elem 57 with a few BE tests thrown in for good measure. Most were in a long arena but we had a system in place to change it smaller and larger within a few minutes. The day ran like clockwork with just a 30minute break around 1pm for some delicious food kindly prepared by Emma's mum Jackie.
I sat at C, with mainly Jackie writing for me, as I gave comments and marks through each test, that could be heard in real time by the rider. They could then assess instantly what they were doing right and wrong so had the abilty to change what they were doing instantly to get higher marks. A new and inspiring experience for the riders!! Throughout the day, either before or after their slot, lots of people sat in at C to help with the writing and to hear the comments and marks for others taking part. We often recorded it too so learning could continue afterwards.
It's all about using technology to catapult learning as ...."If you do the same as you've always done, you'll get the same as you've always got" - NOT TODAY!!
After the test we went through specific movements that they could have done better at, like 'give, and re-takes', shoulder ins, rein backs etc. Then if the horse was fit enough we'd do the test again. Every horse had a different way of going, different strengths, different weaknesses, so we discussed ways to minimise the bad marks as well as miximising the good marks. In a nutshell, it's common sense bespoke training to max out on marks within the white boards exactly when it matters most.
