The "Fix everything and learn how to ride in two minutes or less" Ring

Okay, the title is a mouthful, but after I ramble for a bit, I'll attempt to clarify it for you.

You could probably source the inspiration of this blog back to a meme that my Personal Assistant insists on sending me regularly when she refers to her riding (to clarify, she rides significantly better than the meme would suggest). At any rate, we have since been using this quote while competing at HITS this winter. However good or bad one's round is, our response upon exiting the ring is this:

It has now turned into an even worse version which is, "not bad for two fat guys". That's probably insulting to many people but we do have a sick sense of humour.

For the first time in quite a while, I've had opportunity to stand in the hunter warm up ring and listen to trainers. We have started to use other trainers' coaching phrases as our own, as we have found they seem quite useful. We have not, however, figured out what half of them mean. The first week of the circuit we figured out that the warm up ring really is the place to fix everything and learn how to ride in two minutes (or less), before you go into the class. I'm not sure I've seen more landing, take off, or straightening rails used for one 3' hunter round before. Upon witnessing this we then heard the trainer shouting, "YOU'RE RUNNING! STOP RUUUNNNNING!" I do wish I was exaggerating, but I'm pretty sure the horse wasn't even cantering when the trainer shouted this. We since have learned that another good one is, "Don't be frantic!" This, again, was shouted at something that was crawling slower than my jumpers can trot.

My favourite one yet though, which I unfortunately didn't witness firsthand was, "Get yourself in a more athletic position!" Naturally, we've been using this one consistently. I was on the receiving end of that the first time it was repeated. My response was one of utter confusion. I'm very disappointed that I did not get a chance to witness what a more "athletic" position looks like. Clearly I am lacking in my understanding of what proper riding techniques should be used.

If I could name names and give credit where credit is due, I would. However, I honestly have no idea who these people are. But I appreciate their help none the less. I do have to mention one person however. I was driving to a friend's house for dinner Friday night and heard someone mentioning blogs on the radio, which triggered the thought that I really did need to write another blog soon. Upon visiting with several people that evening and regaling them with stories such as the ones mentioned above, my good friend Bonnie looked at me and said, "that should be the theme of your next blog."

So here I am sitting at Vintage Coffee in La Quinta writing this semi ridiculous blog. Humour aside, I'm not really sure any of these stories are what one would consider "constructive" criticism. It does however, bring up a pretty solid point in my mind. If you have to go to these lengths in the warm up ring, when your client is likely already panicking, there's a small chance they may not be ready to be showing in that division. Or any division. The warm up ring is merely a place to get muscles loose and help our riders find a rhythm. If you have to "fix everything and teach them to ride in two minutes or less", maybe you should go home and have them spend more time in lessons.

But what do I know? I'm just one of the two fat guys walking out of the ring....