When to Change Barns

Changing barns can be tricky - take it from someone like me, who's switched barns three times since I started riding. Leaving behind your barn friends, instructors, and favorite horses can be incredibly difficult, however sometimes you just gotta do it. 

Thanks, Shia

The reason for this is that horse riding is an incredibly complex sport, and if your current barn doesn't a) have the right horses for you to progress on, b) the right instructors to help you along, or c) the best facilities for you, then it's probably time to move. 
Sometimes it can be about atmosphere - your barn has too much drama, is too competitive, isn't friendly enough, etc. However, in all of my cases, it's been about experience and what a barn can teach me. 
See, when you first start horse riding you'll probably be one of the worst riders at your barn with the least experience. You'll have people to look up to and people you can learn from, and you'll start climbing the ranks until you too become one of the experienced people. Life will be great, for a while. But then, what happens most of the time is you'll run into a bit of a wall. You'll have long periods of frustration where you just don't progress, where your lessons go over things you already know and you feel like you're learning nothing. Because while being one of the best riders at your barn can be great, it also means that eventually you'll hit the limit of what that barn can teach you and it's time to move on.
You may ask, what if I don't want to move? What if, even though I am not progressing as much as I could be, I am having loads of fun at my barn and don't want to leave? And I say, that's fine, but you have to make a decision about what type of rider you want to be. Do you want to be a hobby rider, who rides purely for fun, or do you want to be a more competitive rider, constantly improving and challenging yourself? If you want to be a hobby rider, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Feel free to stay at whichever barn you're most comfortable at and have a blast! But if, like me, you fall into the second group of riders, then at some point you are probably going to have to move barns, and while it can be difficult, it is essential to becoming a better rider. It can be fun to be the most experienced rider in your lessons, but ultimately you will learn more from being worse than everyone else than you will from being better. 
Different barns also have different things to teach you, and in horse riding it's always good to have a wide variety of skills and methods. For example, my last barn was very jumping orientated but not very technical. My current barn is all about learning the nitty gritty bits of riding, and while that is better for me right now, the experience and practice I got from jumping at my old barn has been invaluable. 
So, if you are a competitive rider and think it's time to change barns, don't hesitate. Just do it!

Rachel.

Trot to Canter Transitions- how to master them

For the longest time, I really struggled with my trot to canter transitions. While it is easy to get your horse to go from walk to trot, trot to canter is exponentially harder. It can be incredibly frustrating when you keep on kicking and kicking but your horse just won't canter, so in this post I'm going to try and help out all of you who have been having trouble.

First off, for a good trot to canter transition, you need a solid sitting trot. I've already done a post on the sitting trot, which I would advise you to read if you have trouble with it, but really the key to the sitting trot is relaxation and practice. It's not something that you can magically fix in 10 minutes - achieving a good sitting trot takes a lot of time, so be patient with yourself!
Secondly, this post will primarily be focusing on canter transitions when riding in a circle. So if you aren't riding in a circular shape, your aids and such will be slightly different to what I talk about, but hopefully I can give you a good sense of the basics.
Lastly, this post is going to get quite a bit more technical than previous posts, so sorry if it gets a bit confusing! I'll try my best to explain everything as well as I possibly can.

The first thing you need to understand is that going from trot to canter is not the same as going faster. If you've had trouble with your canter transitions, you'll know that the main problem is your horse just trots faster instead of going into canter. This isn't because your horse is being lazy/naughty, it's because your horse doesn't realize what you're asking of them. If you just kick and kick, your horse will think that you want them to trot faster, and while they may canter eventually, this isn't a correct transition and it's a lot more exhausting for you and the horse. This is why it's important to learn to ask your horse correctly, so your horse knows exactly what you want them to do instead of you giving them mixed signals. 
This leads me into what I believe to be the three most important things when asking for a transition - preparation, balance, and precision. I'll go into all of these in more detail soon, but first, let me tell you how I do my trot to canter transitions.

1. Make sure your horse has a nice, forward trot. This doesn't mean that your horse is trotting extremely fast with no control, it means that your horse has impulsion and is moving forward willingly. 
2. Go into your sitting trot so you can more effectively use your seat.
3. Give a half-halt (a small squeeze) on the outside rein (remember to keep the contact with both your reins). 
4. Move your outside leg back while keeping your inside leg near the girth.
5. Squeeze/kick with your legs depending on how sensitive your horse is. Ideally, your horse should canter almost immediately. 

Now, let's talk about why I do all of those steps by going through the three things I said before - preparation, balance, and precision.

Preparation: It's really important to give yourself and your horse a good preparation to make things as easy for the both of you as possible. Think of it - if your horse is being lazy, isn't listening to you, and you're having a really hard time keeping them in the trot, are you going to be able to get them to canter? Probably not. Even if you do steps 2-5 perfectly, if your horse isn't listening to you, you aren't going to get a good transition. This is why preparation and step 1 are so important. When you are warming up before you canter, really spend time making sure that your horse is being attentive and has enough impulsion that you feel like you could easily ask for them to canter.
Preparation is also really important for the rider themselves so they can adequately perform steps 2-5. Before you try a canter transition, make sure you're balanced and organized and your life will be so much easier.

Balance: Balance is always important in horse riding, but it is especially important when changing from one gait to another. Trot to canter transitions are quite hard work for a horse, and if they're asked to do one while they're unbalanced it's quite difficult for them - it's like standing on a balance beam and being told to do a handstand when you're about to fall off. 
Let's talk about riding in a circle for a second. Ideally, your horse will have a bit of an inside bend, like this:

However, this can also cause your horse to lean in its inside shoulder, thus making them unbalanced. Enter step 3: your reins can be used to balance your horse in more ways then one. So, give your outside rein a squeeze to put their weight back onto their outside shoulder. This also tells your horse that something is coming up and to pay attention, and makes sure your horse picks up the right canter lead because it blocks the outside shoulder from moving forward. Then, make sure you keep the contact in both reins during your transition - if you give your horse lots of rein, they're just going to go faster and become strung out, which we don't want. Instead, keep a steady contact so your horse can stay steady and balanced and have a (hopefully) immediate transition.

Precision: Remember how I said to make sure your horse knows what you're asking of them? This is where precision comes into play. Step 4 is all about making the horse understand that you want to do a canter transition, not do a faster trot. Instead of you just kicking with both legs in the normal position, the sliding back of the outside leg differentiates you asking for a canter transition from you asking to go faster. Then, give a clear squeeze/kick with your legs, and hopefully your trot to canter transition will happen without fault.
However, if you do these steps half heartedly, your horse isn't going to get the memo. Be precise with everything you do, making sure that all of your aids are clear enough and aren't messy and giving your horse mixed messages. This step can be a bit difficult if you, the rider, are not used to doing trot to canter transitions, but things will come with time and practice, so try not to get too frustrated with yourself if you can't get it the first time!

Those are all my tips and tricks for how to get a good trot to canter transition :) I hope that I helped you out in some way and I wasn't too confusing. Remember, everyone has different things that work for them, so you don't need to follow my steps exactly - feel free to tweak a few!

Rachel.

Storytime Saturday #3: Frustration

Hey guys,
So, today I wanted to talk about something that I had been struggling a lot with recently and have only just gotten over. I love horses (obviously) and before recently there had never really been a time when I hadn't wanted to go to the barn. I was always itching to go, and horse riding was the highlight of my day.
But recently, that sort of changed. I ran into a bit of a wall with horse riding, and I wasn't really making that much progress. When I rode, I never really achieved the things that I wanted to achieve and I came back from rides feeling sort of down for that reason. I suddenly wasn't really looking forward to it anymore. Horse riding turned into a lot more work and a lot less fun.
Not to say that I didn't still love horses - I did, and I still do. It's just, riding wasn't the highlight of my day anymore, and I didn't know how to change that. I felt really frustrated, because horses were practically my life. They were who I am. If I didn't love horse riding anymore, where would that leave me?
I thought a few things over. Maybe I should take a break? Maybe I should just go on a few relaxing trail rides? Maybe I had just outgrown horse riding, and it wasn't for me anymore.
But, just the other week, I had a really fantastic ride. Everything in that ride seemed to go right, and suddenly I was back in the game. It was as simple as that. Having a good ride made me remember why I loved horses so much.
And, in hindsight, I know that I didn't really fall out of love with horse riding. It was just a combination of
a) continually riding difficult horses. While they helped improve me as a rider, they also made my rides really exhausting and I could never really focus on myself and achieving my own personal goals
b) constantly switching to new instructors because my old one left and they are still finding a replacement.
and c) criticizing myself too much and focusing too much on the things I was doing wrong instead of the things I was doing right.

I guess what I'm trying to say with this mildly cheesy rant is that horse riding is an extremely complex sport where it is very easy to frustrate yourself because you aren't doing little things correctly. You don't have enough control, your heels won't stay down in your transitions, your leg isn't secure enough, your hands are not soft enough, your horse refuses to accept the bit - these are all problems that I've had in the past and sometimes, they are very hard to overcome, and this can make you extremely frustrated. However, it's also really important to just relax every once in a while, to have a good ride and just have fun. Because horse riding is a fun sport, and that was something that I was forgetting.

Rachel.

The importance of flat work and common jumping errors

I love to jump. Jumping has got to be my favorite thing to do on horseback. And sometimes, when compared to jumping, flat work can seem kind of...boring. However, all of the foundations of riding are developed on the flat, so it is very important to do consistent flat work training to work on your riding errors instead of just jumping all the time.
A common phrase in the equestrian world is that jumping is flat work with speed-bumps. And it's true- without a solid position on the flat you will never produce the results you would like when jumping a course. Jumping is fun, yes, but when you jump all of your position errors are emphasized, and those errors can be very dangerous to both you and your horse.
Common example: many riders think that if they can walk, trot and canter semi-functionally, then they are ready to jump. However, being able to walk, trot and canter isn't enough. The rider must be BALANCED, with a strong position and a steady flow of weight into their legs. Remember my two point position post? If not, have a read through it. The position that I talk about, the ideal two point position, can only be obtained by a balanced rider with a solid foundation on the flat. Without a solid two point position, your jumping is seriously compromised, and the way to gain that position is going back to flat work.
Common errors in rider's jumping positions:

• The swinging leg: if, when you go over a jump, your leg swings backwards, go back to the flat. Chances are, when you canter on the flat, your leg swings as well. You may also be bracing against the stirrup when you jump, causing your leg to go backwards. All of these things mean that you have a weak leg. If you continue jumping with a weak, swinging leg, you could really hurt yourself or your horse, especially when the jumps get bigger. To fix this problem and strengthen your leg, do lots of no stirrup work. Do lots of two point on the flat as well, really making your weight flow down into your heels.
• Hanging onto the mouth: some inexperienced riders tend to pull on their horses mouth as they go over the jump, bracing on the horses mouth to balance. What this means is that they are an unbalanced rider. They cannot balance themselves through their seat and their legs, so instead they hang onto their horses mouth to stay on the horse. To fix this problem, go back to the flat. Do lots of flat work until you have an independent seat and you don't need to use your horse to balance. You can also take lunge lessons with no reins, which will really teach you to balance with just your seat.
• The big bang: if you suffer from "the big bang" (fantastic name, I know) it means that you'll go into two point just fine when your horse goes over the jump, but when he lands, you'll land heavily on his back with a big bang. It's unpleasant for both you and your horse, and it means that all your weight is in your seat instead of in your heels. To fix this problem, go back to the flat (are you noticing a common theme here?). Really work on getting your weight into your feet and getting your heels down. A good exercise for this is to do two point on the flat.

Basically, what I'm trying to say with all this is that flat work is important. Don't dismiss flat work once you start jumping and just jump every time you get on your horse. Save some time for flat work too- yes, it doesn't give the same thrill as jumping, but it is important nonetheless. If you don't have clean transitions, a good position, clear, effective aids and impulsion on the flat, then when you jump you really won't get the same results as a rider that does. Take some dressage lessons, work on your position, and then go back to jumping and you will be surprised at how much better you feel.

Thanks for dealing with my semi-rant, and sorry for not posting, like, at all. I've been really busy with school and riding and just life in general, so while I might not post as much, I promise I'll come back every once in a while to make a little post :)

Rachel.