Back in dusty Australia - Paul Tapner at the MET clinic
The Melbourne Eventing Team (MET) are well known for bringing good coaches to their members. Megan Jones is a regular coach and Paul Tapner, who taught here last year, was back again in 2012 during his trip back home.
MET try and take a more holistic approach to their clinics so that their members enjoy not only coaching for all levels but also enjoy a ‘summer camp’ atmosphere which includes dinner with their coach as a forum type session. The three day schedule also included a focus on Career Planning for the Horse and Rider as well as dressage and cross country training.
MET aims to focus on riders who are not riding at high levels but have a strong ambition to either reach higher levels or be competitive at the level they are currently competing so the riders at the clinic varied from lower level horses competing at HRCAV through to EA Pre-Novice/1*.
On the first day of the three day clinic the focus was on dressage and again a more holistic approach was taken. In the morning, each rider chose parts of a dressage test at their level and rode the ‘mini-test’ in front of EA judge Cathie McAdie and Paul. After all tests were ridden there was a group session to discuss each rider’s test, give feedback and share with the group. The group ‘therapy’ session works well and it became obvious as Paul and Cathie (who usually agreed, they were glad to note!) gave their feedback that there were many common themes, despite the fact that the riders were at different levels and on varying types of horses. After lunch it was then back to lessons with Paul to work on these points before riding the test again in front of Cathy
Here are a few of Paul’s comments which I think would be useful for any rider.
“If your horse does something easily, that’s the area where you can really go for good marks. If you are confident about your horse’s ability in a movement, go for it and turn a 7 into an 8 or 9”
“A whole test can be spoiled by the horse not being forward to your leg. A little bit sharper reaction to your leg aids would improve lateral balance and straightness. The obvious thing for me would be to put spurs on you as you can’t use a whip in the test”
“Don’t bore the judge!”
“Confidence is key! You need to give the impression that you own this arena! So much of ringcraft is about portraying an image”
“With a horse that rushes, you must realise that there is a big difference between a horse that is willing to go forward and one that is wanting to go forward. The horse that is wanting to go forward all the time rushes and then forces you to ride with the brakes on”
“As the rider you cannot afford to be unsure. You have to make a decision and then make it happen. You don’t need to ride with more force but you do need to ride with more confidence”
“Your leg, your seat and your upper body angle were not giving a co-ordinated signal to the horse. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation – is the horse going like that because you’re sitting like that or vice-versa? It’s actually both but you’re the brains of the partnership, you’re the one that has to change the cycle and use all of the aids at your disposal to make the horse go the way you want it to”
“Don’t change your riding because of the horse you’re sitting on. You must ride the same every day regardless of the horse you are riding and that, in itself, will educate the horse. Your expectations are less of a younger or greener horse but you still ride it correctly”
“Use anticipation in a test to your advantage. When I’m at a major championships or team event I only have one horse to ride which is unusual as I usually ride a dozen horses a day! So I ride the same horse and we ride our same test in front of the same coach again and again and again. It sounds like a stupid thing to do and often you’re told not to practise tests a lot but if you do, you can get to the stage where the horse knows it, you know it and you can use the anticipation to your advantage as you know how that horse is going to anticipate. Knowing how that horse will anticipate means that you will know what to do as a rider at every single point of the test. It’s a fairly high level thing to do but you can work towards it”
“You have to say to yourself as you are riding, is this how I want it to be? First of all you must be convinced that you can do it even if you have to bluff yourself into believing it. Most of the time you can do it anyway – you just don’t believe in yourself”
“Any transition that’s done at A or C or across the centreline is done at a right angle to the judge. That’s when it is so important to say to yourself “Okay, come on, sit up straight” or “This transition has to be perfect”. It is so obvious to the judge”
“You’ve just told me what the problem is. The fact that you know what the problem is means you’re half way to fixing it”
There were lots of good points about picking up easy marks by focussing on simple things such as sizes of circles, serpentines, halts (practise, practise, practise) and riding straight lines
“If you’re horse is wobbling on a line, don’t try and straighten the line by pulling the horse from side to side. To get a straight line, hold your horse and drive it into the contact to get it straight. This will make it straight in the body which will then make it straight on the line”
Paul’s favourite quote of the clinic was apparently “What do you mean by a straight line?”!!
Back to the arena to work on those points from the morning feedback session
However to me, the main theme that seemed to recur during the session was that all of the riders needed to have more self-belief and confidence. One rider started to say that they had had some horrible experiences riding dressage on their horse and Paul immediately said “Stop! Stop! Stop! You have to stop that train of thought and start thinking about what you want it to be, not what it has been. The more that you think about what it has been, the more it will continue to be like that. You have to literally stop those words coming out of your mouth. You have to focus only on ‘What I want it to be, what I need it to be’ then you can start to make it happen”
He admits that it isn’t easy “I have cantered down to fences thinking ‘What am I doing this for – I’m going to die’. But I’ve jumped enough fences now to know that thinking like that won’t help to get me out of trouble. If I sit there like a pelican then I probably am going to die. So you have to take control of your horse, whether doing a dressage test or jumping a fence, and ride it the way you want to ride it”
In recent times we have had some great articles from Jon Pitts, Performance Coach who touches on these subjects. Jon and Paul work together quite a lot in the UK and will be appearing in a session at EQUITANA – if the subject of sports psychology and how it affects your riding is of interest, you’ll probably find this session fascinating as well as fun
We’ll bring you some more of Taperz’ tips from the MET cross country session soon. For more information about the Melbourne Eventing Team CLICK HERE
David Prior from MET and Cathie McAdie, EA Judge. Note that David is wearing a Musto top - Musto kindly sponsor the MET and gave $400 of goodies away at the clinic. MET even have a Musto dog!
Click here for our XC clinic coverage with Paul Tapner
