Wendy Schaeffer and Koyuna Sun Set
The Team Sunburst Open Day was held on Australia Day, January 26th and beautiful weather and a schedule that ran smoothly made for a great day! The format was geared to showcase the equestrian services that Olympic gold medallist, Wendy Schaeffer and her business Sunburst Equestrian can offer (including online training) and Wendy did demonstrations and instruction in all three disciplines of the sport of eventing. Fortunately the headset speaker system hired for the day worked!
Here is a summary of the day by Team Sunburst with some video from each of the sessions
Dressage
Starting with the dressage phase, Wendy rode "Zorro" a 14yo warmblood x TB who Wendy had been recently schooling for her sponsor, Jo Schneider from Animal Therapeutics Online. Zorro had recently won and placed 3rd in his Medium tests at the Dressage Club of SA twilight meeting so he was the most experienced horse for Wendy to ride on the flat. He was also the most spooky! Throughout the warm-up and work session Zorro took varying degrees of offense to the numerous sponsor signs that had placed around the arena which gave Wendy an ideal opportunity to show that horses are not machines and that riders often have to work with their minds as much as their bodies. Wendy reiterated the importance of maintaining a rhythm and line or returning a horse to your rhythm and line as efficiently and harmoniously as possible as the case may be!
Zorro Dressage
After taking questions from the audience, which included the training of changes with horses who weren't as naturally inclined to change as Zorro, Wendy then instructed her working student, Rachelle Verma on the young 4yo, Smokin' Sun (Bertie). A big, gangly youngster, Bertie is at the stage where he needs to focus on staying in front of the rider's leg, taking his head and neck out and down. Rachelle did a great job, especially his first transition into canter where he stayed both forward and round! Discussion from this session revolved around the need to firstly train such big horses to move their shoulders in order to be rideable as they are too big to 'man-handle!' Square turns using the outside rein on the horse's neck in a 'neck rein' technique then sending them forward from both legs was advocated.
Bertie Dressage
An autograph signing session and general discussion then followed to enable spectators to learn about the Team Sunburst Support Group concept and view the interactive Team Sunburst Members portal on the soon to be released revamped Sunburst Equestrian website set up on a large computer screen in the stables. A feature of Team Sunburst Support Group Membership is exclusive access to a monthly training article and newsletter, a weekly blog and video links of Wendy's training and competition in the lead-up to London. Many thanks to Jo Schneider, Wendy's sponsor from Animal Therapeutics Online, who has not only taken Sunburst into the modern world of dynamic websites but has arranged a sponsorship with DVE, an IT company of which she is an Associate Director.
Jumping
Two jumping sessions on the arena were the next feature of the day where Wendy rode both her 6yo warmblood cross, "Sunhill Surprise" (by local stallion Glenrose Dionysus, from Cor de la Bryere lines) and her 5yo warmblood cross "Delamerie Sun" (by Majestic Supreme, Souvenir lines).
She went through a series of exercises leading to jumping a course of fences which Wendy stated was what these horses needed, given they were jumping in competition the next day. Wendy described the techniques she used to prepare both her horses and herself to jump; namely suppling exercises on the flat followed by cantering over poles set up down the long side at 16 (regulation 4 strides) then 20 (regulation 5 strides) paces apart. She then jumped a cross pole in one direction a couple of times before changing rein to jump the cross pole the other way which was then related to a small vertical some 24 paces away which was ridden in a steady 7 strides or a more open 6 strides.
Monty Jumping
This small vertical then became an oxer and once this was jumped satisfactorily (which in Surprise's case took a few attempts to get the desired straightness), Wendy added other fences to form a mini-course.
Surprise Jumping
A full course was built up to after completing many of these mini courses. Wendy stressed the importance of softness in a horse's body being imperative for it to jump successfully stating that a horse's jump was really only an elevated canter stride. Both horses were quite different as types so it was interesting to view the different approaches taken to train them to jump at their best. The main gist of discussion with the audience centred around exercises to discourage the ex-racehorses from rushing their fences. Another signing opportunity was given during the lunch break where Wendy signed some A4 photos of her London Olympic Shadow Team Eventing horse, Koyuna Sun Dancer and her Jumping mare, Koyuna Sun Set who is also qualified for the London Olympics. Several items were also made available for tender auction including riding lesson vouchers, Olympic memorabilia from the Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 Olympics (many thanks to Kirsty Withers, CEO of the SA Olympic Council for these!) and framed, signed photos of Wendy's Olympic Gold Medal horse, Sunburst and her potential London Olympic horses. These items will now be available through an online auction on the new Sunburst Equestrian website in the near future. The Sunburst Equestrian horse truck was also opened up for perusal for interested parties.
Cross Country
The final riding for the day was done out on the cross country course which Wendy was fortunate to have built by world-class cross country course designer, Wayne Copping (current course builder of the Australian International Three Day Event CCI**** in Adelaide) back in 1998. Commencing at the water jump, this session included some demonstrations from Wendy on her young horse "Sun Bright" (Legs), a 4 yo by Koyuna Genesis (by well known jumping sire, Brilliant Invader who also sired many of Wendy's top event horses including Koyuna Sun Dancer) as well as instruction. Wendy commenced by walking her young horse down the ramp into the water then turned around and jumped out up a small step before asking Legs to jump into the water down the same small step. She then schooled an arrowhead fence set at the edge of the water jump from dry land - firstly by cantering to the 'wing' then trotting on a steady turn to the 'face' of the arrowhead fence.
Legs
It was then jumped in relation to the small bank out of the water. Wendy then instructed both Fiona Guthrie on her 2* Event horse, "Crocadoo" and Rachelle on "Aussie Sun" a school horse preparing to compete at Preliminary level. These riders jumped a variety of fences in succession, beginning with some smaller options then building on that experience when the horse was deemed to be ready. Repetition of exercises to build a horse's confidence was demonstrated to be an important tool. Wendy then used Rachelle and Aussie as a lead horse to follow when asking Legs to jump out of the water up two steps for the first time before repeating the exercise solo. She explained that this was another useful tool she used when teaching. Following Aussie
Deemed a successful day for the first attempt, the Team Sunburst Open Day was a useful 'prototype' which has given them the experience and feedback to do it better next time! For any further information on Team Sunburst, visit the website http://www.sunburstequestrian.com/index.html or follow on Facebook
