September 1st 2007 to October 29th 2007

For the next year Focus with Erika will be coming from a new perspective. On September 1st I made the big move to Neuss, Germany for one year. On October 4th Focus made the even bigger move to join me at Kamberger Hof, Dresseur Stall Reisch. Once a week I will post an update, including pictures, of how Focus is progressing.

For the first month that I was here I lived in a small bed and breakfast while Christian and his wife helped to find me my apartment. Now I live three kilometres from the stable. Every day I ride my bike to and from the barn. Once every two weeks a friend from the barn accompanies me to the grocery store. Riding a bike with two weeks of food is very difficult, especially when it is over five kilometres. The days are long and so there is often very little time to do anything in the evenings other then watch a little German TV and then go to sleep. The day starts for me at 5:30. I wake up and eat breakfast and get myself ready for the day ahead. By 7:10 I must leave in order to arrive at the stable a little early so I can look after Focus. At 7:30 we begin working. We start with feeding the horses, and then turn them out and then we “make the stable”. This includes putting new straw into the boxes and sweeping. The main barn consists of 24 stalls. There are three other barns which house another 13 horses. By 9:00 we begin riding the horses. A busy day is riding 38 horses between five of us. On Mondays all the workers and horses have free, therefore on Tuesday all the horses are ridden. This month a typical Tuesday is 26 to 35 horses. It depends on how many horses trailer in for lessons or riding. By Thursday, things begin to slow to about 25 horses as some horses have Thursday off and others Friday. Christian believes that five days a week of work in enough. Saturdays many of the horses’ owners come to ride. And Sunday we work only until 2:00 so there are only horses to ride. From 9:00 until 18:00 I must ride anywhere from three to seven horses, everything from 13 HH ponies to giant warmbloods to andalusians. On top of this all the horses must be groomed twice a day. It is the belief of Christian that the horses must be clean while they are in there stalls. At 6:00PM we must begin to feed dinner hay and grain. We are usually finished by 6:30, and then we must sweep again. By 7:00 we are finished for the day and are free to go home. At this time I brush Focus and wrap her legs and blanket her for the night. The boxes are cleaned every two weeks with a tractor. I am not fond of manure and straw building up in Focus’ stall so I also clean it in the evening. Because I must work through the day, I have to do this extra care after hours. By the time I have completed the day I am home by 8:00PM. Enough time to make a quick dinner and watch part of a movie before I fall asleep.

The weather is already getting cold. During the day it is about 10 degrees and at night it goes cold enough for frost to develop. Rainy season is also starting, but this does not stop the horses from being able to go out onto the fields. Up until the first week in October, every weekend we went to a show. In the next month or so, Fridays turn into jumping day. All the horses are jumped on Friday with the exception of the Grand Prix horses and the ones the owners say “no” to. When someone buys a new horse, there is a party in the barn with Champagne and orange juice and chocolate. So far in October there have been two parties for two ladies who have both just bought young horses after selling their difficult horses.

For the first week with Focus we kept her work very back. Just allowing her to recover after her long journey. Then Mr.Reisch took a one week holiday, enough time for me to bring Focus back up to regular work. So the past week was the first full week of training. Christian has ridden Focus a few times. The biggest struggle we are having is getting the left lead canter to roll forward. Too often Focus wants to keep the canter collected with short hops behind. Christian’s solution for this is spiral circles with moments of medium canter on the long walls. How it works is the large circle of the spiral is to allow the horse to regain her balance after the medium canter. As the circle becomes smaller the horse must collect herself more and more. Once the circle has reached 8-10 metres the horse should be collected. For Focus this works to keep the hind leg coming forward like in the medium cater rather than it taking short hops. Once it becomes too difficult for the horse to maintain the quality of the canter spiral out, gradually getting more forward. The most important things about this exercise in not to inhibit the horse’s forward movement, even in the collection. When it comes to the medium canter down the long side, you must always think of a shoulder-fore feeling, Otherwise the purpose of the exercise is foiled. The medium canter is to rejuvenate the hind leg jumping forward, up and through the top line. Going down the long side crooked halts any progress and then the movement is of no use.

Another lesson that I have learned is correct whip use. During a lesson I used the whip in the trot with a simple double tap to make the hind legs more active. Immediately Christian explained that it is not how hard or how many times you use the whip, it is your timing in the rhythm of the horse’s gait that makes the whip effective. Fast taps that razz the hind legs are not correct. They simply make the hind legs fast on the spot where you tapped. You want the hind leg to come under. This is why a tap at the right moment can “pull” the horses leg up, forward and under all the while making it quicker.

The next day is my lesson Christian explained shoulder-fore in a way that gave it a whole new meaning. Shoulder-fore is not brining the horses inside should off the track slightly nor is it the outside. You must think that the horse’s shoulders are wider than the horse’s hind end. When you ride shoulder-fore, you are using your inside leg to lift the inside hind leg forward and under to land between the horses two front feet, making the hind end narrower and more capable of coming under to achieve engagement. This is Shoulder-fore. It is not riding a faint or incorrect should-in.

The really nice thing about being here is that even though I am a working student, I still have time to ride without instruction. Christian is around to watch, either riding another horse or teaching someone else. But he believes that you should not learn to ride like you are in the army, always being told what to do and how to do it. You must ride on your own. This is how you learn to feel.