TODD MCCORMICK REINING CLINIC
TODD MCCORMICK REINING CLINIC
I wrote a blog a few weeks back about how I have found myself in a situation where my dressage horses are out with injuries but it has given me the opportunity to play around with our reining horse. I have been having a lot of fun. It has been a great challenge to learn to ride with a slightly different approach and technique and also wonderful to do so on such a well-trained school master.
Globally, reining is a rapidly growing sport, it is big in the US and parts of Europe and the sport is growing in Australia with great numbers over on the east coast of Australia but the community in Western Australia is pretty small. To grow any sport you need to encourage people and give them opportunities to develop skills. It was great when Todd McCormick, from McCormick Equine based in Victoria and originally from Texas, was able to come out last weekend and provide a weekend of private lessons that I was able to participate in. As usual, when I participate in a clinic I blog about it.....so here is what I learnt!
1. RIDING ONE HANDED – In reining you call riding in a shank bit - riding in a” bridle”. When your horse is in a bridle you have to ride one handed in either split reins or a rein set up called a rommel. Although I could have put Jasper (aka well-trained school master I am blessed to own) in a snaffle and ride two handed I decided to challenge myself and learn to ride one handed. The first thing Todd did was pick up my reins where way too long and uneven. So I got a lesson in how to work out whether my reins where even and how I needed them short enough to be effective but long enough that Jasper was still on a loose rein. Your hand then is held straight out and you take your hand directly across the neck to steer and only if the horse doesn’t follow do you back up with your legs. This solved a heap of questions I came with as I was finding Jasper wasn’t really listening to my reins and I was steering around primarily with my legs. So shortening my reins increased Jasper’s responsiveness and I could make my movement really subtle and my need to steer with my legs disappeared.
2. HOW TO SOFTEN THE HORSE TO BRIDLE – I had been lifting the reins straight up to get some softness but Todd got me to pick up as if I was drawing the reins to my chin and put my legs on at the same time to ensure that Jasper stayed engaged. This again answered another heap of questions I had come along with. Every time Jasper felt like he was falling in, falling out or was just feeling out of shape etc. I just drew the reins to towards my chin, applied my leg and he straightened, his back softened, he engaged and I could then let him loose again. I found that I then had to correct him a lot less.
3. THE RATE IN LOPE – Part of a reining pattern is that you have to demonstrate going from a fast lope circle to a small slower lope circle (you just have to demonstrate a change in circle size and lope speed). The rate is the transition between the fast to the slower lope and the aim is to rate with as subtle cue as possible. I had heard that to do this you took off your inside leg but when I had played around with this at home Jasper would rate but I was struggling to do anything else than a really small circle. I think this was probably because I was steering so much with my legs…so steering with my legs and slowing with my legs had confused Jasper so he slowed and turned hard! Todd fixed this pretty quick by making my steering more effective with the shorter reins and using my legs less to steer (see point 1) and by having Jasper more engaged and soft (see point 2). Todd also got me to run fast circles with my legs slightly hugging Jasper and then all I did was take my inside leg off and he rated great AND kept the line. The video attached to this blog is me working on this.
4. TIPS ON SPINS – I had been doing OK spins at home but my right spin was better than my left spin. My new rein length plus just taking the rein forward and directly across Jaspers neck solved this issue as well. To get speed Todd got me to keep both legs slightly off and then cluck and bump by just letting my outside leg fall if Jasper didn’t respond to the cluck with a speed increase. This worked great.
5. HOMEWORK FOR STOPS – My homework for preparing for stops is just to do a lot of guiding (steering) around the arena and to just practice stopping minus any building of speed because that is where I am up to. My aim at the moment is to learn to relax and let my body accept the stop instead of trying to prepare for it…this is harder than it sounds as I have spent a lot of time working on my dressage position and my dressage position tends to hold me slightly too ridge to allow my body to go with the stop. When I have been playing with stops at home it’s a bit hit and miss whether I sit the stop well or bounce! Anyway, I am determine to work this out because nothing makes me feel worse than bouncing on Jasper’s back!
6. ADVICE ON STARTING OUT SHOWING –Todd’s advice for those starting out showing is to focus on laying down a nice reining pattern. Concentrate on pattern placement, that you hit the centre, run past markers, keep off the wall by the correct distance etc. Just lope, don’t stress about speed etc. This will give you a good idea of your strengths and weaknesses. So you can work on your weaknesses and in the future you can start pushing your strengths and your weakness will resolve.
Finally, Todd’s rules:
RULE 1: Ride to what you WANT not to reactions – don’t focus on fixing, focus on riding what you are wanting the horse to do, if you do this you will find out that you have less to fix.
RULE 2: Don’t worry about making mistakes BUT make note of what you are F@#KING up so you can learn to fix it. Same goes with the horse, allow the horse to make the mistake so you can correct it and it can learn as well.
RULE 3: Don’t be afraid to test things – you have to be prepared to go forward and iron out stuff out to progress.
RULE 4: Most important – trust your horse and trust the training you have put into your horse.
Big thanks to Todd for coming all the way over and being so encouraging (and putting up with me asking hundreds of questions and making him repeat everything multiple times!), we are all very grateful and have heaps to reflect on and practice.
To all my dressage friends and page followers - make sure you ride a reiner before you die, it is VERY good fun 🙂
