Paul Matthews Clinic Review: Day 1

We survived our first clinic!

So originally we were supposed to have Kip Rosenthal come and teach us how to horse, but she unfortunately came down sick and was unable to come. Thankfully my trainer is super wicked awesome and was determined to create some learning opportunities for us, so we were able to get Paul Matthews to come teach us how to horse!

My group was the smallest- four amateur adults who all do the 3′ hunters/jumpers. This ended up being FANTASTIC, as we were all able to get really tailored instruction for our particular needs.

Saturday was the first day, and the short version is that Addy was an absolute Beast. It was cold, she had excess energy, and I really should’ve lunged her around before hopping on.

Not that she was bad! Pretty Girl never does anything REALLY bad. Princess Pony just wanted to go fastfastfast all the time. So our tailored attention was mostly on getting her attention back on me instead of zooming around like a bus with the brake lines cut.

One of the most useful tips Paul gave me was to constantly half-halt and release. I know this isn’t a new concept and I’ve mentioned it before, but somehow the way he showed me and explained it made sense: my job was to half-halt her back into a nice steady rhythm, and then immediately release her mouth. As soon as she started speeding up, repeat. And repeat. And repeat forever until she develops the self-carriage to maintain her own rhythm without leaning on the bit.

Once we established a way to correct her rhythm, we focused on straightness and using our corners. He had us ride across the diagonal towards a certain point on the wall, halt, then leg yield over to the track and continue to square the corner.

Corners have always been a trouble spot for Addy and I since she likes to lean to the inside and rush, so this exercise definitely helped us develop a feel for how to balance and use our space more effectively. I also really appreciated that Paul tailored this exercise to each horse depending on what they needed to improve on- Addy and I didn’t leg yield since we were more focused on getting a prompt and straight halt. This wasn’t a one-size-fits-all clinic; Paul was very conscious to meet each individual’s training needs.

Before finishing up, we put our skills to the test over a tiny jump exercise as such:

Trot down over the outside vertical (with trot pole set out), then canter up the diagonal oxer and either halt or continue through the corner.

Clearly this is a very simple exercise, but it definitely forced us to use what we learned during the flat session. We had to come into the trot fence balanced and collected instead of rushing so that we could square our corner afterwards. We had to maintain straightness on the track to the oxer so that we could wait for a distance and then land using the corner again.

Paul had me incorporate halts into my exercise so Addy would stop rushing and anticipating. So I would halt in a straight line after the outside vertical, and then turn left towards the wall. He had us doing this (turning towards the wall) pretty frequently to stop the horses from thinking they can just continue on around the track non-stop. After turning left towards the wall we walked a tiny circle twice, then straightened out, trotted, cantered a circle, THEN continued on to the oxer.

Paul didn’t want us doing walk-canter transitions because Addy is already a very forward-thinking horse and he wanted more deliberate transitions. Addy has a tendency to kinda explode up into the canter and he wanted me to show her that upwards transitions should be calm.

So the short version of our day 1 session: Addy was a zoomzoom beast, but I was glad she did that because we learned SO MUCH about how to correct that and start asking more of her. By the end she had settled into working and we were definitely improving our use of the ring and our rhythm at all gaits.

One of the really great things about this clinic was that we had a sports psychology seminar that evening with Dr. Ann Reilly- author of A Sport Psychology Wordbook for Riders. I don’t know about you, but I find that the mental aspect of riding tends to be my biggest hurdle. Am I physically capable of riding a horse over a 3’3″ oxer? Absolutely. Do I sometimes psych myself out and convince myself that I can’t do it? All the freakin’ time.

So I was definitely looking forward to this and it didn’t disappoint! We started off by talking about all the different ways riders tend to psych themselves out and shift to negative thinking, and she reassured us that everyone feels this way- from novice beginners all the way up to the Olympic level. Then we talked about some ways to counteract this negative thinking and shift ourselves back into a positive frame of mind. Some of the big takeaways here were:

• Don’t ignore mental preparation on show day. You’ve put in the training and you’ve prepared your horse, so you should also devote time to preparing yourself.
• Nutrition is important! Low blood sugar and dehydration cause a physical response that heightens your nerves and adrenaline. Even if you don’t like riding on a full stomach, forcing down a PowerBar and some water can make a world of difference.
• Focus on the positives. Watch videos of yourself riding a course well. If you have a sub-par round, watch it with your trainer so that you can identify the technical corrections you need to make, but don’t dwell on those. Dwell on the successes.
• Keep your perspective. If you flubbed a jump badly, thats OK. So you flubbed a jump. That has zero bearing on how you’ll do as you continue forward.
• Eliminate “should have” from your vocabulary. Saying “I should have done this differently” has no value. The past is the past.
• Deep breathing (in through your nose and out through your mouth) while counting backwards from 50 on every exhale can be very relaxing and centering. Do this when you start to feel frazzled.
• Use positive statements instead of “don’t” statements. Instead of saying “I don’t want to add in that line,” say “I will make the strides in that line.”
• Write down what you want to happen over and over. The act of putting pen to paper and physically seeing your goals helps train your mind to see them as attainable.
• Make friends with your ring. If you’re at a show, go walk around the perimeter of the ring, study the jumps, and visualize riding your course until you feel like you’ve already ridden it a thousand times.

We ended the session with a guided visualization of a show day. She took us through everything from arriving at the showgrounds to completing two courses and everything in between. This is definitely a technique I’ll be using to prepare for shows.

I appreciated that she was able to specifically address problems unique to riders because she’s a rider herself! Using the techniques we discussed certainly helped me on day 2 of the clinic.

Stay tuned to hear more about Day 2! (Spoiler alert: It. Was. Awesome.)

PS- if you follow me on Instagram or we’re friends on Facebook you already know this, but I BOUGHT A SADDLE!!! It’s a buffalo leather Antares Contact, 17.5″ with 5A flaps (yes that’s the longest flap they make). Believe it or not, it was the first and only saddle I tried. The saddle fitter basically looked me up and down and pulled out the exact saddle we needed #voodoomagic. It fits Addy like a glove- I don’t even need to use a half pad and she was moving happily with zero soreness- and my giraffe legs fit in it. I’ve never ridden in a saddle that fits my legs. It’s magical. Apparently when my leg has somewhere to go, it goes in the right spot! I’m actually convinced this saddle has cured a bunch of my bad habits. And man oh man is it grippy. I’m in love with it. It’s used, so the leather is super buttery soft and broken in, and the color is just gorgeous. I feel super secure in it! This weekend was a trial by fire (two hours of riding each on Saturday and Sunday) and it remained comfortable the entire time. The only thing left to do with it is replace the brass nameplate to reflect its new owner! Thinking I may get one of those little metal monograms instead of a brass plate- thoughts?