I always love being able to participate in a good clinic, having someone new that doesn’t know me evaluate the work I have been doing without any bias or baggage is a great addition to my current training program. We rarely have clinics offered locally for this opportunity and it typically involves a lot of travel and that incurs a lot of expense, but this is changing…. We will be bringing a clinician in this spring for our May Cross Country Event and we don’t want just any clinician, we want this person to be complementary to the trainers we already have here in Idaho, to be something everyone can enjoy and to be affordable for all. So we are going to want your help!

While processing the thought of hosting a clinic I think the one of the biggest things we must always keep in mind is COST! Horses are expensive and all the stuff that goes along with them is expensive. In turn clinicians that have any clout behind their name are pricey. Whether the clinician has been to the Olympics, competed at the biggest events overseas or has competed through the FEI levels in the states only, it all takes an immense amount of dedication, hard work, money and experience. I mean that is why we want them to come teach us, right?

We also don’t want the clinic to be just for those that compete, it should be available for all levels and bring a fun, educational approach to those who attend. We want you to be able to take something away that you can use again and again. I was once told during a clinic that “you have a tool box that you put things in to use throughout your career as a rider”, I love this thought process. When I ride with a clinician, I try to find at least one tool that they are trying to teach through out their clinic to take home and put in my tool box. You may not use it now, but it may come in handy down the road.

I will leave you with an example of one of these tools that I will always keep in my “tool box”. I have notoriously ridden horses that are more of a “pull ride then a kick ride” and I like it that way! On occasion during cross country you can get into a pulling war with this kind of horse and the rider is never going to win. During a clinic with a semi local clinician I was able to gain a piece of knowledge that changed my ride on this particular horse. We had show jumped the day before so there was a feel for what we were capable of before heading out on cross country. Within the first 10 minutes of our cross-country lesson I was instructed to use more tactful half halts several strides out from the jump to be better prepared. I of course didn’t know what that meant so there came the questions no one should be afraid to ask… “What exactly do you mean by that?” and let me tell you this was a golden nugget. I was told to insert my half halt as the front end of my horse was down in the circular cantering motion and then release as he came up and to repeat this until I had the result I wanted. GOLD, this simple instruction has stuck with me and has profoundly changed my cross-country ride on Justin. Even if I didn’t learn anything else in that clinic that made it all worth it.

So, in closing, we are bringing a clinician to the Treasure Valley this spring that I hope will be all the above and more for anyone interested in participating.

Please go to the NWWJS/ North Wind Winter Jumping Series Face Book page and comment on our clinician post on who you would like to ride with.