Trainer Challenge

Each Trainer and RRTP President, Steuart Pittman, has his or her own "Page" of blog entries with embedded videos.  Access each trainer's page by clicking on their name below.  

Kerry Blackmer - Kerry has Four X The Trouble, aka Tempyst, owned by Robin Coblyn

Tiffany Catledge - Tiffany has both High Level, owned by Jim Falk, and Solidify, owned by MidAtlantic Horse Rescue

Eric Dierks - Eric has Brazilian Wedding, owned by Pat Dale

Steuart Pittman - Steuart gets to post commentaries, plus he occasionally posts about Bodiddle, the horse owned by Lorna Starkey, that didn't make it to the Trainer Challenge

Main Trainer Challenge Page

Steuart Pittman

The Home Stretch

Sitting on each of the horses this past week made me smile. It also added to my respect for Kerry, Tiffany, and Eric.

Training a horse is an intimate process. We have to listen so carefully and be so open to creative strategies. When somebody is watching it is very difficult to prevent a part of our mind from wondering what that person thinks, and hoping that they are impressed. Those thoughts leave less room in our brains for the listening and creativity that our horses need from us.

Imagine doing a training session that will end up on a You Tube channel that has had 40,000 views in the last 30 days, with links to a Facebook page on which everyone has an opinion and has a total weekly reach of over 20,000. That's what our trainers are faced with.

This is an exercise that truly tests not only their training skills, but also their ability to focus. They have to shut all of this noise out and listen only to their horses.

After having ridden three of the horses, I know that the trainers are doing an extraordinary job. With each one I could feel the newness of what the horses had learned and understand how much finesse their riders were using. I would have preferred to spend some time alone with the horses because I didn't do them justice as a rider in my brief encounters in front of that damn camera!.

It was very different from getting on a horse whose understanding of the aids is confirmed. These horses are all trying very hard to work within the boundaries that their riders have presented to them, but they do not completely trust or understand. The parts of their bodies that offered resistance were different with each horse. Four X The Trouble felt physically quite good through his topline, but was reluctant to engage his engine. He took a lot of leg and was resistant to it. Solidify felt very solid in the bridle and responsive to the leg, but was resistant in his back. Brazilian Wedding felt very powerful behind and healthy through her back but with a tendancy to lean and pull, especially in the left rein.

Some day I will write an article for Dressage Today about how the dressage training scale is climbed a little differently with an ex-racehorse. Our horses off the track start with confidence, balance, strength, and a willingness to go forward. They also have felt the weight of the bit and pushed their power into it, even leaning into it. You will notice that none of our trainers spent much time riding their horses at the trot and canter on a loopy rein. They asked the horses to accept the contact in the first few days even though contact is not the first step in the training scale. They did this because they wanted to achieve relaxation and rhythm, which is the first step in the scale. So it looks like the horses are farther along than they are, because they are in a round frame, when in fact the round frame is simply a strategy to achieve the very basic rhythm that opens the door to the horse's mind and body. There's much more to say along these lines, so come to our Dressage for Ex-Racehorses session on Thursday at PA Expo if this discussion doesn't bore you. Or nudge me to write the article.

The fantastic video series of trainer interviews is almost done. Robin Coblyn is working on my interview with Eric as I write this. Voting will be open in a few days. You had fun voting for your favorite horse, and soon you get to vote for favorite trainer. Judges at the expo will each have a chunk of votes to add to the mix.

Winning this thing is secondary to participating in it. All of the trainers are thrilled with the exposure and the education that they have been able to offer us. They want that 30 x 40 oil portrait of their favorite horse by possibly the best equine artist alive today, Lelend Neff, but they know that we love and respect all of them equally. See you in Pennsylvania, or at least on the LiveStream from our web site at 2pm on the 25th!

Steuart Pittman

 

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Steuart's Interviews with the Trainers

Interview with Kerry Blackmer, trainer for Four X The Trouble ("Tempyst") owned by Robin Coblyn. Thanks to Robin for being our video editor!!

Interview with Tiffany Catledge about Solidify:

And another interview with Tiffany but about High Level this time:  

Interview with Eric Dierks about Brazilian Wedding:

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What Questions Should I Ask The Trainers?

Next week I will visit the three trainers and our beloved horses. My plan is to watch them ride and to get them talking on camera. Here are some questions I have in mind. Comment below and offer any others that you have.

1. Are you having fun?rrtptrainerchallenge-2

2. Tell me what about this horse is typical of horses off the track in your experience, and what is unusual.

3. How is training a recently retired racehorse different from training a horse for the same time period that is either green broke professionally, or a horse that has experience with a rider who lacks tact and feel?

4. Do you get many people bringing you horses for training that have retired recently from racing?

5. If you were representing this horse for sale today, what would you say in his ad? How would you price him?

6. If Iwere considering this horse as an investment and chose to keep him/her in training with you for six months more, what would I have at the end? What do you think the value would be at the end?

7.  Same question, but now you have a full year.

8. Five years?

9. Most people don't have your riding skills or training experience. Tell us what problems might have arisen with this horse in this first month with a less skilled trainer, and how might that person work through them?

10. What advice would you give to the lucky person who buys this horse a week from now?

My biggest thrill about the way this Trainer Challenge has evolved is that all three trainers are completely smitten by their horses. These are folks who get all kinds of expensive horses coming through their barns of all breeds, and I'd bet that they don't have a single one that is more fun to ride every morning than their recently retired racehorse.

I know exactly how they feel. One of our frustrations as trainers is that we don't get very many horses in who are recently retired from racing. We get those horses when we acquire them for ourselves. It was such a thrill to me a few years ago when I had a couple of rank Thoroughbreds  that had been bought off the track by people who found themselves a little over-horsed, and with some training and a bit of rider coaching at the end, both became fantastic partnerships. One of them, Jen Crosby on Miles is pictured to the right. It was that experience that inspired me to launch this project.

I say it everywhere I go, but I'll repeat it here. It's the good training that these horses so desperately need. It is our obligation to go out and find it for them or learn how to do it ourselves. I can't wait to start the Apprenticeship Program.

Steuart Pittman

Comments (8)

Steuart's Commentary #1

This Trainer Challenge is way too much fun for me to just sit on the sidelines and observe.I will, therefore, share my thoughts about what we are seeing. 

I was supposed to have an alternate horse to train, but Tiffany won't let me pick up Solidify because she can't decide if High Level is sound. I think she's just greedy. She can't let a good horse leave her farm.

Lucky for me, I have some nice horses at home to ride. The newest addition is Bodiddle, the horse that was left out of the Trainer Challenge due to concerns about his ankles. He arrived Friday with Laury Parramore, and my job is to teach Laury to teach Bodiddle about his new job. If the first four days are any indication  I predict that Laury will bring Bodiddle to the PA Expo and do their own little demo to show the Three Stooges that even amateurs with full time office jobs can make magic in four weeks with a good horse off the track! Bodiddle and Laury are kicking butt!

I find it interesting myself to watch how the Three Stooges, I mean Trainers, go about changing the balance and shape of their horses. They all explain it differently, but my guess is that they all will do it similarly.Each horse has already learned to carry itself in better balance with a respect and a focus on the riders' legs, hands, seat, and weight.

If they are like most horses off the track, they will get the basics quickly and then learn new ways of moving at all three gaits within the boundaries that the riders establish. That won't make them perfect, but it will make them very rideable.

The frustrating part for most of the people following this Challenge is that most don't  progress this quickly with their own horses. The reason for this is that they probably don't ride as well as Kerry, Eric, and Tifanny. Effective riding takes thousands of hours on scores of horses with good instructions and high standards to develop, and good riding is the secret to training horses under saddle. If the take home message is "Learn to ride better," that's fine with me.  We all need to learn to ride better. It's what our horses deserve.

Sensitive, intelligent horses with the foundation of racing progress very quickly with skilled riders. They progress less quickly with less skilled riders, but that's ok. They end up worse than they were when they came off the track if they are ridden by people whose skills are not yet up to the task. That doesn't mean those people should give up. It might, however, mean that they should develop their balance and tact on a less responsive horse and find somebody else to work with their green Thoroughbred. Then there are the horses off the track who will pack anybody around as long as they stay out of the way. There is as much variation among Thoroughbreds as within any other breed.

So please watch carefully the way these trainers ride and how their horses respond. Refrain from making judgements about the pace of training.  Good trainers let their horses tell them when it's time for new challenges.Watch with an open mind and you will learn. That's what I intend to do as well.

- Steuart Pittman

 

 

 

 

 

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