Postcard: Day 3, George Morris Horsemastership
Wellington, Fla., January 24, 2008 -- I've spent the day picking up pearls; pearls of wisdom, that is, straight from George Morris and the other clinicians in the horsemastership training session being held here. What an education!
We're at the old Littlewood, now the South Grounds of the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, where eight lucky young riders from across the country (and the rest of us) are privileged to hear such a wide variety of great information.
It's nice to see a crowd on hand for this wonderful week. Last year's inaugural session, held prior to the start of the Winter Equestrian Festival had sparse attendance. By now, word has gotten out and folks are coming over from the show.
At high school reunions, they usually give a prize for the person who journeyed the farthest to attend. If they were to do that for this event, Joanne Hagen and her mother, Gail, would win hands-down. They came all the way from Australia, paying $2,900 each for a round-trip ticket to absorb equestrian knowledge.
I asked Joanne how they found out about the clinic, and guess what? She and her mom read about it here on EquiSearch.com. But let Joanne tell you.
Listen: Joanne Hagen on how she heard about the clinic
Joanne has been champion several times in the 4-foot jumpers in her native Queensland, where a quarantine due to an equine influenza outbreak has stopped show activity recently. So it seemed like the perfect time to visit the U.S.
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Actually, the 18-year-old wouldn't mind staying on and is looking for a job in the horse industry, possibly as a working student. Interested? You can contact her at jojo_2821@hotmail.com.
Another person who has been lapping up info is Katie Faraone, who is blogging on this website as the winner of the 2007 Week with the Maddens contest sponsored by Practical Horseman. She took a lesson on Judgement (can you imagine?) and was deemed "a very nice rider" by John Madden.
"She's been a great student. She attached herself to Beezie and me and is soaking up everything like a sponge," John told me.
Listen: Katie Faraone talks about her experience in Florida.
Speaking of Beezie, George brought up her name this morning during one of the sessions where the emphasis was on jumping gymnastics. He pointed out that even this Olympic and world championships multi-medalist, who knows much more than most of us, would listen attentively to any pointers given.
"Nothing is beneath her," he said. While some of the eight riders in the sessions with whom I spoke said they knew many of the things they were hearing, they noted how important it was to have a refresher.
I always enjoy watching George warm-up people on the flat. One exercise he used involved sitting trot to shoulder-in, then straightening the horse, going into a collected canter, coming back to the sitting trot and doing another shoulder-in. That takes care of both longitudinal and lateral suppling and aids in submission.
After work on a narrow serpentine of cavalletti, the jumping went on to progress from low fences on a circle (George had the riders skip one of the three at the beginning to get the horse into the exercise, and when they felt confident, add the third obstacle for a tighter circle) to a little course that was quite challenging.
It started with a triple bar over a liverpool, a right turn and six strides to another liverpool topped by a single rail, then six more strides to an in-and-out with diagonal rails on a bending line. Why were the rails set diagonally? It enabled riders to put in one or two strides at George's direction; it's all about options. From there, they went right to a Swedish oxer, then left to the liverpool with the single rail and five strides to an oxer, finally turning right to another vertical parallel to the rail. It was a challenge, but George noted he doesn't like "cookie-cutter, generic" courses.
As usual, George didn't hesitate to point out emphatically what the riders were doing wrong but hey, that's what he's there for.
I asked Nikko Ritter, who won the Platinum Performance/U.S. Equestrian Federation Show Jumping Talent Search East last year, how he felt about being on the receiving end of George's not-always-tactful critiques.
"It means he cares if he's picking on you," Nikko said. "I'd rather have him yell at me and tell me what I'm doing wrong than ignore me."
"I like picking on all of them," George told the spectators, almost smiling as he said it.
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