This last weekend I had the chance to ride in a clinic with Megan McGee. I had never ridden with her before, but I had met her a few weeks ago when I took some of my students to their first schooling show that she was judging. I found her to be a very fair judge with a positive and supportive attitude. She gave my kids a great first show experience. So I was excited about getting a chance to ride with her.
I took Tucci, a 19 year old Friesian/Saddlebred I am showing 4th level, who was a 10 year old, western trained stallion when I started working with him. It’s amazing to be able to say that he could not keep the canter or even go to the right when I started riding him. When we met, she was very complimentary of how fit, robust, and young-looking he looked. She loved how he was bred and wanted to know his pedigree. I thought it was very sweet and it made me feel comfortable.
When we started warming up, she just sat back and watched. Tucci was a little tense, so I gave him a long walk warm up. He likes to stop and look at things. If something catches his eye, he gets really sucked back, which results in an uneven tempo in his trot and canter as I kick him forward, and he sucks back over and over. Also, because of his conformation, he likes to put his head up and gets blocked at the base of his neck, resulting in him being a bit blocked in his back as well.
After I warmed him up, we chatted about the work we had done, and what needed to be improved. She agreed that he needed to go much more freely forward. She also remarked at how intelligent he is. She believed (as I have been suspecting) that Tucci is not actually spooking in his new environment, she thinks he is just very, very smart and knows that I am not going to really get after him in front of a crowd of people. He is just not the type of horse that gives you anything you don’t work for. She gave me a great tip for the 2 minute warm up around the ring before you go in - she said he would be a good candidate to just canter him very forward around the ring right before the bell. I definitely feel like that would have improved our work at my last show, so I’m going to try it!
I told her that I was preparing to show 4-3 next weekend, and we discussed his best and worst movements. His trot work is all pretty good, and he even has a pretty descent passage. The canter has always been his most difficult gait. It took two years to get a clean change from left to right - it was often late in front, which is unusual! But now the changes are almost always clean, which is fantastic. His lateral work is good, too. The pirouettes are by far the hardest movement with him, and we have been doing our homework there, but we did not touch on them too much with Megan, since she said it was too close to the show to make changes to something difficult, which I agreed with. She did, however, give me an excellent tip regarding riding the 10 meter canter to 10 meter counter canter circle. She said that because the judge can only really tell how big the circle is in relationship to the centerline, they can’t tell how far down you go, and it may help your horse to ride that circle a little more like an oval, so that it’s a bit bigger and therefore easier for the horse to stay in front of your leg. She actually said that the judge would rather see you ride a movement that is difficult for your horse like that, since it shows you know you need to compensate a little in that area.
When we went back to work, she supported my idea of carrying two whips, which definitely helped him to pay more attention to me. A lot of time when he gets sucked back, and I send him forward in the canter down the long side, he will throw a flying change in instead of going forward, a smart evasion on his part because he knows you should never really punish a horse for doing a flying change! Instead, she had me send him forward on a circle while giving both reins forward so he could reach out of the base of his neck, which I felt made it more clear to him that he was not supposed to change, so therefore he went more forward and over his back. Once he got opened up, we had some quality work where he was soft and lifting through the base of the neck. She was very impressed with how active behind he is, and the quality of his lateral work and his changes. I went home feeling proud of the work I have done with him, as well as got some great tips on how to go for our best score next weekend!