Alfredo Hernandez, Day 3: Piaffe and passage

The moment you've all been waiting for... piaffe and passage! I mean, that's why we all sign up to ride with Alfredo, right?

It was honestly kind of anti-climactic. It's not like a horse that's never done those movements before is instantly going to be able to do 15 steps of brilliant piaffe with a rider on board. It's also not how you train that sort of thing. I was lucky to be able to watch Alfredo work with a number of horses over the course of the clinic, and his method was simple - you ask until you get the response you're looking for, and then you immediately reward. In some cases, I watched him warm a young horse up in the round pen, then ask once for 2-3 steps of piaffe, and that was it for the whole session. Literally, a 10 minute longe session with perhaps 5-10 seconds of asking for piaffe, getting a few steps, then immediately done.

It's kind of an interesting concept for those of us who ride and think "that circle was great, just ONE MORE and I'll be done..." and things start to fall apart. The take-away for me was, shorter session and more rewards when it's right.

My lesson started out with more in-hand work, this time with turns on the haunches as well as turns on the forehand. The goal was to get Taran stepping under and stepping around, with quick transitions  ("No stopping! Why are you stopping!!") between the two. I found it hard to keep Taran's feet moving AND be correct with my aids AND make sure he's correct. More practice is definitely needed on this - Alfredo made it look easy because his timing is so amazing, and I struggled so much.

At the end of our in-hand work, Alfredo took Taran and asked for piaffe along the rail. I didn't get the whole video, but Taran was confused about what he wanted so the first 10 seconds or so weren't very pretty ('Trot but don't move forward, WHAT? You crazy, mister!'). However, Alfredo kept asking and letting him take a few walk steps when he got a bit too tight, and eventually this happened:

Don't blink, you'll miss it.

No really, it happened! Alfredo is already rewarding him.

Next up was ridden work. We kept it to walk and trot as before, and really just focused on him being round and through. We had some sticky bits (being round and through is HARD!), which we addressed by making him move his haunches (which is HARDER!), but we ended on a really good note, as we had on day two. I need to remember to keep the trot slow and round, and if he doesn't bend when asked, think haunches out.

Moving the haunches creates some really spectacular laterals that I didn't know we could do. I don't think Taran knew he could do this either, lol!

A short clip of the end of the ride - this was after about 5 minutes of ridden w/t work

So fancy. Sorry about the ponytail, Aimee. My hair thingy failed halfway through.

As our grande finale, we took a few minutes to work on passage. Taran started off REALLY skeptical about this pole that was in his way, but Alfredo just encouraged him to keep moving forward and gently tapped his shins. You can see him starting to get with the program about halfway down the long side of the arena.

We walked for a bit, and then Alfredo asked me to trot:

Obviously we're not doing this at the FEI levels any time soon, but Taran got the idea and it was SUPER cool to ride! I think as he gets stronger in his back and more able to sit and step under himself, he'll find this easier to do. At this stage, we're just sort of playing with the concept. 

How many people does it take to get a horse to passage? 

I've got a few more thoughts to share on riding with Alfredo (including a cool way to teach changes), but this post is already long. In short, he's very demanding of the riders but so rewarding to the horses, and we made some really big breakthroughs. I will definitely be signing up to ride with him again when he comes back!

Alfredo Hernandez, Day 2: It's all about the groundwork

I was really looking forward to our second ride with Alfredo - I felt like we really pushed through some things on the first ride, and couldn't wait to make more progress. So I admit that I was a little disappointed when we started out with groundwork - I mean, we're past that, right? It's not like Taran needs to be longed or anything before I get on.

Only, this was a different kind of ground work. What Alfredo wanted was for the horse to perform a turn on the forehand (more or less), stepping under very actively with the inside hind leg while softening to the bit. Written like that it sounds so easy, but I struggled so much with this. You have to stand just so. You have to stay strong in your core, keep your arm in the right place. Use of the whip must be judicious and perfectly timed. You have to feel the moment when the horse is correct, then push for another step or two, then stop. Alfredo is very, VERY big on rewarding the horse with a walk on a long rein, immediately, when he's done the right thing - and you really have to stay on your toes and pay attention to know when it's right. I should also point out that this kind of groundwork can be pretty athletic for the rider too, because I was definitely puffing at the end of our short session.

Alfredo makes it look easy. Me, not so much.

When I was finally allowed to mount up, I immediately noticed that Taran felt different. He was MUCH more active behind, and more through over his back. He was also very quick off my aids, something that I've been struggling with quite a lot (pony club kicking is generally frowned upon to get your "first-level" horse to trot, did you know?). When I gathered up the reins ("REINS SHORTER!!!!") and asked for inside bend, he was much faster to comply. I was able to get him rounder and he was much steadier into the bend, deeper and rounder, and more solid in the contact than on the first day.

Look at my horse. My horse is so fancy. Do not look at me. I'm leaning back so much.

I don't think Taran knew he could look like this.

One thing that became really clear to me is how fake the left bend can be. My trainer is FOREVER on me about bending him too much to the left, even though I swear from the saddle he doesn't SEEM like he's bent at all (especially compared to the right). What he really does is crank his neck over without bending through his body, and I let go of the outside (right) rein to attempt to get more bend. Alfredo kept yelling at me to use more outside rein and open my inside hand, and I finally got to see what fake bend vs real bend looks and feels like. Lightbulb moment! I'm sure my trainer is doing a facepalm about now.

Not actually bent to the left, despite the fact that his ear is even with my knee. 

Our ride actually ended up being quite short with a lot of walk breaks, but it felt really productive because we further solidified what we'd worked on the first day, and the added element of ground work made me feel like I had a really impressive new tool to help me out. SO much winning!

Here's some video from the end of our ride where we're awesome.

I'm now a ground work convert.