BRISTER’S BRIEF
From Racehorse to Pony Clubber The young and the old came together recently at a clinic held by Pony Club NSW and Racing NSW to focus on retraining retired racehorses, writes CHARLIE BRISTER
different riding backgrounds - but with very similar aims for the horses. Scott was an obvious choice as he has done so much work for the thoroughbred rehabilitation trust including helping to set up a program for inmates and youths to learn about horses and to channel their energies into retraining racehorses. He also trained with Miguel Tavora and has had a lot of experience with classical dressage. Peter Haynes had a very successful eventing career which culminated in winning the Australian 3DE Championships in 1998 aboard Alcheringa. Nowadays he is a sought-after coach in all three phases of eventing.
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Before the horses were ridden we started with each horse being worked in hand. Which is quite different to lunging a horse. You will quite often see a hot horse just being lunged into the ground before being ridden. This is great at making them tired but doesn’t teach them very much. Over time the horse gets fit but even more set in its ways.
The demonstrated techniques came from all disciplines – jumping, western riding, and dressage, but this clinic differed from most by focusing on groundwork as the foundation for all the more advanced work. This angle is often very strong at western riding clinics but is rarely the key focus at eventing and jumping clinics. (A shame in my opinion.)
Rather than just trying to exhaust the horse, ground work – in conjunction with lunging - can be used to very calmly teach the horse new ways to move their body, how to respond to pressure and how to stay out of the handler’s personal space. Groundwork exercises used by the handler can get the horse to back up, come forward and yield the quarters to pressure - just to name a few goals. Groundwork can include lunging but not with the aim of simply getting the horse tired.
ith everybody’s sights set on embracing diversity and new beginnings for retiring racehorses, Pony Club NSW selected a group of talented and keen members to participate with the aim to educate young riders about how best to prepare horses for a life after racing.
Unfortunately, however, groundwork is often looking for positive changes that are actually (even if they seem simple to look at) hard to fit into a 45-minute clinic lesson. So riders often don’t learn the basics of control and lateral work, which are the absolute basis of groundwork, despite the huge benefit and many issues which can be fixed with that kind of work - especially with a retired racehorse. Peter Haynes and Scott Brodie joined me on the instruction panel, delivering
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HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - JUNE 2019
Little habits that don’t seem too important at the beginning can create much bigger problems later on.
Sadly most hobby riders don’t see the need for groundwork until they have a problem. Even when they do have a problem many of them don’t recognise it as being a problem, but they are quick to criticize their horse for being a little above the bit in the dressage or for lacking ability in the jumping phases, without realising that it can be attributed to a lack of groundwork in the beginning. So much patience is required to retrain
