Anyway, yesterday it all came together and George had arranged with Simon that he would be in the yard for 8.30am to school Benozzo Gozzoli (Benny) and then ride work on Loxley Mezile (Poppy), this meant we had to be there at that time too, so a very early start for us as well, so early in fact that the horse I had to do before we left was laying down asleep in her stable when I arrived at the yard and was turned out looking very bleary eyed indeed. She at least had had breakfast however, unlike the rest of us.
Got to the yard and said hi to all the horses, Shilpa was looking great after her race earlier in the week, Homer was a little bit miserable having blown an abscess out of his coronet band, Benny looked in fine fettle and Poppy had lost a little bit of weight following her race at Lingfield but was bright eyed and bushy tailed as normal. George quickly tacked Benny up and then they hacked up to the large outdoor school at Downlands that Simon uses for schooling.
I'm not quite sure what George was expecting but it probably wasn't anything like a Simon Schooling Session. George has come in to racing via pony racing and the pony club, so he is perfectly used to someone in the middle of the school shouting instructions at him, his flatwork was really good and he rides accurately to his markers, transitions at C were at C, change of diagonals were straight, he even (god forbid) rode his corners. I think he needs to get out of this correct way of riding if he wants to progress, go round corners on the wrong bend, preferably with one hand on the reins and to really reach the heady heights, possibly with a fag hanging out of his mouth! Seriously it was nice to see a young rider ride quietly and accurately, he is the first person in the school for a long time that I haven't wanted to drag off the horse and explain the importance of bend to. It was the first time we had seen Benny being schooled and he hasn't done a great deal, Simon said that the first time he asked him to canter in the school he was so stiff he couldn't bend around a corner so my expectations were not high. George warmed him up on the flat and then Simon explained what he wanted him to do and ride:
Once Benny was warmed up Simon introduced the jumps, Simon always starts a session in the same way, a small grid of poles on the ground building up to cross poles and then uprights, then an upright leading to a small spread culminating in a single jump with pallets to make it hurdle like. George was asked to canter at A, come back to trot at C, trot over the first part of the jump then in to canter between the elements and canter away back round the school to C and repeat. Simon likes the horse to learn from it's own mistakes so George was not to see a stride and if Ben landed on the wrong leg he wasn't to change leads, just let Ben sort it out for himself. This is the complete opposite to any form of showjump gridwork that George would have done before but he picked it up well, he just needed to get Benny motoring on a bit more. Simon hopped on to show him the tempo he wanted to go at, which I have to say was a surprise to me in an outdoor school the first time I saw him ride it on Shilpa, particularly on a horse that may be going round a left handed corner on a right leg lead, and in Ben's case, one that a few weeks ago couldn't bend around a corner anyway!
George did very well and they were both popping the fences nicely at the end, my camera batteries were starting to die at this point so I didn't get many shots but this one is probably the best of what I got:
I also managed to get some video which shows the canter trot jump canter exercise, this was taken before Simon asked George to up the energy a bit:
They then finished with a single jump being ridden at a good working canter with George not setting Benny up for the fence at all, but letting him jump out of his stride.
Benny is owned by John so not a club or partnership horse at the minute, mainly because John would like to ride a charity race on him at some point and it is fair to say that John riding work is probably not the best way of keeping Benny up together. He is due to race soon however with entries for the 18th, 20th and 21st December, we are hoping Andrew Thornton will ride him as he has ridden him before. We are not sure what to expect with him really as Simon has put a lot of work in to him and physically he is now quite a different horse, he has an official rating of 80 so I suspect the bookies won't think much of his chances but it would be nice to see him go out and get round and enjoy himself.
We then all returned back to the yard for a welcome cup of coffee while George tacked up Poppy to take her up one of the grass gallops. Simon boxed to this gallop as it is the other side of a busy dual carriageway, not sure it would have been my first choice as a gallop being part of the army training grounds, there is a footpath that runs up the side of it but Simon explained we could not go along the ridge that they were going to be cantering across, I presume for fear of being shot. They did one steady and one quicker canter, Simon has backed off the fast work a bit with Poppy to give her plenty of time to recover from the Lingfield race, she is not fit enough for the race at Newbury and the ground is likely to be heavy so it looks like we will be aiming for something on an all weather again in the New Year. We didn't get a chance to speak to George about his thoughts on Poppy as by this time we were freezing, all needed the loo and the Little Chef down the road was calling.
As ever a warm welcome from everyone at the yard and a very enjoyable morning.
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