Bell Mountain Eventing

When's the last time you felt the panels on your saddle? If they are firm vs. pliable it may be time to replace flocking. This is what happens to wool over ti...me vs. what it looks like when a saddle is newly flocked. This will make a HUGE difference to the comfort of your horse! #adriennehendrickssadddlery #saddlerepair See more

Here we see Daryl Kinney and the OTTB mare, Rosi's Girl, over a "jump" that is about 4 inches high, and again, over a five foot high oxer. What does the one hav...e to do with the other, one might ask. If Daryl had missed her distance at the bigger jump, Rosie would have either quit or smashed the jump. But Daryl has a superb eye for a distance, and the main way that she developed her eye was by "jumping" thousands and thousands of tiny "jumps" like rails on the ground, leaves, hoof prints, any fixed object. First you need to learn basic skills, and the best way is to keep it simple at first as you learn. As you gain skill and confidence, make it gradually more testing. Do it backwards, fail, lose confidence---We see too much of this. Learn HOW first. So unbelieveably simple, so unbelieveably often ignored. Fail to learn correct basics to fail the bigger picture. So don't skip steps. Or do and screw up---your choice---

Great watch! https://www.usef.org/network/coverage/2021robertdover/

If the need for drama is your thing, avoid at all costs watching a dressage schooling session done reasonably well. "Why?" Because any decent trainer understand...s that if she goes out seeking tangible improvement, in any given training session, that she is playing with fire. "How is that?" Again, and it has taken many riders, me being one, years to comprehend the most important fact of all about schooling, teaching, training. "What fact is that?" That any truly visible improvement will arrive as the cumulative effect of many days, weeks, months of careful and gradually incremental schooling, and that on no given day should a trainer expect much. If you or someone you know needs constant affirmation to the question, "Is this better,?" you don't understand how it works. "How can I learn to understand that?" Think back on your first days in first grade. Compare what you knew then to what you know now. How long did it take? Did your teacher whack you for not improving instantly? No, she allowed you years to learn. On no given day did she expect you to make much change. Yet many riders want "right this minute" things that we allow humans huge amounts of time to grasp. If your goal is to become a good trainer, you must get a grasp on this most basic concept. If you don't, won't, or can't, you will never become as good a trainer as you might otherwise have become. It really is "that simple."

Bell Mountain Eventing would like to wish a happy holiday to all our clients and friends, near and far!

Why, at the world's best riding schools, at the most advanced levels, is so much emphasis placed upon having the rider develop what is sometimes called "an ind...ependent" seat? An independent seat is "independent" in that the the rider who has one doesn't need stirrups to push away from and thus avoid the concussion created by the moving body and back of the horse. An independent seat can absorb and disperse the concussion. It also means independence of various body parts of the rider---The quiet, absorptive seat allows the hands to be quiet, and so on. All of this is necessary for the rider to give very clear, specific and quiet signals to the horse, various pressures and releases asking for various responses from the horse. Think about Morse Code. Those dots and dashes are not random, are they? In order for the Morse Code to make sense, the hands of the operator must not wiggle and jiggle and hit a wrong sequence. Neither can the various body parts of the rider wiggle and jiggle and still create clear and consistent signals to a horse. My former USET coach, Jack LeGoff was so adamant about this issue that he made a distinction that was totally blunt. He did not say that a rider had to have a good seat to BE a good rider, not at all. Jack said a rider had to have a good seat to BECOME a good rider. The good seat is not a goal, it is a prerequisite. And, for sure, the majority of riders ride quite successfully all their lives without having an independent seat. You can get away with using stirrups and pretty basic aids, and you will obtain go, whoah, right lead, left lead, and so on. But for sophisticated riding, what LeGoff would call "good" riding, you/I/we/they need more than that. Jack's definition of "good" was a high bar, but when your goal is gold medals on an international scale, that bar is going to be high.

Pour les dresseurs, un petit zoom sur la mobilité articulaire lors du passage-piaffé Thanks Horses Inside Out and Laura Bechtolsheimer Dressage for this video ! Merci Johanna Hellborg de me l’avoir montrée.

We all know that one person who is forever trying to get their horse on the trailer.

Bell Mountain is excited to be a sponsor of the event that got me into eventing 35 years ago!

So proud to be a part of this series! Thanks for spearheading it, Maggie Stonecipher, and for all you do for the equestrian community here!!

Bell Mountain is proud to be a sponsor of this series! See you on Saturday!

https://useventing.com//the-weather-is-heating-up-keep-you

Thanks to Northridge Farm for hosting me! I’m excited to work with this group!

I love this awesome picture of Carrot stretches. Notice how the entire spine is stretching not just the neck. How many of you do carrot stretches with your horse? Thank you Gillian Higgins from Horses Inside Out