Monday, February 2, 2009

January 31, 2009 Mark Lyon's horsemanship clinic

Mark Lyon was in Texas for the weekend and held a clinic not to far from where we live, only about 1.5 hours away. We are trying our best to expose Kirstin & Taz to as much as possible figuring that it will only help both of them. This weekend was absoutely the best thing that we have done for the both of them.

The first thing that they worked on was standing still. The horse & riders lined up with spacing in between and then one by one they weaved in & out of each other. This was really helpful for Kirstin & Taz because it mimmicks what they do in drill team-a horse & rider riding close by in front of, behind them and between them. They did really well.

After lunch, Mark spent some one on one time with Kirstin. Kirstin wanted to learn how to do the sidepass at a walk and then eventually at a trot. We knew that Taz could do it, but Kirstin wasn't 100% sure of the mechanics of it. They only spent about 5 minutes working on it and then Kirstin had it mastered.

If you look closely, you can see that Taz is starting his sidepass, the front hoof is passing over the other. By the time they were done, Kirstin & Taz looked like they had been doing that forever. Not quite as nice as the one that Taz & Careen did at the competition, but it looked beautiful.

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