Pedro
20th Feb 2001, 03:57 PM
Wednesday, 14 February
I'm going to start this chronicle with a little background information about Portugal. In here Alentejanos (inhabitants of the Portuguese province Alentejo, just north of Algarve) are joked by everyone else as being very slow and lazy. The amount of jokes about Alentejanos is staggering and most people's image of the province is of a peasant sleeping the sesta in the shadow of a chaparral. There is some truth behind this stereotype - Alentejo is the driest, hottest area in Portugal, so life is (and most be) taken slower, the hottest part of the afternoon is good for nothing else but rest. This is seen by the more restless people in the cooler north as a sign of laziness. The reason for this digression is Lord, the horse I rode tonight. He is known in the school as an Alentejano Thoroughbred :-), he is such an impressively lazy horse. In fact that's not fair, instead he is impressively adept of taking advantage of every opportunity (including inexperienced students) to skip work. I can personally relate with that, but hey... I'm half Alentejano from my mother's side ;)!
I don't have with Lord that much difficulty in getting him forward, if I'm firm from the start, and let him know I expect him to do his fair share of work, he will be forward going enough the rest of the lesson. He isn't as evasive as the smarter Catraia or more nervous Astérix, but he is relentless in his obsession with following butt. I've seen students who are more experienced than me having difficulty getting him to go near the corners (and I've also seen him working beautifully under the instructor Jorge - so it isn't just a problem with Lord).
Other than the difficulty of getting him to go close to the corners, there was nothing remarkable about most of the lesson. I had to watch him closely during circles, as he tended to drift inside and, once there, it was harder to get us in our proper place. We did some canter work departing from a circle, there were three of us so not only did we have quite some room, but we each also did a lot of work. Lord was actually keen on cantering ("What are you doing? You're ruining your hard earned reputation!") and I had to check him several time as he started to canter on his own.
The innovation on this lesson came right at the end of it. We increased the space between us and spent some time on transitions. At first Lord (and the others) would take some time to respond to upwards transitions, but as we did more and more transitions, it felt like Lord was getting interested or amused with this change of routine and he started to respond without delay. We started by doing the simple transitions like halt to walk, walk to trot, trot to canter and the inverse ones, more than once. Then we did all the "two-steps" transitions: halt to trot, walk to canter, canter to walk and trot to halt. These were hardly perfect, with Lord doing a few paces at walk between halt and trot, or a couple of strides of trot between walk and canter. Even so the result was really good for my expectations, Lord was really into it - and so was I! To finish the lesson we did a halt to canter transition and a canter to halt one. I still find it hard to believe that this one worked (Ok, we did a couple of steps in walk or trot, but even so)! It was impressive: one moment we were stopped, the other we were cantering down the arena - with me wincing at every stride of it, as I managed to cramp my inside leg's lower calf muscle with the suddenness of the request, and it hurt every time I pressed it against Lord's side :eek:!
Friday, 16 February
Francisco has a new resident at the school! He has a new bay mare. She was a little nervous - understandably so - with the noise and movement around her, on the plus side she seems to get along with her neighbours. The mare is pretty and seems to be gentle (or maybe she is just a little scared?). With this new entrance Lord had to crash in with Ice for a couple of days, the two of them had to share a box and seemed to get along just fine in their "Batchelor's quarters".
With or without newcomers, lessons carry on as usual. Tonight's was a really crowded one. Because of some coincidences there was a record number of students - eight! In the small covered arena we were a bit in want of room, but as everyone had at least enough experience to keep the pace without lagging behind or putting pressure in front, we got along just fine. I was once more on Astérix, and once more we had some difficulty in keeping up with the horse in front, in this case Mefisto. I soon got the impression that Astérix was tired, he was slower than usual, without being disobedient. Accordingly I let him cut the corners a bit so we could keep up without speeding up. We all did the usual exercises: trot, circles in trot, cantering solo and all at the same time. As usual canter work on Astérix presented some difficulties. This time nothing much, he went beautifully on a right rein, but he was more resistant to cantering on a left lead. He took longer to start and a couple of times did it on the wrong lead. Still nothing compared we the problems we had just a couple of weeks ago!
The real highlight of tonight's lesson came after it had ended. There were a couple of students for one more lesson, André and a newer student. Francisco decided to give them a treat (specially the newer student) and he gave a simpler lesson, with André on Pipas and the other student (Nuno I think?) on Chérrie. The look on the student's face after a couple of minutes on a "serious" horse was worth a photo :-). A mixture of excitement with a hint of apprehension, that's how I would describe it! Due to the circumstances there was not much to the lesson, so Francisco brought Génio to the arena and worked him a bit. Now that was a treat for the rest of us in the audience. What a beauty! Génio is a Lusitano gelding from the Coudelaria Nacional, according to Francisco he had some bullfighting training. He is a sweet horse, when you approach his box he'll inspect your pockets for treats, if you stroke him in the neck he'll gently groom you back in the shoulder or arm. Tonight he had tried to steal my crop, which I usually keep upside down shoved into the half-chaps. Génio is 16.7hh - to the best of my impromptu measuring - making him slightly higher than Juby. White from ears to toes he is a bulky, muscular beast. And does he move! His trot was very expressive with a high action - a pleasure to the eyes! Francisco said it was a long time since he had last rode Génio, they were lacking in terms of connection, and so he didn't do much in the twenty minutes they rode. Still I could appreciate them doing piaffer several times. Génio seems to come sooo naturally to it! I've said it before and I reiterate - I have to work hard, study harder, save some money... and there will be a beautiful Lusitano sometime in my future! :D
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
I'm going to start this chronicle with a little background information about Portugal. In here Alentejanos (inhabitants of the Portuguese province Alentejo, just north of Algarve) are joked by everyone else as being very slow and lazy. The amount of jokes about Alentejanos is staggering and most people's image of the province is of a peasant sleeping the sesta in the shadow of a chaparral. There is some truth behind this stereotype - Alentejo is the driest, hottest area in Portugal, so life is (and most be) taken slower, the hottest part of the afternoon is good for nothing else but rest. This is seen by the more restless people in the cooler north as a sign of laziness. The reason for this digression is Lord, the horse I rode tonight. He is known in the school as an Alentejano Thoroughbred :-), he is such an impressively lazy horse. In fact that's not fair, instead he is impressively adept of taking advantage of every opportunity (including inexperienced students) to skip work. I can personally relate with that, but hey... I'm half Alentejano from my mother's side ;)!
I don't have with Lord that much difficulty in getting him forward, if I'm firm from the start, and let him know I expect him to do his fair share of work, he will be forward going enough the rest of the lesson. He isn't as evasive as the smarter Catraia or more nervous Astérix, but he is relentless in his obsession with following butt. I've seen students who are more experienced than me having difficulty getting him to go near the corners (and I've also seen him working beautifully under the instructor Jorge - so it isn't just a problem with Lord).
Other than the difficulty of getting him to go close to the corners, there was nothing remarkable about most of the lesson. I had to watch him closely during circles, as he tended to drift inside and, once there, it was harder to get us in our proper place. We did some canter work departing from a circle, there were three of us so not only did we have quite some room, but we each also did a lot of work. Lord was actually keen on cantering ("What are you doing? You're ruining your hard earned reputation!") and I had to check him several time as he started to canter on his own.
The innovation on this lesson came right at the end of it. We increased the space between us and spent some time on transitions. At first Lord (and the others) would take some time to respond to upwards transitions, but as we did more and more transitions, it felt like Lord was getting interested or amused with this change of routine and he started to respond without delay. We started by doing the simple transitions like halt to walk, walk to trot, trot to canter and the inverse ones, more than once. Then we did all the "two-steps" transitions: halt to trot, walk to canter, canter to walk and trot to halt. These were hardly perfect, with Lord doing a few paces at walk between halt and trot, or a couple of strides of trot between walk and canter. Even so the result was really good for my expectations, Lord was really into it - and so was I! To finish the lesson we did a halt to canter transition and a canter to halt one. I still find it hard to believe that this one worked (Ok, we did a couple of steps in walk or trot, but even so)! It was impressive: one moment we were stopped, the other we were cantering down the arena - with me wincing at every stride of it, as I managed to cramp my inside leg's lower calf muscle with the suddenness of the request, and it hurt every time I pressed it against Lord's side :eek:!
Friday, 16 February
Francisco has a new resident at the school! He has a new bay mare. She was a little nervous - understandably so - with the noise and movement around her, on the plus side she seems to get along with her neighbours. The mare is pretty and seems to be gentle (or maybe she is just a little scared?). With this new entrance Lord had to crash in with Ice for a couple of days, the two of them had to share a box and seemed to get along just fine in their "Batchelor's quarters".
With or without newcomers, lessons carry on as usual. Tonight's was a really crowded one. Because of some coincidences there was a record number of students - eight! In the small covered arena we were a bit in want of room, but as everyone had at least enough experience to keep the pace without lagging behind or putting pressure in front, we got along just fine. I was once more on Astérix, and once more we had some difficulty in keeping up with the horse in front, in this case Mefisto. I soon got the impression that Astérix was tired, he was slower than usual, without being disobedient. Accordingly I let him cut the corners a bit so we could keep up without speeding up. We all did the usual exercises: trot, circles in trot, cantering solo and all at the same time. As usual canter work on Astérix presented some difficulties. This time nothing much, he went beautifully on a right rein, but he was more resistant to cantering on a left lead. He took longer to start and a couple of times did it on the wrong lead. Still nothing compared we the problems we had just a couple of weeks ago!
The real highlight of tonight's lesson came after it had ended. There were a couple of students for one more lesson, André and a newer student. Francisco decided to give them a treat (specially the newer student) and he gave a simpler lesson, with André on Pipas and the other student (Nuno I think?) on Chérrie. The look on the student's face after a couple of minutes on a "serious" horse was worth a photo :-). A mixture of excitement with a hint of apprehension, that's how I would describe it! Due to the circumstances there was not much to the lesson, so Francisco brought Génio to the arena and worked him a bit. Now that was a treat for the rest of us in the audience. What a beauty! Génio is a Lusitano gelding from the Coudelaria Nacional, according to Francisco he had some bullfighting training. He is a sweet horse, when you approach his box he'll inspect your pockets for treats, if you stroke him in the neck he'll gently groom you back in the shoulder or arm. Tonight he had tried to steal my crop, which I usually keep upside down shoved into the half-chaps. Génio is 16.7hh - to the best of my impromptu measuring - making him slightly higher than Juby. White from ears to toes he is a bulky, muscular beast. And does he move! His trot was very expressive with a high action - a pleasure to the eyes! Francisco said it was a long time since he had last rode Génio, they were lacking in terms of connection, and so he didn't do much in the twenty minutes they rode. Still I could appreciate them doing piaffer several times. Génio seems to come sooo naturally to it! I've said it before and I reiterate - I have to work hard, study harder, save some money... and there will be a beautiful Lusitano sometime in my future! :D
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal