For those of you who follow Ebony Park, you will know that Abe and I have been having fun with Grand Prix for over 2 years. Abe is the first horse that I have taken to the Grand Prix level, so we are both learning and growing in this new stage. It took 5 years of learning to have enough knowledge to get to the Grand Prix. Now that we are here, it seems like we need another 5 years to learn everything we need to learn to master this level, and do our best to perform!
When we started GP, we didn’t have … whatever! I still vividly remember competing on my birthday and all I kept saying I wanted was 15 – we got them on my birthday, then they disappeared again for 12 months! We had a kind of weird crazy trot that I called a piaffe, although the judges didn’t seem to call it that! There’s no half-pass to speak of – we just crossed the diagonal, and the entire test felt like we were cartoon characters at speed, running fast and out of control.
Keep going two years later – we have a few, sometimes a glitch, but we can correct that in sequence. The same with both of them, half the trot is half the walk, the canter … well, we can’t fix everything at the same time! Our pace is getting stronger every month and the piaffe has slowed down and sometimes even exceeds its pace. The pirouettes have always been amazing, and then it’s all the little dots that add up! The entry stop, the brake turn, the ride, the extensions, the transitions. The best thing is that the test is slow, I can think, I can prepare and Abe and I can talk and enjoy the test instead of stressing him by pulling him from one movement to another while he desperately tries to keep his legs doing what they need to. be doing.
Progress is slow, improving only 1-2% during 3-6 months of work. The half-pass gallop movement, multiplied by 2, will take between 9 and 12 months to go from 5-6.
When most people say to me wow, you are so lucky to get a horse for the Grand Prix, I think to myself so and … I am even luckier to be the type of person who never gives up, is committed to The constant and endless Improvement and I’m fine to work, finish last, get disappointed, cry myself to sleep, have all my goals and dreams stabbed to death, wake up the next day and come back.
If you win all the time, victory loses the feeling of victory … it becomes “normal”. What makes the victory so special is that it is so rare. For me, victory means nothing compared to the percentage. I always strive to beat, not the other competitors, but myself, our PB. Winning on a PB, that’s special, because it only happens, about 2% of the time !! But losing, disaster testing, I do it ALL the time! So when the win comes and the high percentage comes, it’s amazing! Not for winning, but because it is the reward of all the learning that he received in the losses. If I never have another victory again, I am upset not because I did not win, but because it is obvious that I have not learned anything from my losses, I am not improving, I am not growing and I am not winning. effective changes to obtain a different result.
So yeah, while it’s great to be in the paper with a win, I’m fully aware that it’s just a snapshot in time. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose spectacularly. Both are as significant and as insignificant as I choose. At the end of the day, it’s just me, a girl with a dream of riding a black stallion, who loves her horse with everything he has, and a Friesian stallion, who likes oatmeal, breeding and hanging out in the Prado, but he shares a bond with this girl and, although he thinks that everything is a little crazy, he does everything possible to please this girl. – The deep love, the deep connection, the deep relationship, through the good times and the bad, that I am privileged to share with Abe, that is victory. And that is every day.
So how do you get a Friesian to the Grand Prix?
Answer: Get on and ride, repeat 1000 times!
I don’t think there is a magic answer on how to train a horse from scratch to the Grand Prix. But I firmly believe that success leaves clues, so let’s look at some of the clues:
1. A burning ambition and passion.
I know a lot of people who ‘would like’ to participate in the Grand Prix. I like to sing, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be the next Lady Gaga! – and that’s probably a good thing! There is a world of difference between ‘like’ and ‘will’!
I have said that since I was 16 Will riding in the Grand Prix, not ‘it would be nice’, ‘I hope’, ‘I wish I could’. Simply pure and simple I WILL.
That just I think is one of the fundamentals that got me here.
So the question is: how much do you want it? Do you know you will get it? How do you know? What are you willing to sacrifice to get it?
2. Commitment and dedication to your trade.
So you have the desire, you have the will. But all that desire and all that will get you nowhere if you don’t have the skills. Riding is challenging. It is a kinetic sport, it can only be done well through unconscious competition, to get there you need to be prepared to be challenged. So, do the work, do the work, do the work, and when you’re tired of it, and you’ve had enough of it and you think you can’t do that anymore, do more work, more work, and more work.
Remember that nothing worthwhile was easy.
3. Love and connection with your horse
We all get into horse riding because we love horses. Do I at least hope you love them? I know that’s why I do it! When you have big goals, it can be easy to get carried away and obsessed with goals, reacting only to results; when I feel like I get like this, I always return it to my love for the horse. He leaves me on his back, he answers me, he takes me. I love and respect him very much and it is that love and respect that helps you overcome the highest levels.
You can never ride your horse like a machine it just doesn’t work so make sure you have a bond with your horse that you can build trust and that you can trust over the years to be there when you need it in a highest level. levels, because believe me, in a Grand Prix event, you need EVERYTHING you have!
