(“Why do they end up clinging together like a ball of lint?”)
The Warm Up arena at a show can be a happenin’ place—a place where all the dramas of life play out before you on the small stage. So here: some advice for those who venture within. Be careful—at times there be dragons.
Let’s start with responsibility—if you can steer, you’re supposed to be more generous, more self aware than those who cannot. If you’re a Princess, you get no dispensation. Make your tempis around the helpless novice riders, not through them!
And if you’re walking, whether you’re going to do PSG or Intro, for God’s sake, get off the track!
On the other hand, from a selfish personal standpoint, I’ve found that the best way to have freedom to school at your pleasure in the Warm Up is to behave the way Boston drivers typically do on the Southeast Expressway, namely to act dangerously unpredictable, scaring everyone else into giving you as much space as possible. On the highway it means, for instance, using your left turn signal and veering sharply right. Utterly beyond a rational person’s expectation. The only problem with this approach is that it may be equally beyond your horse’s ability to comprehend. Oh, well, skip that idea.
In an arena filled with adult amateurs, why do they end up clinging together like a ball of lint? Six riders all in the same corner? It’s a big space. Use it!
Part of the problem can be blamed on Radio Shack and those damn walkie talkies. I appreciate the notion of decorum and golf commentator-like whispered tones, but one downside to them is that each student retreats into a self-oriented cocoon with little regard for anyone or thing outside her sphere. Programmed to follow her coach’s orders, the rider, Titanically plows along, oblivious to whatever icebergs other coaches are unwittingly throwing in her path. One advantage of the old aural system of coaching aloud was that since each trainer could hear what the others were saying, each could steer his students into uncontested zones, free of hazards and hindrances.
On the bright side, the prevalence of techie devices spares the rest of us from the guy on the sideline who, instead of actually coaching, insists on shouting arcane bits of dressage philosophy so the rest of us will acknowledge his brilliance. I prefer to be a Minimalist. If your student doesn’t understand the heavy stuff by now, trying to flood them with it moments before their test isn’t going to do them any good.
I appreciated one kid’s approach to TMI which I observed at a wintertime Florida show. An Advanced Young Rider was being prepped for her test by not one but by both of her parents—well known professionals. Each was wearing a headset and standing at opposite ends of the schooling ring. North end: Dad’s advice. South end: Mom’s. Being overwhelmed with their input, the child very discreetly took her reins in one hand and slipped the switch on her belt to OFF. Problem solved!
Many times I see examples of good dressage citizenship and helpfulness among warm up riders. Once I was on an especially obnoxious thoroughbred trying to get him ready for his first Training Level test. As he tried a sudden, uncontrolled dash for the exit, another professional on a massive warmblood blocked his path and cheerfully offered, “It’s OK. If you have to, run him into me!”
Yes, lots of things transpire in that space which we can’t predict. At one show one of my riders was nervously preparing her upper level schoolmaster to do a Second Level test. As her ride time neared, I said, “I have to go read a test for someone. Hang loose for a few minutes. I’ll be right back, and then we’ll dust off your boots, and you’ll be set to go in.” Shortly thereafter, I came back around the corner to find her in the middle of the warm up piaffing. “Ah, no,” I sighed aloud. “Why is she doing that?”
“Come over here,” I called as quietly as I could.
“I’m trying to,” she moaned. “He keeps doing this instead!”
So, all in all, what’s the best advice I can offer for warm ups? As I herded one novice in the gate, another professional I knew on a very elegant horse rode past. I patted my rider’s knee and loud enough so that the other could hear, suggested “Just follow the Danish chick and do what she does . . .”