INTRODUCTION

360 Equestrian

When I started to think about a name for my website, I thought of what I wanted to offer with regard to equestrian services. ​

Over the many years I have been involved with horses both training and competitively in eventing, dressage and show jumping, it has become apparent to me that in order to ride your horse well, you need to be taking a more holistic view than simply ‘kicking on’ or ‘give it a smack’ as used to be believed was the answer to most questions (unfortunately some still believe this!). 

The catalyst for my interest was an amazing lesson I had many years ago, that I still recall as a turning point in my dressage career.  My horse at the time was very stiff and resistant which hadn’t changed even though I had had many lessons with numerous trainers over my first few years with him.  This particular trainer worked on relaxing the horse before we moved on to anything else.  This included much effort by us both sorting out things that needed to change in order to get the desired relaxation.  The resulting work (once relaxation had eventually been achieved to her satisfaction) was so different to his normal way of going that this changed my whole outlook on what I wanted to achieve from lessons going forward.  Unfortunately that trainer was based too far away for me to continue with her permanently so I subsequently spent many wasted hours of lessons after that with various trainers knowing that I wasn’t achieving what the horse was capable of. 

On that basis, I decided to gain my own broader knowledge in order to answer the questions I was asking myself.  This mainly started out with different forms of training such as working with poles and gymnastic exercises but once I realised that this wasn’t enough, I set about broadening my knowledge yet again to include the ways of going of the horse, the effects of tack and bitting, the differing styles of riding and the straightness of both horse and rider (both physical and trained) and what difference the confidence and knowledge of the rider had on the horse.  I spent many hours on a mechanical horse working on my own straightness which had a tremendous impact on my horse’s way of going.  All in all, I have found that the more information I have gained, not just about riding but about everything that impacts on my horses and myself, I have realised that it’s not only about the riding, but the whole picture (hence 360).

My recent training has been through British Dressage and I have been very impressed that they, their judges  and their trainers of choice are now very focused on the scales of training which start with rhythm, followed by suppleness, contact, engagement, straightness and collection.  

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If you partake of any training with British Dressage it becomes apparent that relaxation is of paramount importance to attain the first two steps on the scales, i.e rhythm and suppleness.  All their trainers and judges are highly attuned to seeking ways to achieve relaxation as a first step no matter what exercises they are undertaking.  I was party to a very interesting training session recently when two very well-known trainers (Michael Eilberg and Chris Bartle) worked with various levels of dressage riders and show jumpers.  The exercises they used focused on relaxation as a first step which then automatically promoted rhythm and suppleness before they made any attempt to go further up the scales to contact and engagement.  It may appear very basic, but relaxation, rhythm and suppleness are often ignored when you have a lesson because trainers are anxious that you feel you have ‘achieved’ something that you can take away with you each time to make it worth the money you have invested, often without looking at the longer term training needs of both the horse and the rider.​​​​

My own view is that riders are in this for the long haul and yes of course we all like to see instant success, but often this has no real foundations to fall back on.  Given what horses are all about, the likelihood is that something will happen and you will discover that without that hard work of laying down those foundations, confidence for both horse and rider is severely tested when things inevitably go wrong.

My aim is to offer more than just an individual lesson, to help you work your way through any/all areas of concern in order to lay down those solid foundations so we can build an amazing partnership between you and your horse in order that you can make the progress to whatever you want to achieve, albeit it to hack together in the woods or to compete together. 

Sometimes we can be intimidated by the thoughts of a lesson and the fact that somehow we aren’t a ‘good enough’ rider to warrant a lesson from a really good instructor and ‘why would they want to teach me’, but every one of us would benefit from having a mentor to answer those little worries, help with those issues we all encounter and be a positive influence when times are tough or perhaps confidence is a little low.  This interaction would all be part of my teaching, a phone call when needed to back up any training, help and advice as necessary - it’s all part of my holistic approach and I would hope that you will never feel that you are on your own.  We can work on what YOU want from each session rather than what you would normally be ‘taught’.  Obviously I can do that as well but I would like to think that we would be working together towards where you want to get to rather than following what everyone else does!