Centaur Bio-mechanics Lesson

Yesterday we had a lovely sunny morning which was perfect to watch Georgie have a lesson with Russell Guire from Centaur Biomechanics over at Fenning Farm in Ely

We couldn't have asked for better weather! Gorgeous blue skies, nice cooling breeze, and not too hot! Since Sunday we've been leaving B out in the field at night and it seems to be working. He was very chilled... See?

The clinic was very kindly organised by our Retraining of Racehorses Eastern Region representative Colleen Salmon with some subsidy from ROR which was very kind of them! 

The aim of the lesson was to watch the rider ride naturally and watch for any quirks, problems or mistakes that they make and then analyse them. The rider is required to wear a black jacket, which has green lines down the spine, shoulder blades, the length of the arms, across the collar bones and down the sternum. The use of these lines is to look if any part of the torso is wonky, off balance, weaker etc and watch it back through footage taken on a slow motion camera.

Some white motion capture dots were placed on the back of the saddle and at the very top of the horses tail to capture the straightness of the riders position.

By the rider having the ability to watch themselves back, up close and in slow motion it makes it really easy to see the problem(s) that they have and then spend the latter half of the lesson working on correcting it.

As mentioned in my blog post from Sunday, Georgie has a problem with her right shoulder. It is wonky and means she does not sit straight in her position. Her strong shoulder is pushed forward from muscle memory and 'leads' over the weaker left shoulder. Due to this Georgie also has been found to sit much more right on Beanie, rather than central.

A side effect of this stronger right shoulder problem is that is causes Georgie to look into her inside when riding, instead of looking straight and in the direction she is going. This is a lot more prominent when schooling in circles as you'll see from the videos.
It's not a huge problem, it does not drastically affect Beanie's going and performance, but for a small problem it does cause some little knock on effects that Russell pointed out to us. 

Once this shoulder issue is sorted and Georgie stops her right shoulder muscles from being stronger than the other, all the little things will fix themselves.

Once the analytics part of the lesson was completed it came to Russell giving Georgie a lesson and helping her work on different aspects of her riding. 
Beanie is quite behind the leg when it comes to schooling. Georgie will agree that Beanie is a bit of a lazy horse somewhat and will be a bit dead to the leg at times. Russell picked up on this and helped Georgie work on getting him moving forward and without having to continually be kicking him on. As you can see B is a little naughty, even if you tap him ever so slightly with the whip to remind him, he bucks. Not big, but he protests to actually have to work harder! He was however very impressed with Beanie's self carriage while schooling. Since we've had Beanie G has worked really hard to get him off the forehand and leaning on her all the time. I think that will have come from building up Beanie's back and neck muscles over time with lot's of schooling and lunging, thus allowing him to carry himself.

B has also really gained strength all over and with this it allows him to really use his hocks and have a nice powerful gaits which today really showed through and was impressive to look at. I know I am bias but it was commented on quite a lot and I think Georgie should be really proud of that!

As well as working on Beanie, Russell helped Georgie work on correcting her position while schooling and therefore creating a much more balanced picture overall. As you can hear from the video Russell states to Georgie about flashlight and chair. He used these example that when Georgie moves, she should invision a flashlight on her tummy and that she should move her whole torso, not just her head to the direction she'd like to go. So with turning she needs to be more fluid in her turns and turn with Beanie, rather than just moving her head. With that it will encourage Beanie to move around Georgie's inside leg and round off. As he says, Beanie needs to be a bit more round in his turns.

We went away from the lesson seriously impressed with both how Beanie and Georgie got on, but also how quickly and how well Russell picked up on Georgie's faults, he has a very keen eye for what is correct in riding. He has a wealth of knowledge which really shows through, no wonder Centaur Biomechanics work with Team GB! We also noticed and appreciated just how much Russell understood retrained racehorses. A lot of instructors either don't expect much from an ex racehorse or simply do not get that they are made, act and work completely differently to a warm blood dressage horse specifically bred for dressage. 
Russell commented on just how much thoroughbreds are a really underrated breed and that they, when retrained properly fit extremely well into their new careers and are extremely versatile.  
Colleen is looking to organise some more of these lessons through her Speech Partnership page so do join the group and mention that you'd like to try a lesson.  

Georgie is now going to put steps into action to adjust her muscle faults. Russell recommended seeing a chiropractor to check there isn't an injury to Georgie's shoulder, and also help with movement and exercises which will lengthen the shortened muscle, allowing it to line up with her left shoulder. 

I must say that I am very proud of Georgie, she does incredibly well with the time and resources available to her. We don't have our own school and have to borrow one, most of G&B's schooling is while out hacking, or lunging in the field. She also does not have regular lessons, in fact I cannot remember the last time she had a proper lesson from someone with a lot more knowledge than our Mum and I. 

I hope this post and the videos helped you and if you have the opportunity to have a lesson with Russell and Centaur Biomechanics, snap it up quick!

Over and Out, Sophie x