Hello everyone, gosh it’s been a little while since my last post but Georgie and I have been rather busy. I have been busy organising my first clinic now that I am officially a Retraining of Racehorses coordinator for the East Anglian region, beside my good friend Chantal. And this is what today’s blog post is going to be about!
As I am sure many of my friends and followers will know, I cannot have my own horse right now, it’s been like that for many years but finances just will not allow it and with having a passion for ex racehorses since I got back into equestrianism again years ago as well as having some free time when not working or helping Georgie I decided I’d like to volunteer that time to the ROR.
So here we are, just a couple of days after hosting the first clinic I’ve organised and from feedback it seemed like it went down a treat! Sunday was really very cold with wind being blown down from the north it was approximately 4/5 degrees all day and with high winds was bitterly cold! Never the less it was sunny and without rain so that is a plus if you ask me and everyone came out and braved the cold for a wonderful lesson with the talented Delphine Tay. I met Delphine through a mutual friend at the polo club and when Georgie started having lessons with her it was apparent how flexible and understanding she was as a coach so once I started as coordinator was keen to use her for training.
Booking a trainer to have lessons with is always hard, as some like the stern ‘shout at the rider’ instructors while others like a softer gentler approach when being taught and Delphine is wonderful in that she installs confidence in her riders and their horses and if mistakes are made uses them as not a negative but a way of teaching what needs to be done differently in order to not make that mistake next attempt. She is also great and listening and understand what it is you’d like to get out of a lesson and what your goals are in order to tailor the lesson to what you’re wanting to learn. That was the exact reason why Georgie started training with Delphine as we had lessons with a trainer who refused to allow Georgie to go up in height despite clear progression!
On Sunday we had a great variety of horse and rider ability; with some being novice riders or riders who excel in dressage but don’t often jump and need confidence and direction. We had young horses all the way up to older experienced horses but at the start of each session Delphine had everyone go over cross poles and a small cross pole to just have a quick assessment of the horse and riders understanding of strides and jumping etc which I think is great no matter the horse!
Feedback has been that those participating would like another lesson, to which I am trying to sort out now so that’s really encouraging and I thoroughly enjoyed organising the clinic and spending the day watching the horse and riders progression in their lesson, despite being absolutely frozen!
Anyway, I am super excited to be joining the Retraining of Racehorse team and encouraging East Anglia ROR riders and horses to come to events and help them progress, as I find it very rewarding
Sophie x
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