5 Reasons to Love Stall Cleaning

1. It’s the best way to gauge your horses’ health daily. No, really! If you’re familiar with your horses’ daily habits you’ll know very quickly when they’re feeling even the slightest bit off! From how their manure looks normally (and if they’re normally neat or messy in their stall), to knowing if they’re a fast eater that normally cleans up their hay or if they tend to take their time, plus all sorts of other types of behaviour they exhibit in their stall, if you’re in there every morning you’ll be the first to know when something is just not quite right. I have first-hand experience with this. Last winter I noticed one of the horses was not acting quite normal in his stall that morning, and even though his manure and eating habits were normal, he ended up having a low-grade fever and we caught an upper respiratory infection before it became anything more than a mild runny nose!
2. It’s a great way to get yourself in the zone for the rest of the day. If stall cleaning is part of your normal morning routine I find it’s a nice way to get in the groove, so to speak, and start the day off in a good rhythm. I generally don’t clean stalls daily, but when I do it regularly for a prolonged period of time I find myself looking forward to the quiet time in the morning with just myself and the horses before the day gets busy. It’s usually when I plan how I want my day to go and think about what I want to focus on in each of my rides.
3. If you’re not a morning person, it’s vital time needed for the caffeine to kick in. You’ve probably seen those mugs, “If you’re not coffee, I’m not interested in talking to you.” Not going to lie, I’m a bit like that in the morning. I need my caffeine kick and cleaning stalls gives the coffee time to work its magic in the morning! By the time the clients arrive or my boss comes down to the barn, I’m in a much better mood!
4. Trust me, cleaning stalls can actually be fun! I’m serious! In an industry that doesn’t involve a lot of instant gratification, there’s nothing I find more pleasing than stepping out of a freshly cleaned stall. It’s very satisfying!
5. There’s rarely a better time to give your horse a little bit of loving. Aside from grooming, spending time in the stall cleaning while your horse is munching hay is a good way to get a little extra time together. I find it especially helpful when we get a new horse in the barn that’s maybe a little nervous or unsure around new people because I can just do my thing, cleaning the stall, and after a few days of the routine, the new horse will be more comfortable and start showing a little more personality.

 

What’s your favorite barn chore? Let me know in the comments below! And as always, thanks for reading! Don’t forget to check me out on Twitter & Instagram!

Symposium Wrap-Up

Over the weekend I had the privilege to be able to be a demo rider for a dressage symposium with Volker Brommann. The theme of the symposium was “harmonizing with your horse” and I found it to be supremely educational and overall very enjoyable as well.

Our client, Connie, on the grey mare. Myself on LeMac.

Volker Brommann is a German-born dressage rider who is now based in California. He was definitely not what I expected from a German instructor (I’ve had several experiences with others already) but I was pleasantly surprised and very happy with his teaching style. He is firm, but passionate and is also a little more quiet spoken than some other German instructors I’ve worked with. He was also VERY good at giving semi-private lessons and I never felt that he gave more attention to one of the riders over the other.

After the first day he seemed to have quickly assessed what sort of approach each horse needed and I felt like he had a lot of great input, from the Intro/Training level horses all the way to those working on the Grand Prix movements.

One of Volker’s main focuses was developing and maintaining a quality rhythm in each gait. I really enjoyed working on this as sometimes we tend to get too caught up in making movements happen and we start to lose the quality of the horse’s gaits within the movement.

I rode LeMac, a 5-year-old Oldenburg gelding that I’ve been working with for the past year. This spring was his first season showing and he was highly successful at Training level, with scores up to 75%. He will be making his 1^st level debut this fall. Though he is only going to be showing 1^st level, LeMac is working 2^nd and 3^rd level at home.

The first day Volker really had me working on pushing him more honestly into the connection. Because he’s young he sometimes is a little insecure in the connection and Volker really wanted me to focus on working him a little more forward than normal and staying extremely light in the hand so that he would realize I would not hold him in the contact. We also interspersed a lot of stretch work in between working other exercises. We did some gentle leg yields on easy angles to teach LeMac to continue his forward, steady rhythm in the lateral work instead of getting stuck in the lateral work. He’s a horse that would rather go more sideways than forwards, so Volker stressed the importance of teaching him to maintain the proper forward energy in the lateral work. Because we focused so much on the trot work, Volker only had me do a little bit of canter the first day. LeMac’s canter is, to put it mildly, huge. It’s very uphill and comfortable, but he has a massive stride and because he is so young he’s not strong enough to really bring himself together yet. Volker was adamant about not putting too much pressure on LeMac to shorten the canter yet. He said with a horse like him, that has such a naturally HUGE stride, putting too much pressure on them too early in the canter work can ruin the quality of the canter and cause a lot of tension later down the road, which is not easy to undo.

The second day we did a little more in the canter and worked on maintaining a consistent rhythm in the 1^st level counter canter work as well as some forward and back in the canter. We also continued the shallow lateral work from the first day.

The third day we did a little bit more in terms of difficulty. Because LeMac is familiar with 2^nd & 3^rd level work we worked on some more intense lateral work in the trot. LeMac was much better in the connection by the third day and was also much more steady in his rhythm as well. We started with some travers on a circle, working from quarter-line to quarter-line in travers, then allowing him to go forward and straighter on the circle, then back to travers, etc. Once he had done is a few times, we then did a 10m circle in the corner, to shoulder-in on the track, then half-pass to the center line. Then we would change direction in a medium trot across the diagonal and repeat the exercise to the opposite direction. We also did an exercise where we did a 10m circle in the corner, went down the centerline, shoulder-fore, then half-pass to the end of the arena. The third half-pass exercise was down centerline, half-pass to E (or B), 10m circle, then half-pass back to the centerline.

For the canter work, we focused mostly on canter-walk and walk-canter. For LeMac the canter-walk and walk-canter transitions are especially important because they really help him get stronger on the hind leg, which will help him eventually be able to more easily come back in the canter and shorten his stride. Volker was really chomping at the bit to work on the flying change a bit as well, but we both decided that the canter-walk and walk-canter needs to be a bit stronger first. When he can really perfect those consistently, he’ll be ready to go back to the flying change. He does have a green change, but it’s inconsistent and frankly he’s just not strong enough yet to work it consistently.

The experience of riding with Volker Brommann was really wonderful and I definitely look forward to opportunities to ride with him again the future. My boss and I were both talking about possibly getting him to come to our farm for a private clinic, if we can drum up enough interest. If not, I’m sure he’ll be back in our area sometime in the next 6 months! He apparently comes to Texas for clinics quite often!