Michelle and Eastern Star Capone in the outdoor Masterclass at Equitana with Dirk Schrade
An Eventful Life blogger Michelle Robson had a busy time while Dirk Schrade was in the country, participating in not only the jumping masterclasses at the Australian International 3 Day Event but also at Equitana.
Michelle, who worked for many years as head girl at Bimbadeen Park for Shane Rose and is now based at Wallaby Hill, rode Eastern Star Capone, a nine year old Hanoverian warmblood by Contendro I. Michelle has owned Capone for three years and in that time has taken him from never having jumped a fence to 1* level and she hopes that together they will compete at 4* in the future. Like most talented horses Capone has his quirks and he can be quite hot so participating in the masterclasses was a good chance for him to be exposed to a lot of atmosphere and plenty of strange surroundings. Michelle never lost her trademark smile, even when things went a little pear shaped as they can do in training sessions, and Capone no doubt would have learned a lot from the whole experience over the few weeks.
The very small education arena at Equitana where Dirk conducted an indoor jumping training session with Michelle and Rachael Lee meant that he had to come up with some tight turning exercises. However, as he pointed out, this was a good exercise for Capone as he has so much power that working on straight lines enables him at times to run away.
“To me this is a very good exercise for this horse” says Dirk “You just keep playing with the exercise until the horse is really relaxed....... try not to use too much hand, just guide him softly ..... don’t try to find a distance, just use the line and see what happens ........”
And if the horse breaks on the line “it doesn’t matter, just do a circle and do it once more”
This is how Michelle and Capone coped with the exercise in the small arena – could be a good one to try at home!
