Kirkcarrion Highland Ponies
In March 2000 I attended two single days out of 2x4 day clinics run by Mark Rashid. For the first clinic, I attended Day 1 which, starting at 8am, had a half hour introductory talk in which Mark introduced himself and gave a summary of what he intended to do over the 4 days. As I was only able to attend the one day, I then went back the following weekend to attend day 3 of a second clinic, where work was well under way on a different set of participants and their ponies/horses, some of which were known to me, where the first lot were all people I'd never met.
This, I thought, would be a useful overview of various stages of various "cases" presented to Mark, and it did indeed prove enlightening. I regret I was not able to see a whole 4 day clinic progress from beginning to end, but the range of horses/ponies and owners over the 2 clinics proved very interesting.
Without going into the detail of every participant and blow by blow accounts of the days work I witnessed, I shall summarise by saying that from 8am until 7pm I sat fascinated on a hard chair or standing up, in a bitterly cold indoor school with clouds of dust being raised, and was surprised how quickly the day passed. Each day Mark did individual sessions with 7 participants, most of whom had booked in for either 2 or all 4 of the days of that clinic. Virtually every session ran over the allotted hour, as Mark said "it takes as long as it takes" and while he was always ready to stop on a good note, he was equally happy to continue working until the horse was ready to give that good note. One or two appeared ready to leave but blotted the copybook on the way out, and were promptly brought back in (and out) until the required behaviour was understood and demonstrated.
I can honestly say that I was impressed with the way Mark worked with both horse and rider/handler - in some cases I think I'd have found the horse easier to work with than the person (!) but Mark was amazingly patient and reinforced every positive move by either half of the partnership, to good effect.
The cost of attending with a pony, combined with the necessity of making arrangements for care of the rest while I was away for 4 days, may mean that I cannot manage to actually do a clinic with Mark myself, but I'm hoping to manage at least a 2 day the next time he is over in Scotland. I have to say that the very idea of riding in public, let alone under a microscope and in front of an audience, terrifies me. I know I'm not a good rider and that most of the problems I experience in riding Aidan are my problems, not his. But I felt at the end of both those days that I really wanted to be taking part, so you never know...
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E-mail: a.douglas@dundee.ac.uk
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Copyright ©A Douglas 1997 |