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It’s already been two weeks since my first Les Vogt clinic and I haven’t even given you guys my report. But it’s summer! I love summer! Horses and dust and sun and horses!

The clinic was 2 days. The first few hours of the first day, I was terrified. I normally ride alone or with one or two other riders, but mostly I’m alone. If I am with other riders, they’re riding English (unless it’s Jim). So, to be surrounded by other Western riders, in a huge arena, was SUPER intimidating. They had such beauuuutiful well-trained horses. And they could all ride so well. I felt really lucky though because there was a lady there who was at the last clinic (the one I watched) who recognized me and kinda took me under her wing. She kept checking on me and offering words of encouragement.

Since I’m normally alone, well, so is Leo. So I wondered how he would behave around all the other horses. He was an absolute angel for the entire clinic. It was almost as if he knew how important it was to me.

By the second day, I was filled with confidence and ready to try anything. I think that’s the best part about learning from Les; he has a way of making you focus on all the cool stuff you can learn instead of worrying about all the stuff you might do wrong. It’s ok to make mistakes in front of him because he shows you how to learn from it and do it correctly.

Biggest challenge for me was the turn-arounds. I really paid attention when watching the other riders. One rider had a horse that was turning like a top. It looked amazing and perfect to me, but Les and some of the other riders could see the mistake. It was the way the horse was placing one of it’s back hoofs at the start of the turn. He was stepping outside and not under himself. One wrong step!

For me, I was arcing Leo’s neck too much. Les said you’re only supposed to see the horse’s eyelash (inside eye). I was seeing a half of his face. Ha Ha. He also taught us how to correct two common errors in the turn-around: hips moving out and lazy or bad crossovers in the front. I’ll write about those soon.

He showed us how to do the run-downs for stops and how to work on horses that don’t commit to the stop. There was just so much. I learned so much! I have to write it all down! So that’s what I’ll do for the next week is blog about each topic of new knowledge that I got out of the clinic.

By the way, I’m now clinically addicted to clinics. I’m going again in August and maybe in September. Now I just have to figure out how to pay for it!

Everyone seemed so happy with the clinic. I made a bunch of new friends. And by the way, Leo and I rocked the turn on the forehand!