Evolution of a Horse Painting: Part 2

Merlyn ( in progress painting) a.m.cairns 2011
www.equineartportraits.com

I am at the easel this morning working working on my Merlyn painting, in light of some very high, gusty winds having made their way across the pond to our shores. It is a mostly puffed out version of one of the hurricanes that have been wreaking havoc in North America, but so far the only impact for me is no riding Merlyn today, as I am far too much of a fearty to get on board in wild and wet weather. We will probably have a few trees down later in the day, I would think.

So I am back at the house, listening to music and the howling wind and making good progress. It is coming together quicker than my previous paintings, so either I am getting more confident or is it just much easier when you know the horse well. You can kind of see his expression and very inch that you have groomed and groomed almost without of it without looking too hard at the photo....it frees me up a bit, very relaxing too.

I went along to the Braeface jumping yesterday, but Alison had opted out of taking part on Merlyn. She had around a million other things to do and knew too well that the round of jumping plus the prep and waiting around wipe out most of the day and leave her much too exhausted to tackle pressing non horsey matters.

All the same she and I popped along for a look to watch the some jumping. Super cute ponies (and kids) and extremely confident little riders, some as young as six getting ditched at a jump and bravely getting back on (with a bit of parental coercion, it must be said!). The event was vary laid back and fun rather than the seriously competitive with an audience of just the riders and families mostly. I was surprised to see that 'grown up' jumping started at just forty centimetres or sixteen inches to my American friends. You know that's not very high, I have started to think I would like to give it a go sometime.

I have never jumped a course or take part in any horsey events and I had some serious doubt about my ability to remember a jump course, but Ali assured me its not so hard,  that the jumps are set up so that he next jump is usually the easiest to get to. We walked the kids course so that I could see how it worked - you know I have a lousy memory for names, sequences and the like but my sense of direction and visual memory is not so bad and I think I could cope with eight jumps, maybe a few more.  The next event is in a couple of months so if I can get a in few jumping lessons on him, I might just be up for giving it a go.

Ali says the best thing about jumping Merlyn is he is dead honest.....I think I might call my painting that.

You can see it in his face, I hope.

A right good blether while you jump....

Does jumping make you nervous? Last night I had a jumping lesson, which I haven't had in a while. It started with a plea of 'I'm a little bit nervous' and ended with a whoop of 'That was brilliant, I can't believe I did that!' 

So I now know the answer....the cure all for eradicating jumping nerves. It's a very Scottish cure, a specialist riding technique which we call blethering.

It may be a uniquely Hazelden technique, as expertly practised by owner / instructor Rob, who can (and I am sure he wouldn't mind that I say so) blether for Scotland. It starts before he gives you a leg up, and doesn't stop for the full hour.

Our collective group waffle last night covered all sorts of inane chatter .....holidays, T in the Park, how much it costs to park your car at T in the Park, what might happen if you didn't pay the parking fee, the horrors of accidentally shutting your kids fingers in car doors, the horrors of accidentally shutting the boot on your dad's head, forthcoming weddings, drinking too much, hangovers, pakora, mushroom pakora, loathing of fish pakora, and so on.....

Jumps are punctuation, the focus is the utterly mindless chit chat.

Blethering in order to be effective in this way must absolutely not be about riding, although you can pepper your blethering with a generous sprinkling of ' heels down' or 'just hold him a bit there' or even 'three, two, one' on the approach to the jump. You can even follow up after jumping with post jump corrections, as long as you don't let it interrupt the very arbitrary flow of the conversation. I doubt the BHS gives any certification in this particular skill, but in terms of the confidence that distraction can bestow on the rider, I think they should.

While blethering you can easily jump up to 40 times almost without noticing you have. In no time at all I was jumping 70cm jumps 3 in a row, and noticed that not only was my mouth no longer dry, but I was loving it and on a complete high!

The footage was of Ice, who I rode last night...not my video, not me riding, although looks about the same height and I am pretty positive that Sarah has benefited from this little known technique. I'll leave you with some more of Ice jumping...my head is still right there, another of Sarah's clips helps me hang onto the moment a while longer!

I will miss my Hazelden lessons for the next few weeks, but when I come back, it will be for a blether and a jump, that is for sure.

Riding night....Arnie

It was riding night tonight, and I was on Arnie....a low key affair, all flatwork, no jumping after a couple of the horses were a bit too full of beans.  Arnie was going really well, a bit quicker off the mark than usual and good on the leg yeilding.

I think somebody threw and extra handful of oats in their feed.... Ah well, will campain hard for a little jump course next week!