The 2009 Redbud Spectacular saw many of the nation’s top Youth, Amateur and Open competitors. As exhibitors made preparations for upcoming World Shows to be held at the same facility in Oklahoma City, most of the classes showed the same depth expected at the World Show level. In order to differentiate the tough competition, Judges often stepped up their degree of difficulty in pattern choices. One particularly challenging pattern was the Horsemanship, designed by one of the show’s judges, Robin Frid, specifically for the event. Not only did Frid’s Redbud Horsemanship pattern help create some separation between the exhibitors, but both judges felt it was a great preparation pattern for upcoming Congress and World Show competition where exhibitors can expect the same degree of difficulty.
Robin sat down with GoHorseShow.com to explain the pattern in more detail and talk through each of the elements. What was Robin looking for when he judged it? What did he see? What separated the top of the pack from the bottom? What can exhibitors do to prepare for this level of pattern? Find out in this GoHorseShow.com exclusive interview.
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Robin, you designed this pattern specifically to use at the Redbud and it was one of the more challenging patterns we have seen. Tell us about the level of difficulty.
This is a lot of pattern. There is a lot of control with it but it’s a quick pattern too. It rides quicker than you think. What I like is that it was really challenging, but for something like the Redbud, we need a lot of challenge. We need to think of those stronger shows and step up the patterns to reflect that. I know darn well that there are only a couple of shows left for the youth kids before they go to Youth World and they want the challenge. I think the riders want to be challenged and the trainers want them to be challenged. The amateurs don’t have many major horse shows left before they start going to the Congress and the World Show and they need to have that style of pattern to work on as well.
The other thing that is challenging is the fact that we only had one cone, the start cone. This leaves the pattern open to the rider to determine how they want to ride this pattern and where they want to go. The way the pattern was drawn helped define the sizes of the maneuvers but still they could make it the size they wanted.
So take us through the pattern one element at a time.
Element #1
I designed the pattern to where the rider started backwards at the cone because if the judge positions themselves at the correct angle, which we did, you can really see the rider’s legs facing backwards. This allows the judge to really see what the rider does with their leg and what they do with their toe without their stirrup. Right from the get-go the judge can look at the rider and tell if they’re starting with a strong rider.
The first element is back six steps into a 585 degree pivot to the left. In the back, I’m looking to see if the rider has to use their spur to get their horse to back up or if they will back up off a soft cue. So there’s a lot you can see right off the top. The pivot is supposed to have forward motion so if they try to rush into it the horse is going to get jammed up before it starts to turn. After the pivot they extend the trot to the center of the pattern. For most horses it is easier to lope out of the pivot than long trot out of it so off the top we have established this is a very hard pattern.
Element #2
The next maneuver is to break down to the walk from the extended trot which is another very hard transition. Then we had them pick up their stirrups. Some found them softly and others had to hunt for them. From a spectator’s point-of-view, people couldn’t see the five or six riders who couldn’t get their stirrups because they weren’t in the right position to be able to see it. But from where the judges were sitting, we had a perfect view.
Then pick up the hand gallop and counter canter a circle to the right on the left lead. Controlling this maneuver was the biggest dilemma for most riders. We wanted them to be able to sit nice and square and control their horses. A lot of the riders were making their circle way too large or went way too far down the arena and couldn’t find their spot when they would come back through. It looked pretty clear to me in the drawing that when you circled around to the right and came back through and slowed down, you came through the same spot where you walk. Definitely a lot of riders had a hard time finding that spot.
Element #3
The pattern called to slow to a lope and continue a U shape to the left. When they came to their U-turn, many made them too big. The U-turn was really tight so you really had to have your ducks in a row to make that happen. Slowing the horse down, getting collected and then turned around the other direction is tough. And then you had to change leads and perform a square corner to the right. The pattern started fast and furious with a lot of challenge to it and at the end, you had to slow down and think and wait for the next corner to come on the right lead.
Element #4
The finish was pretty easy but you just had to be patient. From the right lead you have to wait for the half way point to break down to the jog and then wait again when you get back to the center of the arena. It’s a good way for the judges to really evaluate the riders. You have all of those fast maneuvers and then you slow down and there’s a lot of patience involved and if the horse wasn’t there with the rider or the rider wasn’t there for the horse, it was going to show up.
Element #5
From the jog they stop and perform a 1 ¾ turn to the right and then exit at the walk without hesitation. A lot of people were over aggressive here and would over spin. And then walking out at the end, I like the horse to be able to step right out of that and honestly just get out of the way. I like to exit them as quickly as possible and you can save a lot of time that way.
Wow, that’s a lot of pattern. Were the riders up to the challenge?
It was a great group of riders both the amateur and the youth. I think the amateurs rode the pattern a little better because they were able to watch the youth kids and kind of figure out where to go. As a whole, what I call the drawing, doing what they see on the piece of paper, the amateurs did better drawings as a whole.
Was it pretty easy to pick your winners?
On my card, I score on a 0-20 basis. Our top groupings…in the amateur I think I scored the winner 19 ½. She’s a great rider and she was on a green horse and she put it all together on that day. She was fast but not overly aggressive. She executed the pattern exactly where everything needed to be.
As far as the 14-18, I saw some patterns early on that I thought were the winner but when my eventual winner finished her pattern I thought “No doubt that is my winner”. She’s a beautiful rider and was 100% in unison with her horse. She went fast then slowed down hard. I want to see someone completely in unison and together with their horse all of the time. Both the 14-18 and Amateur winners I thought were outstanding and both backed it up on the rail. I would take them every day of the week. If my riders would do that, I would be very proud.
But a lot of people did a great job. In the 14-18 class, the 12th horse that I brought back scored a 17 ½. My winner scored a 20, my second and third were tied at 19 ½, and I had a bunch of 19, 18 ½, etc. That left it to the rail work and I separated my ties out on the rail.
How would you have prepared your customers for this pattern?
If I were preparing my kids or amateurs for this pattern, I would have really focused them on where they were going and then allow the speed to take care of itself. It would have worked a little bit better. Even at this level, people were really missing their lines. Our top groupings absolutely hit their lines and I was very impressed! I cover a lot of that in my video series.
So as a judge, you really place a ton of emphasis on hitting their lines?
I do. For me, that is huge. I want an aggressive rider 100 percent but I want an aggressive rider who can ride the lines that I drew on paper. That is very key for me. And also an aggressive rider who can handle being aggressive. I don’t want someone who can go out and go fast and slow down hard because their horse is good at that. I want them to do it because they can control their horse and their horse responds to their cues well. The ones that goes out and runs the fastest and slows down the hardest doesn’t really mean anything to me if they can’t ride it. I am huge on an attractive, correct pattern. That is definitely the way I teach. Sometimes that will get you beat because the one who goes in a little more aggressive might win that day but on the whole, the rider who is always consistently smart, form to function as they’re riding and doing the pattern as its drawn and adding aggression when you feel it. You know when you’ve got control of that horse and that’s what I want them to have.
What were some of the consistent weaknesses that you saw in the pattern?
The hand gallop counter canter ate a lot of them up. They didn’t get their horse square between their legs before they started steering and a bunch of horses jumped out of lead right there which is what I expected and exactly why I put that in there. I wanted to see them hold their horse in lead while they were going around. That was the biggest problem, no doubt.
The other problem I saw was the riders trying to go too fast. When you counter canter a circle like that, it is going to throw you all over the place and you have to focus on sitting centered in the saddle. When you counter canter and lean your body to the inside, it’s going to pull your right hip back excessively. I definitely saw that people were going too fast and they could no longer stay square with their body.
At this level, do riders tend to try to go too fast?
I don’t think they’re doing it because they’re unwise, I think they’re doing it because they’re trying to be aggressive. I’m all about “going for it” if it works. When the rider’s body gets thrown all over the place, that is not what horsemanship is about. Horsemanship is not about the person who goes the fastest. I think we sometimes make the mistake of forcing our riders to go fast and slow down excessively hard.
The horses in this class did not go too fast. When the riders asked them to slow down, they slowed down. There were riders who went excessively fast who did very well, but they also controlled it. In the youth class, some horses in the top-5 went very fast but they were between the reins and guided exactly where the rider asked them to go and the riders stayed square in the saddle. In the amateur, a couple of the riders in the top-5 went very very fast and stayed between the reins. I didn’t hurt them for going fast – not at all – I plussed them for it! They controlled it and that’s what I want to see.
You have a very in-depth horsemanship video that covers a lot of the elements that were addressed in this pattern. What can people take from your videos that they could apply to this pattern and other patterns they might face?
One of the biggest things that the video would help them with is really focusing on making their marks exactly where the drawings showed them. I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of doing the drawings which means doing exactly what they see on the piece of paper.
Also, a part of this pattern came directly from the pattern that we do on the video. I completely stole the part where they execute the U-turn in the end. The video explains exactly how to execute that maneuver. Another thing we address in the video is how to shape your circle correctly. I saw a lot of people that had problems shaping their circle. They would get too far down the arena before they started to turn.
Something else we address in the video is the correct way to shaping square corners as well as being patient. We cover collecting your horse, picking it up, cornering and then focusing on staying straight and not getting into a rush.
Click here for more information and to purchase Robin Frid’s video, “Horsemanship – A Road Map to Success”.
