My Equine and Business Management Journey- Part 2

Holly here! This is my second instalment in to my Equine journey. During my Equine Studies and Business Management course at Writtle I was able to choose whether to study Stud or Equitation. I chose Equitation and toughly enjoyed it. We were taught about the theory of riding then at Writtle I had the opportunity to work as part of a team to further develop one of the horses and on a separate occasion, develop a rider.

Whilst the training of the rider, we created lesson plans for our fellow class mates and over a few weeks worked together to develop the position and communication with the horse. We were then assessed on our ability to teach the rider a lesson. Although this was very nerve racking, it helped me to develop my communication skills, which I was probably somewhat lacking.

Working as a team to develop a horse was probably my favourite part of the module. Over a five week period our group of four worked together to improve our horses. Our horse was called Silver, she was very sweet when on the ground but had a tendency to rush at fences and needed to develop her lateral flexion. Lateral flexion is the bending of a horses body to the left and right, for instance when working on a circle, we wanted Silvers body to follow the shape of the circle. Some weeks we struggled to improve Silver, however by the end of our five week period we were able to jump a course of small fences with a greater amount of control and flexion.

 

 Holly Morley

Third Year Equine Studies and Business Management Student