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- Zazou Hoffman at the 2010 George Morris Horsemastership Training Session
- Photo by Winter Hoffman
Editor's note: Zazou Hoffman, winner of the 2009 ASPCA Maclay National Championships, is one of 10 top junior riders invited to participate in the fourth annual George Morris Horsemastership Training Session, being held January 5-9, 2010, in the International Ring of the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Fla (view public schedule). Zazou, from Santa Monica, Calif., is writing an online diary this week for PracticalHorsemanMag.com and EquiSearch.com.
Day 1, Tuesday, January 5, 2010
People have to get a better understanding of contact. This is what goes into training a jumper--this is the main theme of the flatwork session with Mr. George Morris (GM).
GM as beat poet a la Ginsberg or Kerouac--yes, I know who they are from the beat photo show that my dad curated with Allen Ginsberg. The GM mantra: "Give, take, discipline, take, give, repeat, don't drop your hands, close your hands, repeat." People have to get a better understanding of contact. Very few riders have educated hands--maybe three to five of GM's students--which includes top Olympic riders.
Classic GM quote, after getting on Chase Boggio's horse Perfekt and working his magic: "I'm an old rucksack, and I still like riding." He really worked hard consistently for 40 minutes, all the while chanting, "Tricks, tricks, tricks, tricks, tricks," even when Perfekt evaded Mr. Morris' aids... then in a most charming voice as if dealing with a naughty child "Papa's here today, Papa's on top." And the horse became submissive.
Anne Kursinski's story was truly inspirational! She gave an extemporaneous timeline of her adventures in riding with the two overlapping influences being Jimmy Williams and George Morris. At the foundation of her story is the tenet that dogged determination is the key to her success. She experienced riding very difficult horses and had it drilled into her by Jimmy Williams that getting the horse over the fence was the primary goal. That tenacity was called upon in a class when she rode Cannonball with the whip up after he stopped out in the first round: She drew upon a trick she remembered from her Jimmy Williams days and finished victorious.
The last session of the day was by team vet Dr. Tim Ober. In addition to a hands-on anatomy lesson, he voiced his concern that an alarming number of horses are not fit enough to do the job expected. Thus the high number of resulting, but avoidable, injuries. He also reminded us of the importance of training on a variety of surfaces, i.e. grass to asphalt to manicured ring.
I learned so much and can't wait to pass what I learned on to the young riders and adults with whom I train at the community riding ring in Sullivan Canyon, Calif., where I keep my horse. I look forward to tomorrow's gymnastic session with the maestro!
Day 2, Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Cavalletti & Gymnastics
I need to backtrack a little and explain that I arrived at the Wellington showgrounds Tuesday at 7 a.m. straight off the airplane and dosed with Tamiflu. In spite of feeling lousy, I really wanted to participate in these training sessions and NOTHING was going to stop me. The opportunity to work with Mr. Morris in an intimate setting with the top young riders in the country doesn't come around very often. He is the ultimate historian of the sport as well as an extraordinary teacher. As I write this I am hyper-aware that no amount of words, videos or photos can capture this man in action. Imagine the low timbre of Tom Waits with the odd poetic phrasing of Bob Dylan, and you start to get the picture. One reason his lessons resonate is his theatrical training. He did a brief stint in Hollywood, and it shows.
He started today's cavalletti and gymnastics lesson by announcing that it would be a true lesson in equitation and peering out into the crowd of spectators and calling, "Henri Prudent, are you out there? This will be a Freeench equitation lesson, a classical riding lesson." (Henri Prudent is a French Olympic show jumper who is married to Katie Monahan Prudent, a past student of George Morris. She was, and is one of GM's favorites. She won the Maclay when he trained her as a junior and is also the godmother and trainer of one of my fellow riders Reed Kessler.)
