Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Well, I'm just back from the APEX Clinic that Stagg & Cheryl Newman
hosted on their *gorgeous* farm and the neighboring Pisgah View Ranch
near Asheville, NC and I'm just kind of overwhelmed trying to replay all
that I soaked in this weekend.

I can honestly say I picked up more *new* things in 36 hours than I'd
been exposed to in a long long time. I think a lot of us have kind of hit
a plateau where we've mastered most of what's in the "how to do
endurance" books.  It's seems that most of the books, articles, etc are
aimed at people who are somewhat new to the sport...or they're medical
journal articles which sound like latin and dare not say anything that 10
double blind studies haven't confirmed. But this was stuff for the person
who is wanting to go a little past their comfort zone, whether it was a
25 who wanted to do 50, a 50 who wanted to do 100, or a 100 miler who was
toying with the idea of international.  There was such a low student to
clinician ratio that the participants who went for the top level of the
clinic had a full hour to just sit with John Crandell and discuss what
they had done, would like to do, how they'd been training, etc. and get
some tips on where to go from there. 

Lucky me, since I was in charge of videoing the clinic, I got to sit in
on several of these meetings so long as the person was OK with that and I
learned so much. Each person had totally different goals and obstacles
and it was so much better than just hearing him talk to a room of 300
people.  He's such a low key guy that everyone seemed almost instantly at
ease. It just took a minute or two to realize you wen't bothering
him...his time was ALL YOURS for that hour.  

Stagg Newman worked with the participants focusing on training. Groups of
maybe 10 riders saddled up at a time and for anyone who didn't have a
heart monitor they had rounded up enough to loan them one. They took base
pulses, warmed the horses up, then went off on a mountainous training
ride right out the back of his farm. It was hard not to envy them looking
up at that ridge line. Stagg rode his young horse in training whose name
I'm sure we'll all be hearing soon enough. He's called Winston and I've
been in here admiring his stride in slow motion on my videos. >sigh< 
Under the heading of "Luckiest little girl in the world" my daughter
Josie got to ride Jayel Super for Stagg and was about to burst with pride
when she got to call out his unbelievably low heart rates as they trotted
up the continueous climb. I could tell it was really valuable to have
that many horses calling out their heart rates to share them with each
other. The heart rates were recorded on a computer read out and
participants got a copy before they left. I heard several of the riders
who were the cautious "I don't know if I should ride my horse farther in
competition" types who were very pleasantly surprised that their horses
were more fit than they'd realized. 

Another "station" was where participants had their horse's conformation
analyzed by Ann Stuart DVM Chef d' Equipe  for team USA, and shoeing
analyzed by USA's team farrier Jeff Pauley. They sort of worked together,
going over the horse somewhat like a prepurchase exam making notations,
checking levelness of shoulders, hips, signs of overdeveopment on one
side, shoeing problems (many of those) etc. Then they trotted them which
showed many problems with balance in shoeing (I feel their pain). Jeff
wrote out suggestions for improvement that they could give their farrier,
or they could have him work on the horse. They also offered radiographs
(digital) on the spot and bloodwork (which some took advantage of as they
came in off the training ride with Stagg) They also did flex tests.  Not
often you can get the full attention of a good vet & farrier working
together at the same time. 

Another station was the arena where Lisa Maxwell gave riding lessons. If
I recall correctly, Stagg has told me about her before. She is the one
who helped with Super's dressage training and has taken an Arab to Grand
Prix level before so has maybe a bit more insight than many instructors
care to have about dealing with an Arab. I really enjoyed videoing
standing next to her...but got dizzy so quickly I just couldn't hang out
there for too awfully long. >g< She was very soft spoken, very kind, and
stayed unruffled when little distractions like 10 horses returning from a
mountain trail ride totally blew the concentration of the participant.
:-)

This was the first of what the APEX group hopes will be many "continueing
education" type clinics. My personal reaction to it was excitement. It's
so easy to just get in a rut and do the same "safe" thing over and over
until you become bored. We may be able to ride 50 miles without improving
our equitation but 100 would force us to make changes and improve...do we
do it or just keep on doing the same thing we've been doing?  It's easy
to look at the price tag on these things and rule them out...but when I
think about how I saw a young horse that most of us would kill for and
the rider was absolutely crazy about tolerating a shoe job that was
absolutely wrong for him, I *know* she was probably saved months of
problems, and lots of money in diagnosis and I'd say it was a BARGAIN.
The cost was probably much like going to one or two rides. The atmosphere
of having a fun weekend with your horse was much the same, and the
lasting affects were probably far more valuable than two more completions
on your record...and FAR more valuable than two pulls that might have
been caused by things we're doing wrong if we have to learn it the hard
way by ourselves.

The Pisgah View Ranch, a really neat old vacation type facility that is
next door to Stagg's place. Word from Stagg is that they're going to open
it to outside horses this summer so some of your Floridians may want to
go to the mountains for a training holiday up there this summer. It was a
really neat place with a big old lodge where we had the lectures in a
knotty pine paneled room surrounded by screened in porches.

Whew. I've talked so much but I guess you can tell I thought it was a
wonderful experience. The APEX group's goal is simply to offer furthering
education to those who want *more* knowledge, experience, guidance, to
continue to shoot for higher goals...whatever they may be. They are
hoping to have possibly one more "intro" clinic repeating the same
subject areas as this time, then go on to occasional (maybe
semi-annually?) clinics bringing in new experts and focusing on other
subjects...so they will build on one another. Again, avoiding that
getting stuck in a "intro to" level world.

I hope I didn't misrepresent any of this material, if I did I'll blame
lack of sleep and Stagg is welcome to correct me. I can't thank them
enough for putting the clinic on. I know they must be exhausted from it
all. I came home pumped and ready to get out of my rut and try and
improve myself and my horse.

Angie McGhee

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