The RingCraft Matchmaking Service
Connecting horses and clients
A Horse / Pony ‘matchmaking service’ is now available for RingCraft Community members.
It’s my aim, alongside reaching the financial requirements, to ensure horses (and ponies) who I know well through RingCraft, move on to a family where they work well and willingly and are both appreciated and loved. That they continue performing at a level they’re happy at, with riders who are equally suitable to the capability / potential for the individual horse.
For this ‘horsey matchmaking’ to work, it’s only open for horses and people I’ve taught RingCraft (either remotely or in person). As always the entire 1hr session will be recorded to the cloud and saved by the horse’s owner. These lessons show the current ability of the horse, along with movement execution, warts n’all. In most cases there’ll be a number of lesson recordings available over a period of months or years, commenting on progression (fingers crossed) and there’ll be competition videos and sheets to boot.
Sometimes, horses may not be fit or strong enough to undertake a full hour session so a minimum ‘Show Off Slot’ is necessary.
Show Off Slot
These are 30 - 40 min sessions that work in the same way as remote RingCraft lessons, except the purpose is to assess the quality and potential of a specific horse/pony for sale.
So, having warmed up, we look at the 3 paces on both reins and consider where the horse/pony is at in his/her training with the scales of training.
Comments will be made on the quality of the work shown, the correctness and elasticity of the paces, the natural ‘jump/ spring/ suspension’, the suppleness that’s visible through the body in the paces (lateral and longitudinal), the stability of the contact and the apparent adjustability. Certain movements of tests at the level the horse works at will be performed and marks applied to those.
The purpose is to give an honest and unbiased assessment of the horse/pony’s’ current ability within the arena (percentage-wise) and to give an idea of potential.
NB. One ‘Show Off slot’ is the minimum requirement to use the matchmaking service, as well as becoming a Core member of the RingCraft Community Group, (a Show Off slot is £40).
