Horse&Rider Magazine – December 2015

Emma taught her ponies the factory tasks at home

Lights, camera,

action

Emma Massingale’s latest adventure saw her Connemara pony team become film stars, making rugs in Horseware’s factory. Horse&Rider’s Georgia Guerin got the behind-thescenes scoop on the making of the film

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I had to teach all the ponies the factory tasks in case I needed a stand-in on the day — Emma Massingale

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ou have probably heard that Emma Massingale spent part of the summer living on an uninhabited island off the coast of Ireland, with six of her Connemara ponies. But Emma is not one to come home and continue life without a new challenge and, since then, she and her pony team have been working on a secret filming operation with Horseware to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

Emma told me that her partnership with Horseware began when they sponsored her for The Island Project, so I asked her how the idea for the film came about.

“I had been working with a film company, Equine Productions, on commercials and music videos with the horses, and I really loved the patient creativity of training the horses to produce the action drawn out on a storyboard. Horseware proposed putting together a commercial for their 30th anniversary and I certainly wasn’t short of ideas. I think they thought I sounded quite mad when I started waffling on about bringing my Connemara team to the factory.”

Once a storyboard had been produced, the next stage was choosing which four team members Emma

Horseworld

would take to the factory. “Atlantis was my first choice,” explained Emma. “When I bought him at the sales two years ago, he was naturally mischievous and into everything. He’s very intelligent and has a great ability to problem solve, but he isn’t naturally very brave. Comet was my next choice, although he’s not intelligent like Atlantis, but he’s very calm and I knew that out of all of them he and Calypso would be able to cope really well with the strange environment of the factory.”

Calypso is the only mare on Emma’s team, but she explained that Calypso acts like cement and gives the geldings courage when they need it most. “During The Island Project, the ponies had to travel on the deck of a ship and I could see at that moment that Calypso added something I couldn’t do myself,” she said. “My final choice was Nahla and, if I’m totally honest, he didn’t really need to come, but if I was allowed a favourite then it would be him! So I taught him to be the best at shaking his head and that was his place justified.”

As Emma and her team live in Devon, and the Horseware factory is in Ireland, I wondered how she got the ponies comfortable with being in the factory.

Emma explained that she actually did all the training at home. “I had to teach all the ponies the factory tasks in case I needed a stand-in on the day. To be honest, it’s just really fun teaching them to do things.

I taught them all sorts of tasks, from indicating colour choices to pushing trolleys. Teaching Atlantis to push the trolley was the hardest. I started teaching him with a barrel and he definitely thought it was a cool job, but when we progressed to the big trolley I realised it was going to be a bit harder than I thought, as the trolley was really heavy and we didn’t have much space to practise.”

Emma went on to explain that, although she teaches the ponies the task initially, she likes to give them the freedom to make it their own, and that this means they enjoy doing it and it looks far more realistic: “Atlantis knew he needed to push the trolley with his nose, but I wanted him to actually put his head on it and lean into it. It’s thanks to his personality and character that he makes it look awesome on the film.”

A few days before filming, Emma and the ponies drove to the factory in northeast Ireland. When the ponies were settled in a field, she went to have a look

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As told to Louise Kittle. Photos: Louise Siggers-Solheim. With thanks to Petplan Equine for their help with this feature, petplanequine.co.uk

PART ONE In this feature. . .

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➤ Develop your horse’s confidence and trust

In the saddle

➤ Establish a correct position ➤ Ride steps and drops with ease

Cross-country PART 1: STEPS

the safe way with Lucinda Green

Our expert

Assess the problem

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With 13 medals at the Olympics, World and European Championships, plus six Badminton wins, Lucinda Green is an eventing legend.

There’s not much she doesn’t know about cross-country, and her clinics help riders of all levels make the most of their horse, and have a safe and fun trip across the country.

A safe cross-country round is a successful one, but all too often nerves or lack of experience can get in the way of a good time. In our new series, Lucinda Green demystifies the trickiest jumps you’ll find out on course

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hink about the big three-day events – where do the crowds gather? Burghley’s Leaf Pit, Badminton’s Lake and the infamous Burghley Cottesmore Leap.

Steps, water and ditches are where things often come unstuck. But follow my simple techniques for building your horse’s confidence – and your own – and you’ll be sailing around courses in no time.

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As told to Ashleigh Henwood. Photos: Ryan Teece

Home

schooling

Developing your horse’s engagement and adjustability is an ongoing process. Louisa Hill shares some of her favourite exercises 42 HORSE&RIDER

In the saddle

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raining your own horse is an extremely rewarding process, but it requires patience to give your horse the time he needs to strengthen and develop and, most importantly, enjoy the journey you’re on.

Young horses in particular thrive on variety, so make sure you are always mixing things up and keeping life interesting for them. Building a solid foundation when they are young sets them up for a successful, healthy and happy career.

Sometimes, this might mean getting them out and about to new places or going for a nice hack with friends. Keep them interested and fresh, eager to learn and enjoying their working life.

Begin at the beginning

Our expert

Louisa Hill is an international dressage rider and trainer, competing at Grand Prix level. She has represented New Zealand at two Olympic games, in Athens and London.

It’s essential to train your horse to be relaxed and calm in his work. When he’s tense, his strides become choppy and he’s less elastic and swinging.

With a very tense horse, it is extremely important for you to work on your relaxation as well as everything else. If you are working on an exercise and your horse becomes tense, as a rider, you need to decide when to push through that tension and when to take a break and diffuse the tension by doing a different exercise. It’s also important to think about the scales of training and that everything is related (see Horse&Rider June 2015).

Remember that everything is connected. Without relaxation, your horse will be tense and his paces choppy, instead of being elastic and loose, and it will affect your contact, too. A relaxed horse will find his work easier and the overall picture will be far more pleasing.

In addition to this, he will have less muscle soreness from his work if he’s relaxed because he’ll use his body more efficiently, therefore creating a happier athlete. If you rush your horse out of his natural rhythm, rather than slowly building the power, then you are likely to end up with a tense, unbalanced horse. Carefully work him up to building power and strength.

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Relaxation

Remember, relaxation first and foremost, and balance needs to come before power

Contact

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