NH WEEKEND RECIPE : DOUBLE LAYER CAKE :

(for a spectacular result following the recipe below)

VENUE : The beautiful property of Janice and John Price

AT: Sussex Inlet in May

MAIN INCREDIENT: Instructor Camilla Davidson 

DRY INGREDIENTS:  Us girls, Sandy, Jan, Maree, Belinda, Pat, Jen, Narel & Debbie

SPICES: Our beautiful horses 

FIRST LAYER. Saturday morning is a hive of activity with cars, trailers, people and horses arriving everywhere.  The hellos are made, the horses are put away and we settle for a morning cuppa and a run down on what we will try and achieve this weekend.

 The main ingredient:- (Camilla) reintroduces herself and reinforces to us the importance of the 7 games and how they really dictate how much Trust & Respect and accordingly Partnership we can achieve with our four legged friends.

We add the dry ingredients and the spices and gathering our tools-of-trade we meet in the lower paddock where there are logs, barrels, boxes, trees and all sorts of obstacles for us to use as our learning begins.  Some of us are totally new to NH and some have been before so Camilla sets about giving instructions on the first 3 games, reinforcing over and over the importance of the friendly game and the ability to be able to move your horse around you and not you around your horse with ease yielding the forequarter and hindquarters and moving up, down, back, forwards and sideways.  This of course does not come with ease to most of us but with patience and persistence and with a tablespoon of laughter there is improvement seen in all cases. 

Cool lunchtime. Where we chat of the mornings events.

After lunch we set off again and repeat the first 3 games, add on the next 4 and watch some of the horses explode and some basically fall asleep.  This not only adds entertainment but also a major learning curve for all of us as we watch and learn with Camilla’s assistance how the games help calm the horses down as they too learn from us and their trust & respect for us grows and more importantly our ability to be leaders increases.

 
FILLING: It was Janice’s birthday and they held a great party at the property.  The meat from husband John’s butcher was wonderful, the hospitality was gracious and the music performed by David (Janice and John’s son) was magnificent.  We all had a great time and may I say that some of the “dry ingredients” didn’t stay too dry…..

TOP LAYER: Sunday morning, another beautiful day with the promise of going over the “first layer” and transferring that knowledge to horseback.  So we practiced, Camilla hovered and assisted and corrected and the morning flew by with everyone having smiles on their faces.  

Cool, lunchtime. Where we talked more !!

Quick bite to eat and onto the horses.  Janice gave us a demo of what off-line looks like and how the games transfer to communicating with our horses with no leads and we were all very impressed. 

Most of us got on our horses and practiced the yields on their backs using only 1 reign.  That in itself is quite daunting the first time you do it, but once again practice and persistence paid off and the day/ weekend came to an end with smiles and exhaustion all round.

ICING ON THIS CAKE: Two beautiful autumn days, a lovely property to play in, great “dry ingredients” and most of all the best “main ingredient” we know – Camilla Davidson

A special thanks to Janice for everything she does to cook up this double layer NH cake.

Debbie Stralow

Worrigee  NSW