{"id":10593,"date":"2013-10-03T11:37:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-03T01:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=10593"},"modified":"2015-01-22T07:27:11","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:27:11","slug":"tinney-the-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2013\/10\/tinney-the-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinney the Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tinney_Teaching1<\/em><\/p>\n

Story by Suzy Jarratt and Photos by Cameron Grant<\/h3>\n

“Stuart Tinney is such an amazing influence as he shows ever so much positivity and respect to upcoming junior riders.”<\/p>\n

Written by 13-year-old Emily Stirling from Victoria this was the winning entry in a competition conducted by EA and \u2018Be the Influence: Tackling Binge Drinking\u2019. In 25 words or less entrants had to state which member of Australia\u2019s Trans-Tasman squad influences them and why.<\/p>\n

Emily won two VIP tickets to Cross Country Day, met the team and received an autographed Australian team t-shirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I walked the course with Wayne Roycroft and Michael Etherington-Smith who gave his tips on what lines to take,\u201d she said on the phone from Geelong. \u201cI watched the bareback jumping, too, which was great fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Emily<\/p>\n

\u00a0Emily Stirling & Heart of England<\/em><\/p>\n

Emily has recently bought Heart of England, a 12-year-old two-star eventer from Anthony Thomas in South Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m presently showjumping him and will shortly start him off at the lower eventing levels. I\u2019m hoping to have a career with horses \u2013 mum\u2019s allergic to them but my granddad has them \u2013 my new horse and my 20-year-old semi-retired pony live with him on a property in Bacchus Marsh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emily is yet to have an actual lesson with Stuart \u201cbut I read all his tips and thoughts\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the opportunity to be at this major event has inspired me a lot and motivated me to give eventing my very best shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way from Geelong to Robertson so Emily might have to wait a while before she can travel to Alex Townsend\u2019s Wallaby Hill Farm, which was the location for a recent eventing clinic scheduled just one week before the Sydney three-day. Sidelined by the rain, riders were forced to stay indoors but the group still benefited greatly from their time with Tinney.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex brought in some narrow stuff \u2013 an apex and four arrowheads \u2013 and we mixed them in with the showjumps,\u201d said Stuart.<\/p>\n

\"Tinney_Teaching2<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to be honest cross country is really about jumping a fence and most of the fences on a course are verticals or oxers which are in showjumping \u2013 there\u2019s not a lot of difference. It\u2019s about getting the speed and the balance correct. It\u2019s just a bit harder when you\u2019re on an uphill or downhill slope. And the other thing with cross country is to be accurate on narrow obstacles. They\u2019re still just verticals or oxers but the horse has to be very specific where it jumps.\u201d<\/p>\n

The layman tends to wonder why the horse just doesn\u2019t go around such a skinny thing\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can do the same with a regular showjump. When you first teach a horse to jump there\u2019s a wing on each side of a rail. It doesn\u2019t take them long to go between those wings and jump over whatever rails are there. And then you teach them about stile fences in showjumping where the rails are half the width. At first they don\u2019t look like jumps but the horses learn. Just as they\u2019ll learn to stand on a box or walk sideways across a tarpaulin if you train them to
\ndo so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would he say that most horses can jump just a little bit – it is said a cow can scale 2\u20196\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy answer to that is would you like to ride a cow? And no, not all horses can jump, just as not all Thoroughbreds can race.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was reported a couple of years ago that a girl named Regina from Southern German was showjumping her pet cow, Luna. This was of concern to the RSPCA because of the potential damage to Luna\u2019s udders and was not recommended. Regina obviously had an affinity with her bovine mount, something which should exist between a horse and a rider.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can successfully teach a person if they have an affinity with the animal.\u201d said Stuart. \u201cIt\u2019s important to understand how horses work socially, how they think, why they may be trying to bite you and whether or not you tolerate that kind of thing. If they\u2019re doing it because it\u2019s what they do in a herd and you want to be the boss of that herd you have to tell them you don\u2019t want to be bitten. It doesn\u2019t take long before they no longer have a go. The more you spend time with them the more they teach you. But there are some people who don\u2019t get all that. And if you don\u2019t understand horses and how they behave socially you\u2019ll find it difficult to successfully train them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anwen Keeling, one of his pupils at Wallaby Hill, is doing her best with Thomas her 7-year-old Clydesdale cross.<\/p>\n

\"Annwen<\/p>\n

\u00a0Anwen Keeling & Thomas, putting lessons into action<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHis real name is Brown Caviar and we tend to get time faults as we did at Sydney in the pre-novice – I forgot my watch cross country. But I was pleased how we went and we ended up placing twelfth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anwen, 36, is an experienced Sydney-based portrait painter. When it comes to art she is influenced by Caravaggio, when it comes to eventing there is no stronger influence than Stuart Tinney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not very experienced at the sport nor am I particularly talented but I thought the clinic was fantastic. Stuart has a strong, confident demeanour. Like his cross country timing, his teaching is impeccable. He has a commanding presence which signals \u2018don\u2019t waste my time\u2019, even though he doesn\u2019t actually
\nsay that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he does say is that riders have jobs to do and you must do all your jobs. I need to motivate Thomas, balance him and ride the middle of the jump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI learnt so much from my sessions and also by watching him teach the higher-level riders where he was especially insistent that their horses were soft through the neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart was as complimentary about\u00a0his Wallaby Hill pupils as they were\u00a0about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome were green, others more advanced, all were receptive and willing to learn and all dramatically improved\u00a0at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his earlier years as a teacher there was not always as much harmony during a clinic, inevitably the group contained at least one petulant smarty pants who knew it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it was usually a teenage girl,\u201d recalled Stuart, who on these occasions would remain cool and dismissive and simply point out that he had worked with
\na great many horses but if she thought she could do better then do so.<\/p>\n

Stuart\u2019s wife, Karen, arriving home with a bunch of flowers for him \u2018because he\u2019d had such a great win at Sydney\u2019, pointed out that they both have an empathy for the young because of their two teenage daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cJamie and Gemma both ride and compete. Twenty years ago we wouldn\u2019t have had the same attitudes. Teaching young people successfully comes with maturity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine Strelein of Calgary Park has noticed a subtle change over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cStuart\u2019s been coming to my property for years \u2013 he\u2019s a perfectionist and always personally concerned. His methods haven\u2019t really changed, just his delivery \u2013 he\u2019s become more patient. Maybe his kids have done that to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I\u2019d like to change about the man is where he lives; it would be much more convenient if he was closer!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tinneys are on the outskirts of north-western Sydney; Katherine and her twin sister, Caroline, are in Berrima.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister and I love having lessons and improving. We don\u2019t strive to be top level riders but ones that are continually getting better. At Calgary Park Stuart teaches students and horses of all ages and levels. I didn\u2019t ride in the Sydney three-day, Stuart rode my five-year-old in a young event horse class and came fifth.
\nI was a very proud owner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great coach and a fantastic rider.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does she respond to those who say they find him a little intimidating?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so very good, that\u2019s why he wins. Isn\u2019t any artist or successful person intimidating to some degree because of the degree of perfection they achieve? The same may be applied to his coaching. He really wants to help you improve and puts a lot of effort into finding and fixing you and your horse\u2019s flaws, as well as retaining a balance of fun and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tinney_Teaching3There is no doubt there should be some fun in what is essentially a gruelling sport. Riders have to be tough to cope with the demands of eventing and need the same quality to handle the disappointments.<\/p>\n

During his competitive career Stuart, like his fellow riders, has had fitness problems and selection issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cA horse can go lame tomorrow and if you\u2019re going to get dismayed every time something happens you won\u2019t be doing this sport for very long. I\u2019ve been doing it for many years now and I\u2019ve learnt to roll with the punches. These days I do it to go to Championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of his veteran eventers who he rode at an elite level here and overseas recently died within weeks of each other. Tex and Jeepster are buried together on his property.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very sad time\u201d, he said, \u201cwe\u2019ll always remember these great horses and I\u2019ll always remember going to the movies with Tex\u2019s owner, Sue Walker. After burying him and shedding lots of tears she suggested we drown our sorrows and see \u2018Django Unchained\u2019. Five minutes into the movie a horse gets its head shot off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood choice Sue\u201d, murmured Stuart.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever it was one of Tarantino\u2019s best films,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

For now Stuart is fine tuning his best horses, with a lot of assistance from Karen. Pluto Mio, Panamera and Sydney are all in work as is War Hawk, a promising seven-year-old Warmblood recently arrived from New Zealand. And in between all of this he will be travelling around the country giving lessons. Maybe Emily Stirling will have an opportunity to ride at one of these clinics \u2013 Stuart is looking forward to meeting her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story by Suzy Jarratt and Photos by Cameron Grant “Stuart Tinney is such an amazing influence as he shows ever so much positivity and respect to upcoming junior riders.” Written by 13-year-old Emily Stirling from Victoria this was the winning entry in a competition conducted by EA and \u2018Be the Influence: Tackling Binge Drinking\u2019. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[73,906],"class_list":["post-10593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eventing","tag-eventing-training","tag-stuart-tinney"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10593"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20728,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10593\/revisions\/20728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}