Equistride International Dressage Retreat

                                        Hello Readers!

We just wrapped up our 3^rd. annual Dressage Retreat at Equistride international

I still feel it’s a work in progress and we are learning each year how to make it the best experience we can for our riders and auditors.

I’m looking forward to hearing back from our participants and learning how they feel it went.

As for the trainers Mette Rosencrantz and Susan Harris they did a great job again.

We will be deciding on our trainers in the next few months for next year.   I would very much like to have Susan and Mette back next year, but we’ll confirm later if they will do the retreat again or a single clinic here at Equistride International.

This year we had 9 riders which made a full day and Susan Harris did her painted horse demo with Ann Stahl riding through some movements.

All the riders and horses improved throughout the weekend and the emphasis was on position of the riders and the riders taking more responsibility to ride and train their horses properly.

My in hand work was fun as usual. It’s something I have a lot of experience at and really enjoy.   I think when people see the in hand work they have a bigger appreciation for how hard the piaffe is as it takes many pieces of a puzzle for the horse to put together and execute passage and piaffe.

Thank you so much to our helpers Karen Bartholomew, Marie Joppich, Jamie Kruithoff, Eduardo Martinez and Haley Prout.

I could not have done it without you!  Also thank you to Carole Grant; owner of Equistride for allowing our trainers to stay in her house and allowing us to use the facility for this event.

Please continue to spread the word about our retreat as we would really like our auditor participation to increase each year as much as possible.

Dressage Retreat

Hello Everyone

Please check back to my blog after the retreat. I'll report on the event in early September.
My 4 year old Catalina had a small injury this month and will not be back to work until late in September. I am also recovering from a broken foot. I guess it's good we are both out at the same time.
in light of this i will not be doing my young horse demo at lunch on Saturday; so please enjoy the vendors during this time.
Also I will have a list of young horses for sale if anyone is interested you may make an appointment to see the horses after the retreat in freedom.
During the retreat feel free to see young horses in the barn or in their pasture, see Tonya if you are interested in learning more about my young horse training program.

Debbie McDonald Clinic with Catalina

I took Catalina to the Debbie McDonald clinic at the end of July. I was so impressed with Debbie but was reminded that everyone at the “top” is saying the same thing but in different ways.  Debbie focused on “connection” and also that the horses except the right rein better.  Many horses do not except the right rein due to the natural  crookedness of the horse as well as the tendency for the rider to pull on the left rein more because they can. In other words horses in general are born wanting to put their heads more to the left making it easier for the rider to work the left side than the right.

In light of this there were three main things I got from Debbie “connection”   Right rein and that the horses kept a long neck. She wanted everyone’s horses “Up and out” reaching for the bit in a balanced way.  She wasn’t impressed by the frame of the horse but looked for the pitfalls of the connection in each horse.

She was very simple and steady with my 4 year old and we both had a great experience.