Yarralee Dressage Development

09/01/2024

09/01/2024

To create throughness with correct bend when your horse is crooked...

Imagine your crooked horse as a kinked hose. You need to straighten him to get the kinks out and get the water (his energy) flowing. Then you can bend him correctly.—Annie Morris

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

31/12/2023

Last clinic for 2023 done and dusted. 2 days of enthusiasm in spite of heat one day and rain the next. You can't stop enthusiastic riders when they really want to learn. All riders went home with plenty to work on with calm relaxed horses. Even the 4yo just off the track.
2024 is going to be a great year to improve riders skills and understanding.
Future clinics will be posted here. Watch this space.

29/12/2023

26/12/2023

24/12/2023

To all supporters , students and horses of Yarralee Equestrian past and present. I wish you a Happy and Wonderful Christmas and New Year.
Health and Harmony for horse and riders 2024

23/12/2023

Talk about clearing a fence! This photo is worth clicking on to get a big close-up view. It shows Chloe Reid on Crossover 4, her Hanoverian gelding from the 4500-acre farm Live Oak Stud in Ocala, Florida. This photo was taken last week by Andrew Ryback, at the World Equestrian Center Grand Prix. The jump itself is about 5 feet high and 6 1/2 feet wide. But Crossover 4 has more than a foot to spare. Look at those hooves tucked up under his elbows--and Chloe looks like she's in perfect form for an easy hand gallop through the woods. What a team!

16/12/2023

Beth Baumert explains why this kind of collection is the natural result of forward half halts and forward downward transitions

14/12/2023

The average age for a race horse to be broken in is 12-18 months old, thoroughbred and standardbred.

That being said it is common in Standardbreds to have older weanlings in harness. You can see from the photo below the uncomfortable posture and distress this weanling is in. Because of two year old racing the age of breaking in must be before hand. Some stables wait longer but the average age in my experience is 12-18months.

I have looked inside a 14 month old standardbred and you can find those photos on this page of every growth plate fully open above the knees on the caudal and cranial aspects. Studies that have been conducted focused on lower leg limbs while ignoring the hundreds of other growth plates and bones present in a young horses body.

Setting industry welfare standards are pointless if the horses body is being exploited on a fundamental level and not legislated against. When I was given this photo a few years ago, it was passed on to the industry body who sent “a stern email”. Since then stakes for 2 year old harness racing in New Zealand have been increased, making it the most profitable age group. Because of the echo chamber racing operates in the trainer felt safe to have posted this in a public racing page.

That echo chamber is done!

The internet will show the industry how disgusting this practice is. I have sat on this image for years feeling disgusted in myself for not sharing it sooner but I wanted to wait until I had the reach worthy of sharing it. I have been told of trainers who put foals on the jogging frame with their mothers. If the industry won’t set standards to protect the horses then the pressure will have to come from the outside! In a time where social licence is important to operate these things matter.

There are great racing people out there who are waiting and are treating their horses with kindness but you will be judged and accountable by your worst members because they make up the majority of racing in my opinion. I expect to get allot of flak for this post and I’m fine with that.

14/12/2023

Angelika Frömming on the Loss of Quality in Gaits in the 7-YO Dressage Horse Test

14/12/2023

How to I close/cancel this page?

12/12/2023

ATTENTION .. I am seriously considering closing this FB page.

There is so much content on it that I have not put up and FB won't let me share anything for myself, it has gotten ridiculous.. There doesn't seam to be any point keeping it open.

When i find out how to do this it is gone.

03/12/2023

WATCH THIS SPACE
The first EVERYDAY DRESSAGE Clinic at Yarralee Equestrian ,Blackbutt, date to be announced shortly.

14/11/2023

To visualize the role of the outside aids ...

Envision them as the banks of a river. The horse’s energy is the river, and the banks contain and direct the flow of the energy, whether the river (horse) is going straight or around a corner.—Susan Jaccoma

Jaccoma is an FEI-level trainer and competitor. She represented the United States at the 2001 Can Am challenge in Canada and has won multiple USDF regional championships. Aboard Wadamur, she qualified and competed at the 2007 Pan American Games selection trials at the USEF Festival of Champions.

03/11/2023

International five-star eventer Sharon White shares an exercise to ride this basic shape better.

03/11/2023

To maintain your balance ...

Imagine that your upper body is like a broomstick and your horse is a hand trying to balance it. If your body (the broomstick) starts to tip, your hand (horse) will automatically move underneath to keep it up. You cannot lean right and expect your horse to go left.—Laura Tomlinson

Tomlinson (née Bechtolsheimer) represented Great Britain with great success aboard Mistral Højris. The pair earned several medals, including team gold and individual silver at the 2012 Olympic Games as well as silver in the team, special and freestyle at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

27/10/2023

We love this helpful and handy chart from AARV member clinic River Canine Rehabilitation out of Missouri where AARV member Kara Amstutz, DVM, CCRT, CVPP practices. Any way in which owners can understand the different types of tissue injuries that require different average healing times helps everyone on an animals rehabilitation journey! 🐾👏👩‍⚕️