Hill Haven Stable

12/07/2025

After 37 years of carefully caring for many many horses, Hill Haven Stable is closing our doors. We will continue to live here and care for our facility and as a longtime coach and trainer, Alison will continue to welcome people who wish to ship in for lessons or training. Alison is still riding and available to teach or offer her skills as both a judge and competitor in Eventing and Dressage as a coach or clinician. Very mixed emotions but necessary to improve focus on the importance of training! We thank everyone for their super support over the many years we have offered our facility and care of your important pets in our hands. We wish everyone the best and look forward to new beginnings.

09/06/2025

Author is believed to be a William Steinkraus
Read , let it sink in, then read again :

“No. 1. Get your tack and equipment just right, and then forget about it and concentrate on the horse.

No. 2. The horse is bigger than you are, and it should carry you. The quieter you sit, the easier this will be for the horse.

No. 3. The horse's engine is in the rear. Thus, you must ride your horse from behind, and not focus on the forehand simply because you can see it.

No. 4. It takes two to pull. Don't pull. Push.

No. 5. For your horse to be keen but submissive, it must be calm, straight and forward.

No. 6. When the horse isn`t straight, the hollow side is the difficult side.

No. 7. The inside rein controls the bending, the outside rein controls the speed.

No. 8. Never rest your hands on the horse's mouth. You make a contract with it: "You carry your head and I'll carry my hands."

No. 10. Once you've used an aid, put it back.

No. 11. You can exaggerate every virtue into a defect.

No. 12. Always carry a stick, then you will seldom need it.

No. 13. If you`ve given something a fair trial, and it still doesn't work, try something else—even the opposite.

No. 14. Know when to start and when to stop. Know when to resist and when to reward.

No. 15. If you're going to have a fight, you pick the time and place.

No. 16. What you can't accomplish in an hour should usually be put off until tomorrow.

No. 17. You can think your way out of many problems faster than you can ride your way out of them.

No. 18. When the horse jumps, you go with it, not the other way around.

No. 19. Don`t let over-jumping or dull routine erode the horse's desire to jump cleanly. It's hard to jump clear rounds if the horse isn't trying.

No. 20. Never give up until the rail hits the ground.

No. 21. Young horses are like children—give them a lot of love, but don't let them get away with anything.

No. 22. In practice, do things as perfectly as you can; in competition, do what you have to do.

No. 23. Never fight the oats.

No. 24. The harder you work, the luckier you get."

Credit believed to be William Steinkraus

21/05/2025

Why ride shoulder-in?

Most people want to be able to ride a good shoulder-in for the sole purpose of getting top scores during a dressage test. However, as with all school movements, shoulder-in has many benefits that will help to improve your horse's overall way of going.

So, here are five reasons to ride shoulder-in.

✅ REASON 1 - Improve engagement, balance, and lightness of the forehand

✅ REASON 2 - Help develop carrying power and collection

✅ REASON 3 - Improve suppleness

✅ REASON 4 - Improve straightness

✅ REASON 5 - Prepare your horse for other lateral movements

Can you think of any reasons? 🤔 Pop them in the comments below.

Illustrations created and copyrighted by How To Dressage

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10/03/2025

My favourite exercise.

🐴 Spiral In and Out on a Circle

Spiral in and out on a circle is a FABULOUS exercise for horse and rider. Spiral in tests the rider's ability to control the outside shoulder of the horse, and to keep forward impulsion in the horse while directing them into a smaller circle. If ridden correctly, it increases the engagement of the outside hind leg, and can help bring the horse into collection. Spiral out tests the rider's ability to engage the horse's inside hind leg while controlling the outside shoulder to keep the horse straight in the body. It also teaches horse and rider the concept of riding from the inside leg to the outside hand. Done correctly, it's a great suppling exercise.

Click on the link below to learn how to do it! 👇👇👇

https://www.myvirtualeventingcoach.com/articles/spiral_in_and_out_on_a_circle

11/02/2025

Jokers Hill was a huge horse facility near Toronto back in 1973 when we took House Guest to compete in an advanced 3 day event there.

The high reach device in the background was where Robert Heath, the announcer, was stationed. From that vantage point he could see most of the cross country course, and there was a loud speaker system that boomed out over that entire property.

In those days, before so many northern riders went south for the winter, the eventing season was short in North America, but of high quality, and Canada was in many ways more of a leader in promoting the fledgling sport than was the USA.

Both countries had access then to good Thoroughbred horses, and both countries had gold medal winning teams in international competition during the 1970s.

Both countries rolled over, though, when the FEI changed the sport to one which favored warmbloods, and in recent times both countries have struggled.

01/02/2025

19/01/2025

If you are taking jumping lessons, and have progressed past the basic stages, but you have not yet been taught how to walk distances, ask your teacher to show you how to do this basic piece of the jumping puzzle.

Very often the rails that we use are exactly 12 feet long, which happens to be approximately the same length as the normal canter stride between jumps. So you can use them to walk along to see if you can nail it in 4 of your strides.

Most course designers go on the assumption that a horse takes off about six feet in front of a jump and lands about six feet beyond the jump, and takes 12 foot strides as he canters/gallops.

That’s how we get those “normal” distances. A one stride will be 6 feet for the landing, 12 feet for the one stride, 6 feet for the takeoff. So, 6 plus 12 plus 6 equals 24. And so on for longer distances, just add another 12 feet for each new stride.

(Distances in trotting gymnastic lines will be shorter, and over very small jumps, and for ponies, more to learn.)

If math confuses you, ask your teacher to simplify this You HAVE TO learn this stuff.

03/01/2025

There are probably quite a few riders who consistently have great posture every ride, every time, but if so, I have never been one of them.

I have to actively think about staying upright, chin up, shoulders back and down. Now, for sure, I could drag out a litany of excuses, that I spend long hours hacking, that I’ve had various injuries, lots of wear and tear over many decades, you know the drill.

But nobody cares about the Excuse Train, because that’s a train to Nowhere Land.

If you/I/we/they want good posture, the Sit-Up-Tall fairy doesn’t generally come floating down from the sky with her magic wand, one tap on our slouched shoulders and we are transformed.

Being tall and open and looking up is a habit, just as having rounded shoulders and looking down is a habit. So maybe try to make THIS effort---When you are actually schooling, and where your balance counts more, make a special effort that for those minutes you’ll temporarily hop off the Excuse Train.

It can’t do any harm to try----.

20/12/2024

DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS: To encourage your horse to seek the connection and reach into both reins when asking him to stretch forward and down …

Close your leg and give your reins forward, thinking of the reins as telephone lines where the messages can be sent and received only if the circuit is not broken or loopy.
~ Karen Adams

Karen Adams is s a retired U.S. Equestrian Federation “R” dressage judge, instructor and coach in Keedysville, Maryland. Previously, she was the head instructor at Linda Zang’s Idlewilde Farm and competed through Prix St. Georges.

🎨 Sandy Rabinowitz

17/08/2024

Carl Hester tells us:
“Self-carriage is really easy to see. It’s that tension into the hand that we were talking about with Valegro, the first place you see it is through the whole of the top line of the horse. The best thing you can do for self-carriage is the give and re-take of the reins. It is amazing how you forget to do that when you ride on your own. That constant giving the hand, taking, giving, taking, making sure that the outline is stable, the mouth is soft. You only have to look at the mouth to know how it is working, the horse is carrying its own head and neck. People that ride on their own, it can be something that they forget they are doing, people put in too much power and that’s why they find self-carriage difficult, and I always think you’ve got to create balance and then put power in, that way around.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/02/balance-self-carriage-and-the-importance-of-rider-position/

05/07/2024

To avoid overriding your horse… Use your aids only when you feel the horse is beginning to disrespect them. You can compare this to a kick-sled—when it has picked up the desired speed, you stop pushing it and only push it again when it starts to slow down.—Kyra Kyrklund

Kyra Kyrklund represented Finland at the 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2006 World Equestrian Games. This solution originally appeared in her book, Dressage
with Kyra.

28/06/2024

Things your riding instructor wants you to know:
1. This sport is hard. You don't get to bypass the hard…..every good rider has gone through it. You make progress, then you don't, and then you make progress again. Your riding instructor can coach you through it, but they cannot make it easy.

2. You're going to ride horses you don't want to ride. If you're teachable, you will learn from every horse you ride. Each horse in the barn can teach you if you let them. IF YOU LET THEM. Which leads me to…

3. You MUST be teachable to succeed in this sport. You must be teachable to succeed at anything, but that is another conversation. Being teachable often means going back to basics time and time and time again. If you find basics boring, then your not looking at them as an opportunity to learn. Which brings me to…..

4. This sport is a COMMITMENT. Read that, then read it again. Every sport is a commitment, but in this sport your teammate weighs 1200 lbs and speaks a different language. Good riders don't get good by riding every once in awhile….they improve because they make riding a priority and give themsevles opportunity to practice.

5. EVERY RIDE IS AN OPPORTUNITY. Even the walk ones. Even the hard ones. Every. Single. Ride. Remember when you just wished someone would lead you around on a horse? Find the happiness in just being able to RIDE. If you make every ride about what your AREN'T doing, you take the fun out of the experience for yourself, your horse, and your instructor. Just enjoy the process. Which brings me to...

6. Riding should be fun. It is work. and work isn't always fun.....but if you (or your rider) are consistently choosing other activities or find yourself not looking forward to lessons, it's time to take a break. The horses already know you don't want to be here, and you set yourself up for failure if you are already dreading the lesson before you get here.

7. You'll learn more about horses from the ground than you ever will while riding. That's why ground lessons are important, too. If you're skipping ground lessons (or the part of your lesson that takes place on the ground), you're missing out on the most important parts of the lesson. You spend far more time on the ground with horses than you do in the saddle.

8. Ask questions and communicate. If you're wondering why your coach is having you ride a particular horse or do an exercise, ask them. Then listen to their answer and refer to #3 above.

9. We are human beings. We make decisions (some of them life and death ones) every day. We balance learning for students with workloads for horses and carry the bulk of this business on our shoulders. A little courtesy goes a long way.

Of all the sports your child will try through their school years, riding is one of 3 that they may continue regularly as adults (golf and skiing are the others). People who coach riding spend the better part of their free time and much of their disposable income trying to improve their own riding and caring for the horses who help teach your child. They love this sport and teaching others…..but they all have their limits. Not all good riders are good coaches, but all good coaches will tell you that the process to get good is not an easy one.

📝 Kimberley Reynolds

📸 Max & Maxwell: Equestrian Photography