Katie Erpel Dressage

01/11/2025

"Interestingly, confidence is a journey. When I was younger, I went through a phase where I felt uncertain about my future in horses. I’d see my parents working tirelessly to sustain a business in such a demanding industry, and it made me wonder if I could or should follow that path. There was a moment in high school where I even considered different career options. I did a couple of years at community college, trying to explore other paths, but nothing resonated with me the way horses did. I quickly realized that the challenges and uncertainties were worth it because my passion for horses ran too deep."

🧠 In our latest edition of Dr. Tyler Held's "Between the Ears" column, we sat down with 5* rider Meghan O'Donoghue to hear her take on confidence, facing adversity, gratitude, and much more.

🌟 Don't miss the full article: https://loom.ly/BzieCUI

01/11/2025

ISO - Working Student (Part-Time) for Dressage Barn with USDF Silver Medalist in Windsor 🦄

🔸looking for a someone that would like lessons on their own horse, potentially my horses from time to time (depending on level), in exchange for light barn work a few days a week: 2-4 hour shifts.

🔹Light barn work includes paddocks, grooming, AND what I am mostly looking for is someone who is good at videoing my rides (mostly in the morning time 1x/week or at different show venues)

🔸 What I enjoy most is the developing horses and riders, age doesn’t matter as long as you’re enthusiastic to learn 📚!

So if you’re looking to learn from starting horses to FEI, be around high quality horses, care, and training in exchange for light barn work, feel free to reach out with resume and references and feel free to stop by!
3057785336 🙏

https://katieerpeldressage.com/gallery

01/09/2025

Enjoying my latest tool, a Portuguese Cavesson from the Valença Classical Riding School 🦄

Like any tool, it depends on what the horse needs and how skilled you are at using it- for Bravo, the lunging and ground work with the line hooked on the middle of the nose/cavesson has taught him to follow his nose, bring his shoulder around so that he has uniform bend from tail to poll. It’s also helped him to understand to bend in the poll and not just over flex the neck to evade true bend in his body.

I also find this to be an invaluable tool to teach or retrain a horse to steer and bend without pulling on the mouth by connecting the lunge directly to the bit.

I’m a firm believer in a solid classical groundwork foundation, and for Bravo, it has been a game changer.

I’ve also played with it for Fernando’s piaffe, and it was the most collected, balanced, and active I’ve seen for his piaffe work. I was able to half-halt to ask him to be more on the spot without having to make the conversation about his mouth. Now, to help with his piaffe to passage transitions in-hand.

Onward and upward 🦄

12/29/2024

Team Barefoot! ⭐️

https://www.facebook.com/watch?ref=search&v=8905658462843430&external_log_id=fea8e675-be1e-4f45-b0fe-45819011a973&q=justin%20verboomen%20%26%20zonik%20plus

Zonik Plus and Justin Verboomen with World Cup Grand Prix debut victory at home soil in Mechelen today Today with their 2nd international event and with impressive World Cup Grand Prix victory. It is obvious to everyone that this combination just shows how to have fun in the arena, no matter of

12/19/2024

My majestic Fernando - a little glimpse of what we are working towards behind the scenes 🦄 Being a perfectionist disposition, I would be perfectly content endlessly working on the basics and throughness, but at some point you have to test your work and go to a show to see if you’re work is truly solidified! Super pleased with how his overall quality of gaits have improved, canter pirouettes are developing strength, as well as the in-hand work. It melts my heart that this horse has become such an honest soul, and truly gives me his all ❤️ Thank you Alison Head for all of your help with him! 🙏

12/06/2024

Steinbrecht is absolute essential reading for all Dressage enthusiasts and riders ⭐️

In a world that has regressed to reading social media posts and watching edited videos as their main source of information, prioritizing education, studying classical literature and theory of “the old dead guys” is more vital than ever ⭐️

This is a quote from this morning’s reading that articulates how the poll comes up from the proper connection back to front and is a direct result of the lowering of the haunches, NOT the raising of the poll first, with disengaged hindquarters that lack impulsion and throughness over the back 🦄

Train your eye and do your homework 📚

11/28/2024

It’s always bittersweet to say goodbye to Zorro when he goes back home to his mom 4 hours away 😢💜
It’s truly a pleasure to work with this horse because of his disposition that is so trainable and that he just doesn’t stress about anything, those two traits go a long way with his natural talent as well! I always joke that he is a fat boy that can dance 🕺
This 1.5 month he picked up right where we left off working on reintroducing some concepts of pirouette canter and turns, gears and adjustability of the trot from half-steps to introducing passagey trot to extended trot and smoothly back again!
It is all in there, just begging his mom to leave him with long enough next time to build the muscle so his talents can really shine!
Thank you Tina for sharing your boy always 🙏💜🦄
Now to welcome Bravo back and see how far he can go! 🙌

Custom Saddlery thank you from being part of the journey! 🙏

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11/25/2024

Samantha Lee taking a lesson on Zorro de la Noche yesterday! 🙌

I have to brag because she’s never ridden an Andalusian nor flying changes, and she just did everything I told her to do, and looked amazing doing it!

It’s always a treat for me to put my students on my training horses to see if I can plug them in. As well as it’s truly a test of my work to see if my training is on the right course, and that my horses are easy for green Dressage riders!

Zorro has been back for a 1.5 month “tune-up” after going home to his mom for 6 months. Right before he left, I trained the changes on him and debuted a green Third Level. So the fact that he comes back, and then can teach a schoolmaster lesson and easily do changes for someone that has never done changes, makes me so incredibly happy as a coach and a trainer 🙌

Thank you Tina Sportschuetz for sharing your amazing boy with us, he is truly so special 💜🦄

Great riding Sam, onward and upward! ⭐️

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11/21/2024

Proud Trainer Moment Today ⭐️
Student, DiAnna and her 4 y.o. PRE, Olympia🦄
DiAnna has been committed to learning the basics herself, as well as keeping Olympia in training to be developed. It’s so rewarding to see when the dedication pays off - the young horse and new Dressage rider find their groove & harmony together 💜
Onward and upward 🙌

11/20/2024

Dressage is truly all about the journey!

So rewarding to see coming 4 year old Phoebe (Levander’s full sister ❤️) and her mom, Kelsey doing such a great job re-starting her after I lightly started her under saddle this summer! Such a lovely, elegant mare, can’t wait to watch these two develop further 🥰

Onward and upward ! 🙌

11/20/2024

And that is the Art of Riding, why you must feel what is happening behind the saddle so that you ride the horse back to front - when the haunches lower, the back rounds, withers lift, and neck telescopes out to the bit with elasticity 🙌

10/26/2024

👏

“INSIDE LEG TO OUTSIDE REIN.” 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

I’m sure every equestrian in the world (who has had lessons / watched lessons) has heard these words howled from across the arena at some point in their lives…

Although it is well intentioned advice, in many cases it can create further problems which serve to be quite a road block for progression amongst horses and riders…

Whilst being able to execute these aids effectively DOES have a beautiful influence on a horses way of going… In order to execute these aids effectively and have a positive effect on the horses way of moving, the horse has to firstly understand quite a number of steps and the rider has to have the skill to deliver aids independantly…

A lack of the above, is the reason this advice so often fails and instead ends up leaving a bunch of frustrated, perplexed riders and equally frustrated horses who are uncomfortable in their bodies 😣😤.

So in terms of the horses understanding, let’s take a deeper dive into some ingredients that are necessary to have in place BEFORE truly riding from inside leg to outside rein is a possibility…

1️⃣ A horse should have an understanding of basic foundational yields. They should be able to both move the hind end and the shoulders a few steps laterally in response to your leg going on. They should not feel ‘stuck’ on anyone of their legs. Developing these yields will enable you to talk to each hind leg and each foreleg in isolation. The forequarter yields enable you to develop the feel and understanding to move the horses outside shoulder off of your outside aids and the hindquarter yields develop the understanding to influence the inside hind from your inside aids. Eventually you should aim to be able to do these yields with the smallest of changes in your body and with a clear slack in the reins.

If you can currently put your leg on in a number of ways and the ONLY response you get from your horse is to move forwards, then you really need to spend time teaching / revisiting these forequarter and hindquarter yields in order for him to start understanding a more lateral response to the leg.

2️⃣ Being able to yield to rein pressure. So whether you ride bitless, in a snaffle, a rope halter or something else, you should be able to pick up each rein individually and have your horse bending and softening through their entire neck, poll and jaw to the left and the right. Make sure you can do this from a standstill first and that you are not having to use force to hold them in the bend… Release when they release… Progress onto asking for a few strides in walk until eventually you can have your horse bending softly to the inside rein down a whole long side. Make sure you can do this with outside bend to. Finally progress to the trot.

3️⃣ Now the horse has an understanding of the above, you can now use your inner rein, leg and seat aids to achieve a correct inside bend and to move the horse off of your inside aids in order to create lateral flexion throughout the horses body.. At this point if the steps have been done correctly there should be no brace, resistance or blockages in the horses body.. The horse should begin to feel looser and more relaxed, seeking the rein down and out… All those good things. It should feel very nice for both you and the horse. You should not feel as though you need to ‘hold’ the horse into this position or micromanage him/her to stay there. He/she seeks this position because they learn it feels good, therefore it is self reinforcing!

At this point you can begin to take more slack out of the outside rein, until you can begin to feel a soft, elastic connection to the outside of his body… It should not feel restrictive.. You should not come back with your outside hand as the outside of his body needs to lengthen in order for energy to flow smoothly… If you loose energy through the outside shoulder, the skills you developed with the shoulder yields, will allow you to communicate to and shift the balance of the outside shoulder.

Once everything comes together, It should just feel as though you are simply moving the energy off of your inside aids, feeling it being met into your outside rein and then allowing that feeling to flow through into the forwards movement. You can test your ‘inside leg to outside rein connection’ by regularly giving the inside rein. If you have done all the steps correctly, the horse should remain bent laterally around your inside leg when you give on this rein.

👆🏼THIS is the true definition of riding ‘inside leg to outside rein.’

At this point you can use exercises and school figures such as spiralling in and out to further improve inside hind leg engagement and inside leg to outside rein connection.

I can’t stress enough, the outcome of the above coming together is a horse that feels soft, loose, swinging through his entire body, his steps will feel rhythmical, his back will feel lifted, he will be seeking the rein down and OUT and it will feel enjoyable and effortless for BOTH of you. If you have not achieved this feeling you need to retrace your steps and figure out what ingredient(s) are missing!

It might sound complicated, but when you break each component down individually and work on truly achieving one thing at a time, everything begins to slot together and make sense.

Attempting to ride “inside leg to outside rein” before the above has been established is like trying to bake a cake, but you don’t have any flour, you don’t have any butter nor any sugar 🤷🏻‍♀️… How can you be surprised the cake has turned out rubbish!?

10/21/2024

⭐️ Training & Consignment Stall Available ⭐️

USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist (on self-trained horse), Katie, offers an empathetic and methodical approach to Dressage training and a lifetime of experience with all dispositions, breeds, sizes, and ages of horses from starting under saddle to developing to the Upper Levels.

🔹Dressage training to develop your horse to the next level, have a refresher course, season your horse to the show ring, combine with lessons for you to continue learning or to help market your horse to find their perfect home.

🔹Katie has also trained numerous horses to instill a thorough Dressage foundation and understanding for the horse, then transition their riders back in a methodical lesson program to create a more harmonious relationship between horse and rider. She has also helped numerous students earn their Bronze Medal and work towards their Silver.

🔹Stall available at quaint farm on the Windsor/Williston line conveniently located off of 78 just 15 minutes from Downtown Aiken and less than 30 minutes to all of the show venues.

🔹We offer a boutique experience, where your horse is treated as one of our own, quaint environment, yet with high quality, personalized care.

- Specialized Feeding Program
- 20x60m arena with GGT and mirrors
- lndividual stall and paddock with safe, no-climb fence and Electrobraid (in and outs available)
- Large 5 acre Grass Schooling Field with Cavalettis
- Owners live on premises and oversee all daily care.

Small Sample Portfolio of a few of Katie’s Training and Sale Horses through the years 🦄

Call or text 3057785336 for more information!

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10/11/2024

My friend, Zorro de la Noche, back for a refresher 💃 And Beowulf, finding his hind legs, learning half steps and all his new trot gears today - having too much fun with him ⭐️ 💪🏼