MYSTRIDE EQUESTRIAN

06/05/2024

MYSTRIDE EQUESTRIAN & Belcavallo Farm LLC pursuing excellence 🤩👏🏼

05/25/2024

Highly recommend attending for all USDF Region 9 riders, USEA eventers, and SEDA members!!!

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Join us here at the Texas Rose Horse Park for a Special Eventing and Dressage Masterclass - Texas Rose Horse Park - December 7-8, 2024

Five time Olympian, Ingrid Klimke is coming to Texas Rose Horse Park in December to give a two day masterclass in Dressage and Eventing working with young horses through to the higher levels.

Ingrid needs little introduction to the high Performance equestrian world. She has competed in five Olympics and six World Equestrian Games, winning in the Summer Olympics of 2008, 2012, and 2016.

She is the daughter of equestrian Reiner Klimke, and like her father, she rides in both Eventing and Dressage at the international level. In January 2012,she was appointed to the position of "Reitmeister" (Riding Master at special title of the German Equestrian Federation). Klimke is the second woman ever to be appointed as "Reitmeister". Well-known and respected worldwide for her success in both Eventing and Dressage, Ingrid brings a wealth of knowledge and training philosophy to these events.

Horse and rider combinations chosen by Ingrid, will receive a training session in front of the audience, giving attendees the opportunity to learn all about how Ingrid approaches training for all types of dressage and eventing horses.
This is a unique and rare opportunity to learn from one of the best riders in the world, and we are delighted that she has chosen Texas Rose Horse Park for her next symposium. For our community, we have a discount code for one week only which you can use at check out if you'd like to join us for this special weekend. Code is Texas73

Let's show Ingrid a true Texas welcome, in what is set to be a super fun educational weekend!

BUY TICKETS - Ingrid Klimke - Eventing and Dressage Masterclass - Texas Rose Horse Park - Buy Tickets - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/equestrianevents/1263296?

05/16/2024

05/14/2024

05/09/2024

05/09/2024

I’m trying to learn from these, are you?

05/07/2024

Go para!! 🥇🇺🇸

05/07/2024

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“I regularly ride my dressage horses out on the trail.... You can use the energy and fresh air of the open country in your training to give your dressage horse motivation, strength, and expression when ridden in teh arena. Riding out will also benefit his composure and nerves. And riding on different surfaces—sand, grass; dry, muddy—will improve your horse’s balance and surefootedness. The hills undulations, hollows, and slopes can imrove your horse’s physical suppleness and use of his back.” Ingrid Klimke in her new book RIDING OUT, now available from TSB.​​ ❤️🐴📕

05/02/2024

Back in 1995, the great Georg Theodorescu warned:
“Today at competitions you see more and more horses that are worked from front to back, instead of from back to front.”“They flick mightily in front, haunches dragging, tight in the back, and are behind the vertical. Riders are presenting them sometimes faster or slower, but rarely in true collection.”
Have things changed? Pic is Monica Theodorescu, current German dressage coach, and her father, the late Georg Theodorescu
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2018/07/georg-theodorescu-a-dressage-warning/

05/01/2024

Welcome to Trainer Tuesday! Each week we ask trainers a question and gather their answers for you. These trainers have a range of experience, backgrounds, and focus points of their programs, so the answers have as much variation as you would expect and also probably much more similarity.  This week...

04/28/2024

Why trainers PUSH horses TOO FAST

Klaus Balkenhol explains, "Although breeders have created a better horse, the market has created a demand for a stronger, healthier, more powerful horse. It's easier to sell a horse that looks
like a carefully developed eight-year-old, and not like a three- or four-year-old just beginning his career. If you force it, you can get a three-year-old to physically look like a developed eight-year-old. Too many colts remain stallions which, if approved, promise breeders higher prices as three-year-olds. Now 250 to 300 young stallions are presented each year, when only 40 or 50 will be approved.
Few breeders have the sense to geld the yearling stallions and leave them on the pasture to mature naturally. Instead, yearling stallions are brought into a stall, fed too much grain, and at three, look like six- or seven-year-olds. They have muscle mass, but not enough bone structure to support it. They look mature from the outside but aren't . . . and when started to work, degeneration sets in. Competitions also create pressure to push horses too fast as competitions are now scheduled throughout the year without any breaks."

Common Mistakes In Pushing Too Fast
Tightening the noseband: "A horse resists by sticking out his tongue. Tightening the noseband too much puts pressure on the nose and on the poll. If it is necessary to tighten the noseband very tightly, then something has gone very wrong in the basic training of the horse. The horse cannot be relaxed, the first step on the training scale," warns Klaus.

Specializing too early: "Drilling every day in the indoor arena is too intense for the young horse. It's very important, especially in the first two years of training, not to specialize the young horse. Training should include a variety of activities, including trail riding, which is good for the mind as well as building strength with hill work. It should include jumping, either free or low jumps under saddle, including small natural obstacles on the trail, and cavaletti. A variety of work will allow the horse to stay mentally fresh and to enjoy his work. Only when the horse is happy can dressage become art."

Not checking tack frequently: "Saddle and tack need to be checked constantly for proper fit and adjusted as the horse's body changes with growth, and as his fitness improves with the
training. If the noseband gets too low, for example, and the skin between the noseband and the bit is rubbed and becomes sore, this causes the horse discomfort and loss of relaxation.
Regularly check for sharp edges and bit problems in the horse's mouth and teeth."

Working too long: "The goal of our training is to build the horse's mind and his muscles. Suppleness and relaxation require adequate muscle strength. strengthening requires both contraction and relaxation. Blood flow and oxygenation occur when the muscle relaxes. If the muscle is kept in a constant state of contraction, it loses power and strength, and actually becomes smaller.
Frequent rest periods, especially for a young horse at a free walk on a long rein, are necessary. The rest periods are not for a rider's fatigue, but to allow the horse to stretch and relax his muscles. The rest breaks will give you a completely new horse. This is the systematic gymnasticizing of the horse."

Riding when the horseman is tense: "Horses are particularly sensitive to the rider's mood. A rider shouldn't ride if she is under undue stress or doesn't have the time to ride. If the rider has a bad day, give the horse a rest day or go for a relaxing trail ride; don't work in the arena. The horse mirrors the rider's mood."

Not praising the horse enough: "The horse must perform from joy, not subservience. Praising a horse frequently with voice, a gentle pat, or relaxing the reins is very important to keep the horse interested and willing. If the horse offers piaffe, for instance, because he's excited, praise him for it. You shouldn't stop the lesson at that point nor make a big deal out of it. If you don't want piaffe, quietly urge him forward into trot, but you should NEVER
punish him for offering the piaffe.

04/28/2024

Ingrid scouts her lines of travel and rides her aids in sequence…do you??

Franziskus FRH is back 🚀🤩
75,181 % gab es für den Hannoveraner Hengst und seine Reiterin Ingrid Klimke beim CDI4* GP Special in Hagen. Und ist er nicht einfach ein Bild von einem Pferd? 🥹

📸 EQWO.net | Petra Kerschbaum

04/23/2024

"Recently, one of the best-known horse breeders in Germany said to me: "The quality of horses has improved so much over the last few decades. Unfortunately, the training of the riders has not kept pace with breeding. Success is based 75% on training and 25% on the innate predisposition of the horse." From personal experience, I can only emphasise this statement. Untold numbers of top horses disappear, never to be seen again, as a result of incorrect training, whilst other difficult horses of rather average talent are formed into "top horses" by good trainers."
- Klaus Balkenhol, from the foreword to "the Rider Forms the Horse"

📸 Frau Holle, led by her breeder Cristoph Rawert (2015)

04/22/2024

💥CONGRATULATIONS to Katie Hebert!!!!💥Katie has just received her final score for her Gold Medal at our Coastal Flight Geauxing Down The Bayou Dressage Show!!!!!!! Katie Hebert and Hebert Sporthorses was our gracious host this weekend and we are SO happy she was able to earn her Gold in her very back yard.

Boutique shows like Geauxing Down the Bayou bring world class dressage shows to YOUR back yard! Please reach out to the Flightline Team if you are interested in hosting a boutique show!!!!

As always we are greatful to our amazing sponsors that enable us to put on these shows, and allow us to be apart of each and every riders journey:

Triple Crown Feed
Mane Street Market
Core Feed
Golden Horse Browbands
Bit & Bee Farm

Have a horse in need or training reach out to Katie Hebert and Hebert Sport Horses Hebert Sporthorses. Hebert Sporthorses specializes in dressage sport horse sales, import services, young horse development, and dressage training through Grand Prix!!!!!

04/20/2024