Little Dressage

04/06/2025

****OPPORTUNITY****

Little Dressage is looking to add a team member in the coming months (end of May start date ideally). Full time head groom position, typical horse work-feeding, cleaning, turnout and in, tacking and grooming, rotating nightchecks-this is alongside other staff members you won’t be doing all of the things all of the time but you must be able to fill any of the shoes as needed-(individual must be able to work well with others and not cause drama behind the scenes as well as be able to work independently and be trusted to be responsible at all times), competitive pay. Nice accommodations on-site are available but they are shared-as such individual will need to understand shared house values (clean up behind yourself-no on is your maid, be courteous to others in the home, don’t hog the washing machine 7 days a week yada yada yada-no partying until all hours, no smoking, no pets, no drunkenness-sorry all of the above is due to bad experiences and must be spelled out clearly by the fun police unfortunately🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️). Now other important details, horses do eat and need to be cleaned and yes that includes weekends, so yes weekends will likely be a thing but yes you will also have regular days off-I am reasonable and always try to give extra days off or requested days off whenever it is possible so long as it’s well planned in advance-but on your work days you will be expected to show up on time and ready to work (almost like it’s a job 😜😜). We generally are a fun and down to earth crew but the horses and their care is our number one priority (no exceptions!)-if your goal is to come here to party all night every night and show up to work hungover and behaving inappropriately the next day please keep scrolling we are not for you-also don’t bother lying about this and claim “you’re here for the horses” when clearly you aren’t it will be figured out and you will have wasted everyones time (again this is being specified because…bad past experiences 🤪🤪)-if your goal is to rush through things as fast as possible and do a mediocre job keep scrolling we are also not for you. If you truly love horses, are dedicated to their care and comfort, have an eye for detail and want to learn more and work with them full time we are probably the exact right fit for you and there will be good opportunities for development and long term growth/perks (but those perks don’t come immediately we first need to know you are a good match so there will be a trial period)-in my ideal world the proper candidate has ability to lunge and do some riding as well (however this will be determined by myself), we appreciate good work immensely and are happy to look after those who truly care and look after our horses. Ideally I would love to find a long term fit and I am happy to mentor someone who wants to be in this business for real, however I am also open to creativity on timeline for a student or someone looking for a summer job to gain experience-Inquire for full details and we can discuss options-yes this is a long read and yes it’s designed to scare away the wrong candidates 😁😁😁 if you’re still here there’s a great chance you could be a good fit 😁😁😁-I am happy to provide multiple references to staff who have worked for me and I will also require multiple references from any candidates and will be connecting with them 😊😊

01/02/2025

Happy 2025 to all!!! As the New Year has arrived, the 2025 calendars has already begun to fill up with dates! Spring/Summer clinic dates are already starting to go into the books and with Janine's very busy schedule dates will be very limited so please get your dates requests in early and we will try to accommodate (please understand that only locations who are organized and have dates planned well in advance will be considered purely due to time constraints with Janine's schedule). Janine is currently based out of Jupiter Florida and always in high demand as a clinician, if you’re looking for a clinician who is all of the following message us to get your dates secured ASAP😄😄😄:

*A clinician who can teach all levels Training-Grand Prix, all types and temperaments of horses and all disciplines (from FEI dressage to western dressage to quality flatwork for hunter jumpers!) and who believes dressage is for every horse and rider whether they are looking to compete or simply better themselves

*A clinician who has personally developed many horses from newly started under saddle to the FEI levels including multiple team listed horses over the past 2 decades

*A clinician committed to giving back to the community and promoting the concept that education should be affordable for all by offering loyalty rates to regular locations in order to help keep the prices down and the education up as well as some other fun perks along the way

*A clinician who is positive and encouraging but uncompromising in correct basics and attention to detail and who focuses on the correct development of the horse as a complete balanced and healthy athlete and on fine tuning the clarity and correctness of the riders aids

*A clinician who has ridden with and learned from some of the best in the sport and continues to educate herself as a coach and trainer on a regular basis

*A clinician who offers post clinic support for riders with additional questions or online lessons/evaluations

*A coach and clinician who has trained and developed numerous riders to the FEI levels throughout the years including multiple medal winners at NAYCs, national champions and countless others

For more info, details or inquiries message us here 😄😄😄

05/08/2024

A little revisit on the all too important shoulder-in 😁😁

Our first Q+A for 2023 with Janine, hope everyone enjoys! We'll do these as often as we can depending on Janine's schedule, please feel free to message us with any questions you would like answered (any and all topics equine welcome!)

Q: Any tips to help a rider who has an ongoing struggle with riding shoulder-in?

A: First of all I know for a fact that you are not the first nor the last person to struggle with shoulder in!! I’m pretty confident that every dressage rider on the planet has felt your pain! Let’s start this topic by breaking down the concept of the shoulder in-it’s a three track movement where the outside shoulder lines up with the inside hind leg, it’s also a lateral movement in which the horse travels away from the direction of bend and flexion. The purpose of the shoulder in is to help educate the horse further about the carriage over the inside hindleg and the suppleness through the body. Speaking of suppleness, we can’t honestly address the topic of shoulder in without addressing the topic of travers-the two are like love and marriage you can’t have one without the other! The reason being that the two movements compliment each other to create true bend and curvature of the body from tail to poll which is why they are both introduced at Second Level (everything in dressage is an equation where one step leads to the next so it’s important to consider the order in which these things appear and I’ll explain more below about why exactly the travers is so important to the shoulder in and vice versa). That’s the basic breakdown of what the shoulder in should look like and why it’s important to our training, now let’s discuss how the rider’s aids are going to make all of that happen. The inside leg should be draped around the girth creating a “pillar” for which the horse will bend around, the outside rein is connected and bringing the shoulders to the inside whilst keeping a steady connection to maintain the uphill carriage and half halt as necessary, the outside leg is draped back of the girth and supporting the hindlegs so that they don’t swing out (no windshield wipers here) and finally the inside rein is keeping a soft flexion of the jaw (the jaw not the neck!!) to the inside, having your legs in the right position will help you to keep your weight softly over the inside hind leg (not leaning inside just slightly more weight to the inside seat bone) and your shoulders should be aligned with where you want the horse’s shoulders to be. The most common mistake that we see in the shoulder in is that the rider ends up pushing the haunches out and the most common mistake we see in the travers is that the rider ends up bulging the shoulder out-both of these mistakes result in the loss of true bend. Whenever I teach riders about a movement I always direct their attention to the opposite side of the horse-that’s to say if you’re focusing on a shoulder in you better be paying attention to the outside hind and if you’re focusing on a travers you better be paying attention to the outside shoulder-horses are fantastic at pointing out holes in the riders aids and most riders neglect the opposite corner, when this happens instead of bending the horse truly through the body you just end up turning them at the middle and making them crooked-this is why the shoulder in and travers working as complimentary exercises are so important. Key things you want to look out for: the hindlegs should be traveling straight and not crossing out-if they are crossing you are leg yielding and need to add more outside leg (think one degree of travers while riding your shoulder in this will help you to control the direction of the hindlegs), if your horse is falling in off the track you likely need a more effective inside leg-when your outside rein is turning the shoulder in it’s very important that the inside leg is communicating to the horse not to come in off the track-if you wait until they’ve fallen off the track you were too late applying your effective inside leg aid, the flexion should be to the inside (you should be able to see the corner of the inside eye of your horse) but we are talking only the flexion of the jaw and not bending the neck which will only serve to pull the horse down onto the inside shoulder and out of balance (get off your inside rein people!!), the outside rein should have a steady connection with access to a half halt but the horse must not be hanging on the outside rein either (we are still searching for an equal contact-a simple way to check if your contact is staying equal is to pay attention to your horse’s ears-the ears should stay level, if one ears is lower than the other then you have a head tilt which means there is an unequal contact (and this is most likely the result of losing the haunches to the outside or overbending the neck). The impulsion of the gait should stay carrying the horse freely forward to the front (imagine that there is a fishing rod at the end of the long side connected to your horse’s inside hindleg and outside foreleg and it’s reeling you in down the long side. To test out your aids and their effectiveness don’t just stay in a shoulder in forever aimlessly going down the longside, go shoulder in for 10 meters, straighten for 10 meters and go back and forth like this until it gets easier, being able to effectively straighten out of the shoulder in is as important as being able to go into it, most people fidget through a bad shoulder in for 20 meters before they get anything sort of good,….don’t do this!! You have to think of the entry into the shoulder in like a transition it has to be secure from the first step you enter, it should not take 15 meters of wobbling to establish, the first step must be as good as the last, quality before quantity always!! I hope that is somewhat helpful to anyone out there struggling with the dreaded shoulder in!😁😁😁

03/22/2024

02/02/2024

Upcoming events, limited slots available.

Contact us, located south of Ottawa in North Gower.

01/22/2024

Huge congrats to our awesome Saskatchewan clinic hostess with the mostest Tina Loyns on her success with the outstanding young German Riding Pony stallion Zothens Colani this past season!! Can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store!! And if you’re looking for a fabulous pony stallion for your mares look no further, top gaits, type and brains what more can you want?!

Super proud to say that Zöthens Colani helped me received this special Leading Rider Certificate from Equestrian Canada.

We achieved the highest average score in Second Level in Canada!!

What an achievement with a young stallion in his first show season! Thank you Colani!

Thanks as well to the best coach Janine Little, who brings out the best in us!
I can‘t wait to see what this year brings!

01/21/2024

Clinics Clinics Clinics!!! Janine’s calendar for spring/summer months is rapidly filling up with over 14 clinics already booked from April-Sept with locations from the east coast to the west coast! Janine is currently based out of Jupiter Florida and always in high demand as a clinician, if you’re looking for a clinician who is all of the following message us to get your dates secured ASAP😄😄😄:

*A clinician who can teach all levels Training-Grand Prix, all types and temperaments of horses and all disciplines (from FEI dressage to western dressage to quality flatwork for hunter jumpers!) and who believes dressage is for every horse and rider whether they are looking to compete or simply better themselves

*A clinician who has personally developed many horses from newly started under saddle to the FEI levels including multiple team listed horses over the past 2 decades

*A clinician committed to giving back to the community and promoting the concept that education should be affordable for all by offering loyalty rates to keep the prices down as well as the annual Little Dressage Bursary which clinic participants are eligible to apply for (message us for more info on how this works)

*A clinician who is positive and encouraging but uncompromising in correct basics and attention to detail and who focuses on the correct development of the horse as a complete balanced and healthy athlete and on fine tuning the clarity and correctness of the riders aids

*A clinician who has ridden with and learned from some of the best in the sport including Charlotte Dujardin, Steffen Peters, Robert Dover, Anky Van Grunsven, Conrad Schumacher, Ulf Moller to name a few and continues to educate herself as a coach and trainer via online courses

*A clinician who offers post clinic support for riders with additional questions or online lessons/evaluations

*A clinician who has trained and developed numerous riders to FEI levels throughout the years including multiple medal winners at NAYCs, national champions and countless others

For more info, details or inquiries message us here 😄😄😄

01/04/2024

All good riding begins with a good seat!

UGGH---That damn “good seat” thing again---

In reading about the half halt---see prior post---the use of the rider’s seat and core musculature is cited as being critical to executing the movement correctly.

Which comes back to what LeGoff told his squad of USET 3-day riders half a century ago.

“At Saumur (French national riding academy) we had a question and answer saying---What are the THREE THINGS that a rider MUST HAVE in order to become a good rider?
1. A good seat.
2. A good seat
3. A good seat.

Having a good seat doesn’t mean you ARE a good rider, not if you read what it says. You need a good seat to BECOME a good rider, It is a prerequisite for all that follows.

What does a good seat involve? Well, generally it is the ability to sit on the back of a moving horse at all gaits, with or without stirrups, and be in harmony and balance with those movements. Good riders blend/mesh/integrate the motions of their bodies with the motions of the body of the horse.

PLUS, eventually they become adroit enough to use their deep and supple seats to actually influence the motions of the horse.

Go on Google and check out upper level dressage riding videos, Ingrid Klimke, Isabel Werth, Carl Hester, Laura Graves, Dorothee Schneider, Klaus Balkenhol, Charlotte Dujardin----

Seeing that supple and seemingly effortless flow of human body integrated into horse body is a far superior tool than reading about it. What a learning treasure we have in the internet, so we better learn how to use it.

01/03/2024

Dressage is for everyone!

“I’m not a dressage rider” is a typical sentence that is heard throughout the disciplines. The word “dressage” can strike fear into the hearts of many riders. Typically because it’s seen as a rigid form of rules, that only if you “look” a certain way, with rhinestones on your browband and your Kastel sun shirt and riding with short reins and a noseband — do you fit into the crowd. *Kastel shirts are AMAZING btw 😘*

But “dressage” is so much different than it’s stand alone as a discipline.

It’s a set of theory’s that quiet and soften the muscles and the mind.

It’s a connection that forms communication to influence footfalls to create a sequence of engaged muscle pairs.

It’s strengthening and prolonging a career of soundness.

It’s increasing flexibility and strength of muscles and ligaments and tendons.

It’s applicable to any partnership, any horse, any discipline.

It’s Medicine.
It’s Movement.
It’s Balance.
It’s Therapy.

It’s applicable to you and your horse wherever your discipline choices lie. Regardless of your saddle, bridle, whether you ride in jeans or jodhpurs, whether you have a pasture, or an arena.

Dressage isn’t “picky” on who it helps. It’s inclusive to anyone willing to pursue it.

12/30/2023

As we are rapidly heading into 2024 what are your goals and dreams for the new year???

12/25/2023

Little Dressage wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the holiday season 🎄🎄🎄