Dressage for fun

06/26/2025

Do you have freestyles on the brain? Then you won't want to miss this! Registration is now open for the upcoming USDF Virtual Education Series Session, “From the Trenches: A Freestyle Primer.” This session will be held Wednesday, July 16th at 8:00pm EST, and will feature renowned musical freestyle designer Terry Ciotti-Gallo as the presenter. Join us as we will discuss how to choose the right music for your horse, choreograph your freestyle, and incorporate the degree of difficulty to be rewarded by the judge in the show ring.

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2917500910861/WN_dP-EJF1UTYqcx3c-WVjgBw

Want to learn more about the Virtual Education Series, including this session? Visit our website: https://www.usdf.org/education/university/virtual-education-series.asp

06/25/2025

There’s this old, tired idea that riding is about control. That dressage is about making the horse submit. Taming the wild. Forcing precision.

But here’s the truth:

You don’t ride to break the horse. You ride so 𝑦𝑜𝑢 don’t break.

Because the horse isn’t the chaos. You are.

Your fear. Your tension. Your ego. Your overthinking.
Every crooked thought runs straight down the reins.
And the horse? He doesn’t care about your excuses. He shows you exactly who you are.

So you learn to breathe. To feel. To listen more than you speak.
You learn to hold your position in the storm.
You learn to ride into the fire, not to dominate it, but to survive it.

Dressage doesn’t make you perfect.
Done right, it makes you unbreakable.

Not because you control everything. But because you learn to hold your seat when everything falls apart.

It’s not about who you are when the ride begins, it’s who you are when you dismount.

06/19/2025

I am very happy to see someone talking about it! I always teach about warm up- work- cool down fazes in any schooling session.

*** LENGTH OF SCHOOLING SESSIONS ***

Following my post from this morning, about Johnnie only working for 15 minutes, as he worked so well, I thought I’d give my opinion on how long horses should be worked for. This is my opinion. It is based on both my experience and understanding as a rider and horsewoman, and my knowledge as an equine vet with 12 years’ experience.

My horses are never, ever, schooled for longer than 30 minutes. This is more than enough time to achieve something, and if you haven’t achieved your goal after 30 minutes, it’s unlikely that you will by plugging on for longer. This 30 minutes includes my warm up, and a couple of short walk breaks.

I haven’t really had lessons for many years, but when I trained with Jennie Loriston-Clarke, and then more recently with Olly Barrs, their lesson times are 40 minutes. This includes warming up and warming down. Frequently, they wouldn’t go on past 30 minutes. Horses learn by repetition, not by grilling them for an hour at a time.

Horses also break easily. They damage ligaments and tendons. Yes, this is often unlucky and frequently caused by a sudden twist in the field. But it’s also frequently caused by too much schooling, especially if the surface is deep, or uneven. Proximal suspensory ligaments are not designed to take the weight of a horse in collected work for hours. Once a PSL is damaged, you are often looking at a lengthy rehab, or surgery to cut the nerve that supplies it (neurectomy). That is not to say that every horse with PSD has been overworked, before I offend anyone!

Horses break more easily when they are tired. A tired horse is more likely to trip, possibly resulting in ligament or tendon damage. Muscle needs some degree of fatigue to condition it, but not to the point of exhaustion.

A horse’s brain also breaks easily. Fatigue can also be mental. Granted, some horses’ brains don’t take much to break, but if a horse becomes stressed or can’t work out what you are asking him that day, then take a 24 hour break, and go for a hack, or just lunge the next day. Or give him a day off.

Most horses will be fit enough for their job, without being ridden 6 days a week. The main issue with lower level competition horses, is that many are fat. Exercise is a great way to get horses to lose weight, true, but not without reducing the amount of grass or hard feed they are receiving. Schooling a fat horse for an hour, will cause joint, tendon, and ligament problems in the long term. Find hills to slowly jog them up, or even walk them up, if you are wanting to exercise more to help with fitness and/or weight loss. Don’t school them more. Trotting endlessly around a flat arena isn’t really going to help with fitness.

If you are going to school, then add plenty of variety. Make sure the horse is working from behind, and not dragging himself along on his forehand. If you don’t enjoy schooling, you will be more inclined to switch off and trot endless 20m circles. So go for a hack first, and then just do ten minutes of intense schooling when you get home. That will keep both human and horse brains fresh!

This is an enormous topic, and it would take me days to cover it all, so this is really a brief summary. Keep schooling sessions short and productive, and if the session is going wrong, take a break!

Photo is of my wonderful Harold, on his lap of honour for winning the Advanced Medium Regionals, to qualify for the National Dressage Championships, a good few years ago now!

Feel free to share.

06/13/2025

This! Totally agree and relate.

You are not the missed flying change.
You are not the wonky shoulder-in, the judge’s 5.5, or the test sheet that looks like it was edited by a disappointed English teacher.

You are more than your mistakes, more than your failings, your failures, or your “shortcomings” (which, let’s be honest, often just means your horse didn’t feel like pirouetting today).

Your goals, your scores, your outcomes — they are not your identity.
They are data points. Not definitions.

When we start measuring our worth in percentages or ribbons, we risk turning something soulful and nuanced into a performance review with hooves.

Because at the core of dressage isn’t perfection — it’s partnership.
It’s showing up, rain or shine, for a creature that doesn’t speak your language but somehow understands your soul.

So breathe. Laugh. Cry if you need to.
But remember: the arena doesn’t determine your value.
It reveals your willingness to keep learning, adjusting, and showing up with grace — even when your inside leg is ignored like a politely worded email.

You’re not just training a horse. You’re sculpting a deeper self.
And that… isn’t something you’ll find on a score sheet.

05/26/2025

It is this time of year again. We are starting to cut this Wednesday and Friday, Monday. Let me know how many lbs you want for which day. Pick up after 3 pm.

05/26/2025

Folcano is overseeing the progress of my students… :) Making sure that they learn the sit aids correctly.

05/08/2025

Totally agree! And the funniest part, after any competition, something let’s go. That something that you do not care about anymore, transfers into looseness and suppleness and flying feeling.

Dressage is not a sport of spectators.
It’s a discipline of solitude.

You can be surrounded by trainers, riders, judges, and still, you're alone.
Alone with your thoughts.
Alone with your horse.
Alone with every choice you've ever made in the saddle.

Most people quit dressage because they expect progress to feel like applause.
But here, progress feels like stillness.
Like tension giving way.
Like a breath you didn’t realize you were holding… finally let go.

The horse doesn’t care who’s watching.
And eventually, neither do you.

03/13/2025

03/12/2025

In dressage, as in life, mistakes are part of the journey. Training is not about perfection—it’s about progress. Every rider, no matter how skilled, has made errors along the way. What sets great horse riders apart is their willingness to learn from those mistakes and adjust.

Social media can make it seem like everyone else is achieving flawless rides, but remember: what you see online is often just the highlights, not the full story. Don’t let the pressure of appearing perfect keep you from admitting when something didn’t go right. True growth comes from acknowledging what went wrong, understanding why, and making the necessary changes.

Your horse doesn’t care about social media. They care about clarity, fairness, and consistency. So be honest with yourself, give yourself grace, and focus on what truly matters—building a harmonious partnership with your horse.

02/18/2025

Yes! This. Totally agree!

Monica Theodorescu, Germany’s dressage coach tells us:

“There are a lot of riders who sit well on a horse, and you think they are quite educated riders, but a lot of them don’t know what they are doing on a horse: what aids they are giving, they are not so conscious of what they are doing or what they want to do. They are not sure what they aim for on that day. We should say, today I want to work on this, and achieve this, more suppleness on the left or the right. They just ride along and do some exercises without really having in mind – ok, diagonal and straightness: get the bending, get the outside rein, where is my inside leg?”

———

Just because a “trainer” has their medals, doesn’t mean they trained the horse to get there. A rider and a trainer are two very different things…it never ceases to amaze me how many “trainers” don’t actually know how to train - on the ground or in the saddle.

I was so lucky that my childhood trainer was fantastic at starting and training horses and she let me be a part of starting many horses. As I’ve gotten older, I finessed and added so much to the ground work that she taught me - from body movement training to dressage in hand to liberty play. And all of that translates under saddle so that we have a willing, joyful equine partner.

I wish that just anyone couldn’t hang a sign on the fence and be a horse trainer. It does a real disservice to so many horses. 😔

🌻 Cara

02/09/2025

Lets get together at 6 pm. On February 12,19 and 26 . It is a group class. 6-8 people

01/30/2025

Love it!

“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.