CJB Dressage

11/12/2024

Everyone loves Thunder! ❤️

10/18/2024

The hands belong to the horse

10/10/2024

Spokane-area horsey folks: does anyone have a pony-sized, simple snaffle bridle, preferably black, preferably no flash, that they’d like to sell me? Or lend me (then color and flash status don’t matter)? Said pony is about 13h.

10/08/2024

Thunder the 13h pony is joining the lesson program! Will be arriving in the next couple days and in training for 60 days ❤️

08/31/2024

Horse fever starts early!

08/14/2024

I could not have said it better myself

07/25/2024

“Where knowledge ends, violence begins.” — Spanish Riding School of Vienna

06/26/2024

Still open from the south!

Road Closure on FAIRVIEW RD (between Overview and Sorrel) JUNE 26 through JULY 26, Mon to Fri between 7am and 3.30pm.

You can still access Pleasant Valley Stables if you take N Freya to access N Fairview Rd.

Evergreen Excavating will try to minimize the disruption if possible.

06/23/2024

I took two students to the Pas de Cheval dressage schooling show today, and what a great day it was! Megan (first show ever) and Smoky (first dressage show ever) rode Intro level and scored above 60% on both tests, earning a fourth place in a crowded Intro A class. Maggie and Swag rode Training level and earned third place on both tests. Maggie has only ridden Swag four or five times this summer, and I was proud of her for being game to compete!

05/10/2024

The momentum continues! Will the FEI ever change?

The 1976 Montreal Olympic dressage champion lent her support to the 'ban hyperflexion' campaign and wondered why the FEI 'did nothing'.

04/11/2024

T and Smoky after a lesson and leadline hack!

03/15/2024

Study confirms what is glaringly apparent…

Stricter dressage judging guidelines are needed, as current trends in FEI judging practices undermine equine welfare.

02/03/2024

Change is hard but so necessary!

The horse world is yet again attacking each other from all sides in response to a recent highly scored dressage test where the horse really didn’t look like they were having a very nice time.

‘Professional’ riders are claiming that they’re being bullied and trolled, and I’m sure some feelings of humans have been hurt along with those of the horses.

This is what I believe is happening.

There IS a ground swell of change occurring and the voice of lowly people without the wealth and status of the equine elite are being heard. Without a doubt there is a class and hierarchy issue sitting behind this. The aristocracy don’t like it when the peasants revolt, we’re a messy and annoying bunch.

AND, more importantly than this, and the part that gives me hope is this. Those riders who are feeling criticised and coming back all guns blazing, are in their teeny tiny heart of hearts, scared we might be right. And the scariest thing for our ego is the realisation that it may have hung it’s hat on the wrong stand.

I’m holding on to the belief that all of us - when we plopped into the world - didn’t want to do things which were hurtful or harmful to others. That in our souls we know we are all interconnected and each of us - horse, human, tree, spider, star, lichen - are all equally worthy of love and respect. And that this growing voice of ‘Hey, this doesn’t look like you’re being very nice to your horse’ is tweaking that bit right in the middle of them, and it’s making them feel uncomfortable.

And as we’ve been trained to look for comfort wherever we can, we will do whatever it takes not to feel uncomfortable. And right now that’s being expressed as a big fat ‘F**k off’ from the equestrian elite. They’ve gone into full scale defensive mode which includes both claiming victimhood and shaming and mocking everyone else,

My great golden hope is that the reason they’re so rattled is because a bit of them they can’t quite remember, maybe the part of them which as a 2 year old exploded with giggling delight at the sight of a horse, also doesn’t want to make their sides bleed or stop them being able to breathe properly or have to use a huge amount of painful traction on their jaw to ‘ride a medium trot’. That it’s that tiny child right in there who’s saying, ‘Hey grown up me, is this really what we wanted to do to horses?’

At the moment, it’s all coming out as vitriol or self pity, but maybe one day they too will stand up to the system which has caused this and say ‘Let’s not do this to our friends anymore….’

10/22/2023

Day 2 of the Dr. Gerd Heuschmann USA clinic. So proud of my two students!

10/21/2023

Ponies joined at the hip, and my student on Swag post-lesson, at the Dr. Gerd Heuschmann clinic at the Relational Riding Academy!