Prism Dressage and Equine Services

09/30/2025

09/10/2025

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?” Monica and Isabell Werth discuss a test...
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/02/briana-burgess-training-with-monic-theodorescu/

08/27/2025

Olympian Isabell Werth explains how elasticity and suppleness allow your dressage horse to do his job well and how to help him achieve these key qualities.

08/24/2025

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS🐴 Improve Rein Connection

To improve your rein connection ...

Imagine your point of contact with the bit is in your elbows, triceps and back, and that your arms, wrists and hands are just extensions of the reins. This allows the connection to be held in your body rather than your hands and allows the hands and arms to be soft.
~ Jessica Miller

🎨 Sandy Rabinowitz

08/21/2025

https://dressagetoday.com/instruction/creating-excellence-dressage-putting-it-into-practice-sue-blinks/?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwMUbN5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkO7NgXhLT9sO2pG5ui0DZbuxOs5aJrvRASJhibsfnkFFnB2dgqx4UTWOh_l_aem_PZm_iPlJHum9hB605XeI9A

Olympian Sue Blinks shows how her multifaceted approach to dressage excellence works in teaching movements like shoulder-in and piaffe.

06/20/2025

Stephany Fish Crossman evaluates an adult amateur to explain how rider biomechanics are key to a successful partnership with your dressage horse.

06/20/2025

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS!🐴 How To Know If Your Inside Leg Is Effective?

To help you determine if your inside leg is effective in sending energy to the outside rein …

Imagine that, as a result of using the inside leg, the outside of your horse’s neck seems like a balloon filling with air and the outside rein feels like a bungee cord with positive tension and an elastic connection.
— Martin Kuhn

🎨 Sandy Rabinowitz

06/04/2025

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS: Improve Your Pirouettes🐴

To help make your pirouettes regular, balanced and effortless…

Imagine the face of a clock and make each step cover 10 minutes.
— Carl Hester

🎨 Sandy Rabinowitz

05/20/2025

Take a lesson with Steffen Peters, dressage star for the USA. “Increase the suppleness, don’t just hold in front – better, right away he’s more active behind. When you get him softer in your hand and you make him let go, he will be quieter in the mouth. He’s super, but don’t let him think he’s a big horse, let him think he’s a small horse; there’s no need for him to be a bully. The most important part of his body is not his hind leg, not his back, it’s his brain, get that and he’ll learn to use his muscles to carry you, not against you.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2010/07/wow-a-clinic-with-steffen-peters-part-1/

05/13/2025

Qualities that make a good leg-yield:

✅ The horse moves both forwards and sideways on two tracks.
✅ The rhythm and tempo remains consistent.
✅ The horse's body stays straight with the shoulders about one hoofprint in front of the hindquarters, and a very slight flexion at the poll away from the direction of travel.
✅ If in trot, the horse's inside legs pass and cross in front of the horse's outside legs.
✅ The horse moves freely forward, working through his back without tension or resistance, and the balance is uphill.
✅ The contact is elastic and consistent.
✅ There is a clear start and end to the movement.
✅ The positioning of the leg-yield remains the same throughout the movement, without steep or shallow variations.

For more help with this, check out this article on our website - https://howtodressage.com/article/leg-yield/

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05/07/2025

04/15/2025

"I study dressage because it's one of the purest forms of communication between species. The arena is small, but the game is infinite."

This thought struck me during my training today. We work within the confines of a 20x60m rectangle, yet within those boundaries lies an endless pursuit of connection and refinement.

What fascinates me most about this art isn't just the technical movements, but the silent conversation happening with every shift of weight, every subtle aid, every moment of balanced harmony. The horse doesn't respond to our words but to our energy, our intention, our true presence.

In a world that constantly demands more, faster, louder, dressage teaches the opposite wisdom: less is more. The lightest touch yields the greatest response. Patience compounds over time. The journey never ends because perfection isn't a destination but a fleeting moment of perfect understanding between two beings.

I've come to see the dressage arena as a microcosm of life itself. We all operate within certain boundaries, yet the depth of what we can discover within those spaces is limitless if we approach them with curiosity rather than constraint.