Classical Dressage Art in Motion

Organic Horse Hay Makes A World Of Difference To Horse's Health It's been a busy hay season at our organic hay farm between dodging the rain deluges earlier in the year then the dry weeks late in the season. These elements all combined to provide a very up and down experience.  For horse owners as the summer season ends the season of stocking up on forage supplies is just beginning. Question is, how many horse owners are aware of just what their hay contains and of what negative effects it is having on their horses' health? Bottom line up front - horses do better on small squares of organically grown and produced hay than hay produced by commonplace farming methods that include use of preservatives. And here's the reasoning behind that statement. Working Hard To Do Better Why did we begin this endeavor of hay farming in the first place? And what difference has it made to the health of our horses? I think a LOT. We've been producing our own hay at our farm in the C...

Hosting a clinic is a three-sided triangle, and each corner has to be in concert with the other two in order for the event to be the best it can be. It is expensive and time-consuming to host a clinic, but it can also be extremely worthwhile. It can drive business to your barn, increase the talent level of your resident horses, riders and on site trainers, and provide valuable insights into what the world of competition is currently favoring from the judge's box, if that is what make your horse world tick. It can also net you some good income. Paul Alvin-Smith teaching advanced showjumping student   The three corners are the host, the clinician and the rider. Each party has to be tuned in to the other for the event to work. As an experienced clinician as part of the Grand Prix duo that is my hubbie and me, I find the travels (sometimes extensive to other countries), hours of almost non-stop training and the effort that we put in very rewarding. For the most part anyway. We work wit...

If there is a sense of Olympic fever in your horse barn then you are not alone. At a recent dressage clinic Paul and I found plenty of excitement about the forthcoming stellar equestrian competition. It seemed as if everyone was trying just that bit harder to master their equestrian prowess.  Paul Alvin-Smith schooling an ANCCE stallion   Last year while in the United Kingdom enjoying various trips through the autumn and winter months, I had the opportunity to personally engage with some national contenders for the team. To say it was awe-inspiring is an understatement.  I may be a wee bit spoiled!   The advent of live-streaming TV means everyone can gain access to watch the particular discipline they favor in real time, and that has everyone that is a serious competitor and a lot of all-important grass roots amateur riders too, are on the edge of their seats enjoying the spectacle. If you operate a horse training facility then this year in particular is a great time...

Once you take the leap of faith and move your horses from full-time livery service to keeping them in your own backyard it truly is, hard to go back. Not because the boarding barn owner wouldn't be happy to see you, but because once you've taken your horse care matters into your own hands you quickly learn the nuances of all aspects of horse care matters, and learn they are more important than you ever imagined.   Early Days At WVH North Blessed with my husband being as avid a dressage personage as I am, the notion of keeping horses at home was never far from our minds when we moved from the U.K. to the U.S.A. way back when. With his vast experience training horses and my lesser experience with formal riding education but lots of 'hands-on' experience spent riding and working in foxhunting, elite showjumping and horse breeding yards in England, our combination of experience worked well. Gambol's Georgy Girl - one of our WVH DWB homebreds   As you age toward mileston...

It is sad to see folks like British rider Lottie Frye with her Everdale competing at Amsterdam CDI receiving some significantly bad press and attack over her training style, and Cesar Parra, another Olympian this time representing Columbia who works in the U.S.A, subject to the same. Lottie Frye went from hero to zero in short order, the horse showcasing some telling signs that the training methods employed on the equine, who I'm sure is nonetheless much loved by Frye, are perhaps not the kindest. And from a classical dressage exhibit standpoint, certainly not correct and true. But the judges certainly rewarded it, placing her 1st. We all love our horses, but our actions speak louder than words   The reality is that whether the alleged activities of applying screws to horse's mouths such as mentioned in the FEI suspension of Parra, or the inevitable topic of rollkür training techniques are back, it seems that elite riders are still being rewarded for the results of those meth...

Figuring out how to help our horses heal from bouts of disease is all part of the horse owner's experience. Fighting issues with tick borne diseases such as Lyme and Anaplasmosis, flare-ups of metabolic issues caused by the amazing amount of green grass we've had available all summer in the North-East, and figuring our how to help our older horses with hind gut issues and post-ulcer treatment support, is a constant battle. To the rescue comes a ground-breaking new product, Grand Meadows Postbiotic, that rather wonderfully also currently has a free trial offer available to our fellow professional trainers. Here at Willowview Hill Farm, we don't often endorse products, but this feed supplement product does seem to be a game-changer.    Launched in March 2023, the triumphs of this product that are being hailed by many pro trainers that have already been using it, is that not only does it resolve equine digestive upsets caused by antibiotic administration, and lower ulcer scor...