Classical Dressage Art in Motion

Sometimes you feel the need to stand up on your soap box and this is one of them. I may not be at Hyde Park Corner in London, but I do think this message can still garner an interested audience of dressage aficionados if not the common man. We can talk about offering classical dressage training. We can talk about competitive sporthorse dressage training and discuss German versus French until the cows come home. But really folks. If you study the classics, you will find Baucher , Fillis , Steinbrecht, L'Hotte , DeCarpentry and so many others already expounded on everything you see today. No - not seeing the Duke of Newcastle included ( God forbid we should mention the British having anything to do with it, though the latest successes of the Brits Carl Hester , Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte DuJardin etc. might make you wonder). Are the great riders of today such as Kyra Kyrklund influenced more by Nuno Oliveria , Brenderup or Alois Podhasky or none of the above? Aren...

Here's your horse. Here's your groom. All the gear you need is neatly packed and organized. All you have to do is show up. Well - not quite. Riding and competing in Europe with my Swiss coach and her elite team from her private yard has been a blast. There have been many ups and downs over the years for sure. Mostly ups. I'm not going to focus on the time my groom forgot my entire wardrobe trunk, or the time my horses arrived just 40 minutes before my first class ( actually I will later), or the time the airline somehow managed to lose one of two boots that were packed in the same boot bag ( most useful one boot), or me running flat-out through the terminal in riding boots and breeches carrying a shadbelly (that, thankfully, only happened once). Not the most comfortable footwear to travel in. But I did make the gate. Travel between European countries is easy enough but driving takes a lot of time due to the traffic and travel from the USA to Europe is expensive. I alway...