Angela and Parry (Percheron/TB)

Angela has another horse, an Arab gelding, that she uses for endurance riding, but she realizes that Parry was bred to be a dressage horse.  Since he's still very young, we're doing basic rhythm and suppling work under saddle at the walk and trot.  I plan to do long line work with Parry, and teach Angela how to do it as well.


Parry is nicely put together, and Angela has spent a LOT of time on ground manners with this young man.







A nice moment of flexing at the poll.


Parry can stride up even more than this at will, but he's still a little concerned about balancing a rider too, and his legs are so darn long, sometimes he doesn't know where to put them.

Drew and Uma, her 6 year old American Warmblood mare (75%TB/25%Shire)



(late summer 2007).  There has been some stop and go to her training, due to weather, illness/injury, & moving the horses to their own property, but we're getting back into consistent work, and Uma is responding well.  A few weeks ago she had some major dental work done, and we could all see the difference last night.  She didn't fuss as much with the bit, and was more willing to try to carry herself in a frame.  Here we're just doing some warm up.  You can tell from Drew's leg position that she's strongly asking Uma to loosen up her rib cage and flex to the inside.


A very nice moment at the trot.  You can see that Uma really wants to carry herself, and has an inkling of how to do it, but in our work so far it seems that, somewhere along the way, she equated bit contact with slowing down/shortening stride.  So, we're really working on forward, and then once we get the forward, asking for inside flexion.


And here's a good moment to the left for this stage of training.  She's much less comfortable in this direction, it's her weaker side.  But again, she's trying to make it all happen.  For now, a step or two at a time is great.  Sooner than we think, she'll have it for half a circle, then the whole circle, then most of the time.


Below are several pictures from Uma's 4th XC schooling.  This took place on July 19, 2008, the day before Uma's first eventing competition.  They competed at the Beginner Novice level, though you can see that this mare is capable of much more, having a clear round on cross country and in stadium, placing 4th overall.  Her stadium round can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=68h2rKWpxfY




















This was Uma's first time over a ditch this challenging, this is the Training/Prelim level ditch, and she's only regularly schooling Beginner Novice/Novice.  She took a good, long, hard look at it and needed a lead, but this is also well above her current level, which proves just how brave and bold this mare is.  And just look at the expression on her face, she LOVES to jump!