Avandarre in Dressage

While surfing the web last weekend, I found a clinic with Lilo Fore that is relatively close to where I live ( only 4 hours away).  In order to ride in this clinic, you have to be selected by a committee who will judge whether you and your horse are skilled enough to allow Lilo Fore to demonstrate her teaching/training methods on.  You have to fill out a 3 page application, and submit a "statement of reference" from your current trainer, plus send in a video of you riding the horse. If you'd like more information on the Lilo Fore Adult Clinics, here's the link to it: http://www.usdf.org/education/clinics/adult/index.asp I thought, "How cool would that be?". I've watched YouTube videos with Lilo Fore instructing top Olympians. That could be me!! I immediately start scheming up ways to get the money to enter, and how the heck do I get my horse there, and of course I'm dreaming of how fantastic Ava (the super star) will be. This got me to wonderin...

It's common knowledge that most managers are stingy with their praise, but as the managing partner of your equine team, do you praise often enough? Lately, I've been stumbling on numerous forum posts and articles related to "lazy" horses. In my experience, most so called "lazy" horses are created by riders teaching the horse to ignore the aids. However, a rider with more refined aids (on the less than energetic horse) needs to be conscientious in praising the horse's effort to give us what we want (even if the horse has no clue why we care about some of this stuff). Using positive reinforcement to solidify the horse's desire to work goes much farther than negatively reinforcing the "lazy" horse. To illustrate this point I'll give a totally hypothetical, entirely made up situation. Let's say "my friend" (Okay, fine.. it's me.) feels her horse's canter departs need improvement and sets out to work on them during a...

What a fantastic year! This year has been a bit rough, but overall it's been fun. I started out the year petrified of riding, and horses in general, and can honestly say I'm now only slightly petrified. hahaha. I even walked out into a herd of mammoth horses (every one of them over 16 hands) and stood there while they sniffed me. This, if you know me, was a HUGE accomplishment (Hi Jane!). Considering that for the longest time I couldn't even walk into the pasture to get Ava out if another horse was in there, regardless of how well behaved all the horses were... I think I've come a long way. Also, I'm no longer scared to ride Ava outside (and by ourselves)! We even took a walk around the back field a few weeks ago, just Ava and me.  We intend to explore a great deal more... as soon as the weather gets better. So long story short, I'm dang proud of myself for not allowing fear to stop me from doing something I love.  Even on those day's where fear got th...