Teaching again!!

I haven't had time to update my website, but I am back teaching / coaching again, I limited space so if you wish for a lesson please contact asap :-)

Barefoot / Un-shod / Shoeless & Grand Prix

I was quite pleased to read the shoeing article in the Nag & Dog today 26th March 2015. But disappointed that more wasn't made of barefoot. Haydn is without doubt one of the most talented farriers but there is room for BF at GP level.

I'm very lucky in that all my horses are happily Barefoot / un-shod whatever you want to call it. I'm not evangelistic nor am I against farriers or shoes. Im a realist I understand that without having the knowledge I have & the ability to be able to make changes quickly to there management & diet my horses probably wouldn't be successful without shoes.


But the shocking truth is after many years now BF & many different breeds & ages of horses I haven't had any problems, I hack out, I ride on different surfaces & train without issues ok my current top horse is only competing at Medium, but he is training to a higher level. BF gives me the ability to see any diet related issues quickly & act accordingly.

My big turning point to BF totally was in 2010, I already had a horse that I had taken BF but I was still not totally dedicated to it. Then my WB Troy had a life changing field injury on MRI scan he had done significant damage to the Impar Ligament & DDFT as well as being severly damaged we had the added problem of the impar lig being adhered to the DDFT the Navic Bursa was almost unrecognisable.
His future was poor & I was told if he came field sound I would be lucky, we went with Vet recommendations & had him shod with Bar shoes & frog supports. My gut however was telling me to take shoes off.
Long story short the shoeing did not work out & he was even worse than before hopping lame just on box rest, so after speaking with the vets at leahurst they agreed to taking his shoes off. Was it an instant miracle cure no!!
But he was much looser & the stride increased immediately, in the next few weeks his bouts of lameness changed for the better. We decided the best course of action was to actually do nothing apart from slight re-balancing for a period of 3 months & let his hooves decide where they needed to be.
This worked so well & we where cracking on with in hand walking, we had occasional set backs when he would have a loopy day but the lameness was less & didn't last as long. We tell when the adhesions where breaking as he would go lame for a day & then come out better in walk the next & this carried on.

He then came completely sound, but I continued with a small t/o pen & hand walking progressing the ridden walk & then hacking. No issues throughout.

The days then came to up work & again done slowly we had no issues, we then introduced lateral work, (which would of made him hoping lame before) & no issues. Needless to say we cracked back on & started competing him again in 2012 at Adv Med, he was training happily at PSG when I lost him to another freak accident.

I can honestly say BF made a life changing difference to this horse, yes it was hard work but it was so worth it & is now the reason I advocate it so much where possible.

The key I personally believe to successful BF is without a doubt the owner!!

I also believe the reason we are not seeing horses at GP BF is because there are still so few BF in the dressage world, to say that the work of GP horses demands shoes is rubbish there hooves are perfectly adapted to load bare, they have been doing it for thousands of years!

A horse needing the support of shoes to be able to Piaffe without damage is obviously a horse with compromised hooves. Then yes shoeing if the owner hasn't or doesn't want to go BF is best. But horses can Piaffe perfectly fine without damage to any ligaments BF. There is no need for any lateral extensions because in an uncompromised healthy bare hoof the baring surface is greater than shod.

I am sure that we will be seeing BF at GP in the not so distant future & will be able to prove that a horse can do GP with or without shoes once & for all!!

My post is dedicated to Castle Troy, he changed my whole world so much I will be forever grateful to him.

Castle Troy 2000 - 2013

Dressage a go go

Its been a very long time since I last blogged, mainly due to time I have been very busy with BD summer regionals last year, Judge Training, competing, Hilary Vernon bitting clinic & my lovely old boy Sam having colic surgery.

So as you can imagine 2014 ended quite stressfully but the colic operation was successful & Sam has made a wonderful recovery.

As for everyone else Galante is doing brilliantly, Eavie is progressing well under saddle & Jasper is now well prepared for backing.

We have been receiving regular training from the wonderful Matt Frost & we have been visiting Andreas Hausberger quite often for his masterful eye.
Our last Andreas clinic was a few days ago & I am still beaming from the two days, Andreas gave me a lot of very helpful tips to make my Half passes much more under control. He gave me the tools to slow the front end & quicken the hind & vica versa.

He also worked Galante in hand both days & it was magical to watch.

We finished day two with working canter piri's & a flying change, this is now my homework.

Eavie is progressing well -

Jasper taking it all in his stride

Busy again... & some very unexpected but exciting news :-)

It's been a while again since ive managed to update my blog. The reason for this is I've been so busy over the Month of May & into June that I've not had a moment to myself, dressage has taken my life over with Judging, Competing & training.

The excellent news is that Galante had his Medium BD debut at the beginning of May, we soon realised that this level really suits him & I am proud to say we are going to Regionals at Medium level.
It all happened extremely quickly & with the new cut of for the summer qualification being the 31st of May I can safely say I didn't expect to qualify, but we did & i'm extremely excited to be a riding part again of the NW regionals as the closest I have got these last few years is by being a volunteer writter .

Below are some pic's of Galante's last training session in May with Matt Frost.

The next exciting news is I've been selected to be an Ambassador for the gorgeous Celeris Boots, im totally over the moon as these boots are just gorgeous & totally made to Measure with 24 measurements to give an exact fit. The prices & options for these boots are also unreal for the service you get.

I have a pair of Polished Black Diogo's (with a little bling ) on order & I will be wearing them at the NW Somerford regionals, if anyone would like to view them please feel free to message me & pop to see us. I'm sure you wont be disappointed in what you see.

Celeris have a fantastic new website so take a peek - www.celeris-boots.co.uk or http://celerisuk.com/

There will be a link coming shortly on my homepage which will take you straight to Celeris, but for now if anyone interested could contact me & I will pass you straight on to Celeris UK.

I'm currently getting to the end of being a Trainee Judge & have no upgraded onto the list for testing, this is frightening & exciting at the same time but hopefully I will become a listed judge towards the end of the year.

That's it for now, short but packed :-)

Sky Galante starts the two big P's........

We've been busily training here at CT dressage, Sky Galante has really upped his game & we now felt the time was right to start the Piaffe & Passage. It's still shakey & green but my god is there an awful lot more to come from this horse.

Below pic's where taken on Monday 7th April 2014

New addition to CT Dressage Team

Im very proud to announce that on the 14th Febuary Florentyne joined our team.

Florentyne is a 2yo British Hanoverian by Floriscount, Florentyne is also out of an Elite Hanoverian mare.

We where very lucky to be able to purchase this very special horse, he has come to us from Fosshey Stud the very same Stud that bred our mare Fabiosa.

Florentyne has everything we want a fantastic temprement, uphill frame & movement to drop jaws.

Matt Frost, Andreas Hausberger & Changes!!

Well this last week has been a very busy one with a 2 day clinic with Matt Frost at the start of the week & then a very special lesson at the weekend with Andreas Hausberger, 1st Chief Rider of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna !!!!

Matt Frost was amazing as usual, he is a great trainer & bring so much humour to his lessons that you cant help but enjoy them. On the Monday we worked on Lateral work, with our Medium debut not far away it was important for Matt to have a look at it. Galante is now a very supple horse, but he does block me slightly in the neck in Half pass & Traver he brings his head way up & then hollows over the back if he can.
The way we have counteracted this was to ride the lateral work in a deeper rounder frame, this worked very well & helped to keep him soft & swingy through each step.
Matt was very pleased with our work & said that the next session would be working on the Flying changes.

So the next day we toddled back to see Matt, Galante came out quite hot i was expecting him to be behind my leg & tired but no he was mega forward. He warmed up lovely so Matt then said right lets go with the changes.
Now changes are something we havent yet played with so i was a little eeeek with how Galante would take to it. We started with riding a 10 mtr circle in canter on hitting the centre line i took the shoulders in the new direction & then did a change of leg through trot. We did this on both reins.

Then it was time to do the changes, same thing as above but this time after i had taken the shoulders to the new direction i asked for the change, well the first few where huge!! I lost stirrups & we found Galante was very good a disunited canter lol.
However at a couple of rough attempts we finally started getting clean changes, Galante was mega.

Pic's below of our Flying change attemps -

On Sunday we made our way down to Dovecote Stables the home of Equine Ethos for our very special lesson with Andreas Hausberger, 1st Chief Rider of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. All i can say is i was NERVOUS very nervous, i spoke to a few people who had already had there lessons & they said Andreas was lovely.
So before i knew it i was in the stunning indoor arena looking at a load of spectators who where all waiting to hear who i was & about Galante, i was really bricking it.

Andreas really tried to get a picture of my riding experience, i have to say i didnt really do myself any favours as a few mins into the Piaffe work Andreas said " YOU ARE an EXPERIENCED RIDER ", my reply " am i ", Andreas " YES you REALLY ARE, i can tell from your reactions to the horse".

So as you can see i really must of come across as a wannabe dressage rider lol.

Anyway the lesson was fantastic Andreas really liked Galante & said i was a good rider who made his job easy. Andreas worked with me on starting Galante's Piaffe & Passage Andreas walked beside us for both.
Galante picked up the idea for both Piaffe & passage very quickly think it was maybe the amout of sweeties he kept being fed lol.

But this work really improved the Trot & canter, we ended the session with Canter work, going from working to collected & sprialling in to a very small 8 mtr circle.

It was fantastic & i will hopefully get the chance to train with Andreas again.