By Karen McPeak I worked at a tack store a couple of years ago when a customer, probably in her mid-forties, came in to buy only what her trainer told her to buy, right down to the brand. As I remember, she was stressed. She had just bought her first horse—to the tune of $75,000, her [...]
When you have learned off your horse how your hips and mid-section coordinate you transfer this learning, this improvement, right into the saddle. Do you ever feel stiff and uncoordinated in your riding? Maybe you know what you want your body to do, but you can’t get it to do it. You may be told [...]
When Western Dressage first established itself, we instructors struggled to describe the requirements of a “working lope” clearly enough for students. We wanted to be sure to differentiate it from the stilted gaits seen in the Western Pleasure discipline, and yet it was also not the animated jumping-across-the-ground canter of the traditional dressage world. It should [...]
