2007 Dressage Coaches Forum Report

March 17

This year’s forum took a slightly different format.

Noted positional expert of riders, Sandy Howard (California), led us through a very insightful day at Flying Colours Stables.

She started the morning with an instructional DVD. On the DVD, we could observe effective rider position and how common mistakes were made by the most competent of riders. Very thought provoking discussion ended the morning.

The afternoon was spent working with the demo riders in the arena. And work we did! We had a very hands on session with the first demo rider. Barb Stroh, an accomplished Training Level rider, working on “getting the sit trot”, let us explore the inside “feel” of sit bones and how it relates to teaching sit trot. Sandy let us know “sit trot is not a trick, it’s a technique to be practiced”.

Katie Mitran was our next demo rider. Katie is a very instinctual rider that Sandy repositioned her body to be more effective. Katie found the changes challenging to keep and in the rides the days after the clinic she found adopting the changes were well worth the effort. Zepher continues to look great!

Kim Aasman was a great demo for sit trot work as well. Kim has a very good position that Sandy “tweaked” from the Eventing posture Kim was comfortable in. Kim could quite easily incorporate the changes and we all could see the results in her horse.

Angie Golley helped us out as a wonderful demo to end the afternoon. Angie and her almost GP mount Fargo, let us enjoy watching advanced level work while she adopted positional changes. The changes on Angie were a culmination of everything Sandy had shown us all day. A wonderful way to end the day.

Sandy was very aware that the arena was peopled with coaches. Her presentation for the day was coach oriented. Coaches at every level learned hands on coaching skills that they could apply in their every day work.

Sunday was a rider clinic. There were 10 riders. It was a continuation of Saturday’s work. We watched as Sandy applied the coaching theory to Sunday’s riders.

Feedback from the Forum…

Dear Vicky,

Wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for hosting last weekend's excellent clinic. While I was only able to attend Saturday's session, I found it extremely valuable, and brought home several very useful ways of communicating, which my students are already benefiting from. I hope you will relay my thanks and feedback to Sandy for such a well presented and informative clinic.

Sincerely,
Frances Carbonnel
Classical Legacy
Elizabeth, Colorado, USA

Hi Vickie

What a really super clinic yesterday with Sandy Howard. You do so much for the dressage community and this event was very special. She was just amazing. I put some of her ideas into practice this morning and my horse was enormously grateful!

Many thanks for this, and all the rest you do all the time.

Jane

I got lots of thank yous and “can we get her back”.

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