Larry’s horse meets him at the gate, looking at him with soft brown eyes. His horse has learned to trust him and enjoy his role as a dance partner.
It hasn’t always been this way though. Larry had been hard to beat in the show ring. He was a consecutive national champion, but the cost to win came at the expense of the horse: harsh bits that created pain avoidance and other unnatural gadgets and shoeing that sacrificed the horse’s comfort. His horse wasn’t a teammate or a dance partner; his horse was an object to build his success.
The nagging thoughts of losing in the show ring after being introduced to classical dressage training brought Larry to a cross roads in what had become a successful riding career. Would he continue to win at the expense of the horse’s comfort and happiness or would Larry find a new way to make a living and enjoy the trust and collaboration a dance partner brings?
Larry took another look into those soft brown eyes and his heart melted. There was no going back to harsh training methods just to produce his success. Thanks to Larry’s choice, he is imparting his classical dressage training methods to people around the country, teaching horses to be relaxed, in balance, comfortable and safer on the trail and at home. Larry’s techniques and training methodology put the horse’s well being before human agenda. And they put the joy into riding for both the horse and the rider.
Clinic with Larry Whitesell, May 2010
I took my six-year-old Walking horse Gift of Freedom to a gaited dressage clinic with Larry Whitesell. He is an amazing horseman of classical dressage and has decades of experience training gaited horses.
Larry has a marvelous training theory: pressure and release to teach relaxation, balance and forwardness to the bit. His methods model that of classical French dressage and he continually takes lessons with FEI level dressage instructors.
In all my years of taking dressage lessons and attending clinics, I have never heard dressage taught with practicality from the horse’s perspective. Larry becomes the best rider he can be to meet the horse’s needs vs. training the horse to do what he wants and meet his agenda. He uses every moment with the horse to build trust and relaxation through balance. The better this is communicated the more the horse relies on the rider as the trusted leader to keep him safe vs. the horse taking matters into its own hands through fight, flight and evasions. Each ride becomes a beautiful dance.
Since I am also working with a three-year-old Arabian Fareed, Larry gave me pointers on breaking a horse to ride. He starts a young horse in a snaffle bit and works them in hand to eliminate braces in the poll, neck, and shoulder through teaching a horse how to relax through pressure and release. Larry spends three days with desensitization training. Then he introduces one-rein stops, disengagement of the hindquarters, and shoulder-in to teach the horse how to move forward onto the bit in a relaxed and balanced frame. Larry also works a young horse on a lunge line using side reins for two weeks. After this work is complete, he begins work in the saddle. What Larry teaches from the ground directly translates to his aids when he begins work in the saddle.
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