Tag Archives: twh dressage

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Clinics

2011 BLESS Clinic

Jennifer Klitzke riding Gift of Freedom at the 2011 BLESS Your Walking Horse Clinic with Bucky Sparks

By Jennifer Klitzke

June 5-6, 2011 marked my fourth trip with Gift of Freedom to Proctor, MN for the B.L.E.S.S. Your Walking Horse Clinic with Bucky Sparks. And yes, clinic participant Barb Nunke said it best, “The sun really does shine in Proctor!” No parkas, rain suits, or knives to cut through the thick Proctor fog this year.

For me, the 2011 BLESS Clinic was all about breaking through the mystery about contact. How do I ride a head-shaking horse with contact? Do my hands move with the motion? Do I keep the reins slack so that I don’t bump the horse’s mouth with each nod?

Not interrupting the head-nod was the main reason I switched to an Imus Comfort Bit, but a curb and a snaffle function differently. A curb bit has leverage and poll pressure that a snaffle does not, and for dressage, a snaffle is essential in training the lateral movements, and it is the only legal bit in showing at the lower levels.

While I love how free Makana moves in the Imus Bit without contact, Bucky helped us ride forward into a light (not loose) contact without stopping. This was simply breakthrough for us!  A training level frame we get, and now Bucky has helped us capture impulsion into the outside rein for a first level dressage frame.

We began the exercise at a flatwalk on a 20 meter circle with a shoulder-fore position. As Bucky’s German schoolmaster would say, “You need to ride shoulder-fore for the rest of your life.” Shoulder-fore can be ridden on a circle and a straight line where the horse is slightly bent to the inside. You should see the inside eye of the horse, and the horse should bend slightly through the poll, neck, rib cage, and spine. The outside rein helps keep the horse from overbending the neck and popping the outside shoulder.

On our second day, Bucky helped us school second and third-level movements as shoulder-in, hauches-in, traver, and renver. He helped bring awareness to the rib cage. Whenever Makana was stiff on the inside rein, it was because she was stiff in the rib cage. Once we established bend through the rib cage by applying inside leg at the girth and outside slightly back to hold the haunches from falling out, Makana became soft and round and light on the inside rein through these exercises. Once we learn these movements fluently at a walk, they can be ridden at a flatwalk.

According to Bucky the shoulder-in and haunches-in are three-track movements and the traver and renver are four-track movements. All four exercises help establish balance, suppleness and softness, a more upright frame, and contact.

For more about Bucky Sparks, visit www.blessyourhorse.com.

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Shows

Dressage Schooling Show Open to Gaited Horses

gaited dressage
Jennifer Klitzke riding Gift of Freedom at the May 2011 Walker’s Triple R Schooling Dressage Show.

A lovely spring day blessed 21 horse/rider teams at the Walker’s Triple R schooling dressage show held May 15, 2011. I rode my naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse mare, Gift of Freedom, She was the only gaited horse entered among Friesians, Warmbloods, Arabians, and Thoroughbreds and placed second in both First Level tests with scores of 65.9% and 63.9%.

[httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2fNBwFS8GA&w=560&h=315]

Photo Gallery»

Video: First Level Test 1»

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Shows

Gaited Dressage: Rocking R Farm Dressage Show

Gift of Freedom and Jennifer Klitzke scored a 68.1% on their first Gaited First Level dressage test at Rocking R Farm dressage show held on Sunday, October 15, 2010.

Gift of Freedom was the only gaited horse entered. She did wonderfully in her First Level test with a high score of 68.1%!

Judge Mary Spaeth who has been officiating dressage shows for 26 years had never seen a gaited horse ride to a dressage test. Although she didn’t know how to score the flat walk and running walk, her collective remarks include, “Fluid, obedient and willing – shows harmony and confidence.”

Video: My First FOSH Gaited Dressage First Level Test

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Clinics

B.L.E.S.S.(ed) in 2010

By Jennifer Klitzke

Breaking through the Proctor fog was the sunny smile and personalized teaching of F.O.S.H. Clinician Bucky Sparks. He brought along some new tools to share from his training toolbox. This marked Bucky’s sixth consecutive 2,000-mile trip to Minnesota. He imparted wisdom to riders and auditors who had traveled from all corners of Minnesota and Wisconsin for the clinic held June 4-7, 2010 in Proctor, MN.

Bucky’s toolbox is filled with effective training techniques geared to B.L.E.S.S. the horse. B.L.E.S.S. stands for balance, looseness, engagement, softness, and soundness. In fact, everything Bucky teaches, he applies to the horses he trains and shows. You’ll see him successfully showing barefoot (the horse that is) and in a snaffle bridle.

This year, we saw dramatic transformations in many returning horses. Ones that had paced are now solid in their flat walks. Horses that had started the canter last year worked on softness and balance through simple changes and counter canter. Other horses that have mastered the basics worked on improving collection and engagement through lateral exercises like shoulder-in, haunches-in, and leg yielding.

One of Bucky’s new tools introduced this year was “breaking it down” which helps a young horse stay focused and not “take two steps of stupid,” as Bucky says.

Breaking it down redirects the attention of the horse away from doing something dangerous to listening to the rider. It is also effective for horses that have developed a habit of bracing in the neck and poll. Breaking it down applies a tug and release of one rein with some leg pressure as the horse moves forward. It redirects the horse to relaxation when they realize there is nothing to brace against.

For more about Bucky Sparks, visit www.blessyourhorse.com.

Gaited Horse Stories

Larry’s Story

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.

Larry Whitesell>

Clinic with Larry Whitesell, May 2010

Larry Whitesell explaining shoulder-in. Jennifer Klitzke riding Gift of Freedom.

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.

Fareed’s Training Blog>