By WDAFL Member Andrea Martin
To understand my excitement in receiving the Western Dressage Association of Florida’s grant for professional lessons, one needs have some introduction to my background in the dressage world. This will be a bit anti-climatic . . . a year and a half ago, my experience with dressage could be summed up as, well, none. The only exception to that statement is the Quadrille I participated in when I was around ten years old or so. I’m proud to say we did place second while riding to a pretty epic John Phillips Sousa song though, beating a few of the teams that were favored for the day, but other than that, I had no clue what I was doing when I started this adventure less than two years ago.
In January of 2017, one of my closest equestrian partners in crime, was asked to take over as President of the Northwest Florida Chapter of the Deep South Dressage and Combined Training Association (NWFL Chapter of DSDCTA). That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?! I still had never even really looked into the wonderful world of dressage, but because we had a lot of fun rides together, she came to me and asked if I would share the headache of leadership in this Chapter and become her Vice President. I love headaches (I get them all the time!) so I, naturally, said heck yes! Then promptly told her I’d never even been to a dressage and jumping show, so she’d have to answer a lot of questions! She said the best way for me to learn, would be to actually join her at a show, so we went through the entry process (with 2,907,653 questions asked before submission), and I prepared to attend my very first dressage show in February of 2017!
But wait! There’s more! I don’t have anything close to a warmblood, unless you count the fact that all of my mares are indeed mammals and have high body temperatures (don’t worry, the horrible jokes will be kept to a minimum). And yes, I did say all of my MARES . . . remember what I said about headaches? Nevertheless, I had signed up for a dressage show with my 14.3 hand reining mare who has the absolutely perfect conformation for a cow horse, which meant she was nothing like a large, floaty dressage horse, and a large 3 year old red roan quarter horse with only about 20 rides on her, who I thought had some potential because she actually does have some nice movement to her. Because we had just come from Wyoming and hadn’t really touched an English saddle in over a decade, we signed up for Western Dressage (because, Hey! Western!). My mares had a green foundation in ranch horse versatility, chasing cows, and reining so this seemed the logical first step to figure out this world I had volunteered to be a part of.
Our first show went well. We didn’t die or go off test! And we placed first in two of our classes (we may or may not have been the only riders in the class), but after that show, I was hooked! I adored, and still do, the fact that dressage promotes building a good foundation for both horse and rider, working at the pace that works for your horse, and always progressing and learning with the goal to have your horse moving naturally AND properly in response to the rider’s correct and effective aids. I wanted to be one of those beautiful horse and rider teams that I got to watch at this show! I had found a discipline that, upon first experience, I really wanted to set and achieve goals in. We had a ton of work to do, because this was a completely different beast from the western world I had come from.
I also loved that at the end of the show you got instant feedback! Every ride was like a new lesson! I poured myself into reading all things dressage after that show, and over the following show season I tortured my poor ponies with new methods and different track so that we could hopefully improve. And we did progress slowly for a little while (we had a lot of areas to work on so it was easy to see some evolution). My geometry got better and our movement transformed from a slower western jog to a trot with more movement, but we still were missing so much, and our scores were getting pretty stagnant. Over the past six months, the comments on my tests might as well have been a tattoo on my body. “Work to develop steady elastic contact, bend and balance.” I’m pretty sure I’ve ready that statement or some variation of it a million times now. I really needed help! I had no idea how to go about training to achieve this illusive “elastic contact” (I mean elastic and contact seemed completely counter-intuitive to me) and better balance. Being accustomed to loose looped reins, neck reining, and western saddles, a request to be “on the bit” and responding to “contact” was a huge hurdle for us, but between work travels and budgeting to feed my herd of mares, I always put lessons on the back burner and never found the time or finances to get the professional input that we truly and desperately needed.
Then a lovely friend of mine told me about the WDAFL grant for lessons and insisted that I apply, because she had just received a grant for lessons as well and was learning so much. So with her encouragement and guidance I applied, and to my excitement I received an email that would allow me to take two lessons from Stephanie Mosely with the financial support from the WDAFL. I was beyond thrilled and right away I scheduled my first lesson!
July 2018: A wonderful friend and neighbor woke up absurdly early to haul her horse with me two and a half hours away to meet with Stephanie Mosely for my very first lesson. We were committed. I had heard so many wonderful things from the equestrian community about her, and I was ridiculously excited. Stephanie right away asked for a quick biography of me and my equine partner, Sweetpea, to figure out where we had come from and then where we hoped to go. She was welcoming and kind. After watching us warm up for several minutes, she jumped into the arena, and this is where our transformation begins. . . Immediately, Stephanie discussed with me the in-effectiveness of my seat and legs, and very concisely and clearly explained where they needed to be and why. Because my body is comprised of the most tense and immobile muscles she’s probably ever dealt with (part of the headache problem), and the fact that I have an insanely hard time relaxing, Stephanie had to move my legs a few times to place them in the correct position. This allowed me to feel where they should be before we ever began moving. I quickly realized how badly my poor position had been affecting my young horse after we started to move. She felt so much more balanced under a seat that was also much more properly balanced. As we walked and jogged around the arena, Stephanie explained to me how this new position, which put my leg much more underneath me, and caused me to work from my thigh, rather than my hamstrings would help both me and Sweetpea to become more harmonious and work more correctly. And for the first time ever, I understood what a correct stride felt like. It was exhilarating!
Stephanie also emphasized the importance of my posting in relation to getting Sweetpea to move more correctly. My post tempo could control her tempo and speed, and when I finally was able to slow my cadence down, her movement improved greatly. We learned so much during lesson number one, and we certainly had our homework cut out for us, but everything I learned would help me to retrain myself in order to help me train my horses to reach our goals. We ended the hot, muggy lesson so exhausted and dripping in sweat but incredibly excited and hopeful!
Stephanie gave me a few extra minutes of her time after cooling Sweetpea off to talk about Western Dressage and how it developed and why. What she said made me even more eager to get to some WDAA recognized shows in the future. So often at the schooling shows I’ve been to, Western Dressage tests are judged just like the Classical Dressage tests. The most English looking ride wins, which in my mind meant that my stock horses really wouldn’t stand a chance at higher levels. Throw a western saddle on a warmblood, and you’re golden, it seemed. She explained to me that Western Dressage developed so that horses that weren’t entirely suited for the upper levels of Classical Dressage could still have a correct and fluid foundation to build on. It was meant for the “working/ranch” horse breeds to emphasize and appreciate their beautiful, natural gaits and movement. This new revelation had me walking away from our lesson with new enthusiasm in my pursuit of a proper western dressage foundation.
The time between lessons 2018: I had several weeks between Lesson one and Lesson two to work on the things that Stephanie had taught me. Not only did I apply her instruction in proper alignment and posting tempo to my work with Sweetpea, I tested it out on every poor victim I had. The really cool thing? What I had learned from just one lesson, improved my rides on every horse that I put time on. Not only did my big pink beast find improved balance and offer a little more reach into the bridle, so did my other cow ponies. I found my aids to be more effective and the results were profound. I could not wait to get back to my second lesson!
August 2018: I finally made the trek to my second lesson (amazing friend in tow, once again). The best excuse to take time off from work is to ride, right?! We loaded up the ponies early again, and headed out for another hot and muggy Florida-in-the-summer lesson. I was excited to show Stephanie what all we had worked on. Sweetpea had a different idea of how the day would go. Usually, Sweetpea is a big mover. She has a lovely long stride in the walk, and likes to cover ground. She adores moving out as big as possible in the trot, and her canter is like a barrel horse on steroids (okay, not quite that insane – but she definitely decided to hold onto her large, fast circle work from her reining start). After saddling up, we headed to the arena. I was ready and excited to work. Sweetpea, apparently, was not. My usually upbeat, happy mover, was grumpy and decided to play some lovely mental games with me.
After several minutes of entirely frustrating rounds in the ring, and Sweetpea’s absolute success in getting me thrown off track, I was dripping with sweat and Stephanie began her magic. She re-adjusted my leg position once again, this time less dramatically than before and I took a deep breath as Sweetpea mocked me. Then we began to work. Stephanie really emphasized, that while it may be rough and ugly, I had to dedicate myself to pushing my horses through the things that they tried to convince me not to do. Those corners and the balance and bend required to get through them fluidly, were hard, and Sweetpea was trying as hard as she could to persuade me that we really didn’t want to do them today. Stephanie continued to encourage my determination to get through the corners, and every time we made it through one, my victories became greater. Once we were finally moving consistently, we focused on a steady contact on the rein. I had learned to bump on the bit in order to get her attention and ask for her nose to drop (bad habits die hard) but really this would throw her off balance and kill our tempo. So this would absolutely be part of the whole re-training me part! We also worked on keeping my elbows in and hands up (another really hard thing for me!) and proper hand and leg aids as we went through the corners. My homework was really piling up! Once Sweetpea and I had a few more triumphant corners, Stephanie allowed us to work on our canter. Because Sweetpea did become so animated at the canter, we focused on slowing down my seat in order to get a better canter tempo and improve her balance. This was HARD! My entire life I’ve been riding the canter wrong! What a disappointing but informative revelation! But you know what?! The few canter strides where I set the tempo and Sweetpea responded, were glorious! I needed to set the tempo, not just move along for the ride. It was another exhausting and wonderful lesson.
We have so much homework to work on and we continue to have some great moments followed by moments of re-adjustment in our weekly work. The knowledge that Stephanie imparted to me during our two incredible lessons, has helped us greatly in accomplishing our goals already though! Sweetpea and I went from just okay, progressively stagnant rides at the start of the summer to riding our first Basic level test this past show and receiving a really respectable score under a tougher judge! That test had me smiling the whole time. The application of Stephanie’s instruction has greatly improved the harmony with all of my other sweet mares as well! I am so grateful for this opportunity to train with such an outstanding instructor, and I am so eager to continue to grow. The time spent in Havana has been the start to an amazing transformation for my horses and me. I cannot wait to continue applying her methods to my riding and I know that this is just a wonderful start to our journey with the Western Dressage Association of Florida. Thank you so much for presenting me with this incredible opportunity. The experience has been absolutely invaluable.
