The Gifted Fund

Sheila Hatch

Accepting the Challenge

Like most adult amateurs, I struggle to balance the obligations of my family, busy professional life and my riding. I am very lucky to have access to a talented trainer, Tracey Lert, but often feel that my training is limited due to lack of funding and time. I have a wonderful but somewhat difficult horse, which adds another dimension to the challenge.

When I read the description of The Dressage Foundation's Gifted Fund, my first thought was - this program describes my situation exactly. Finally, a program for all of us folks who work full time, are very committed to dressage - learning, training and giving back to the sport through volunteering - but can't always afford to do all we would like to with our own training.

With Tracey's encouragement, I applied for the grant to go to Lilo Fore's Sporthorse America in Santa Rosa. Tracey trains with Lilo and my training proposal was to accompany Tracey on two multi-day trips, observe Tracey working with Lilo, and have Tracey observe my lessons with Lilo. This way I could integrate new training ideas in a way that would compliment my current training program.

I took my first trip January 16-18, 2003 and it was a wonderful experience. The grant allowed me to focus on training for three solid days. This opportunity was a truly rare and extremely productive experience for me. Geronimo and I have been together since he was a very green (and very disobedient) youngster. Through our training with Tracey, we've been making solid progress. Our current challenge is the difficult transition from First Level to Second.

At the beginning of each lesson, Lilo had us focus quite a bit on the overall quality of the gaits and connection to the bridle. Once these basics were a bit better, we incorporated them into lateral movements.

Lilo stressed the importance of my body position and the effect that it had on my horse's ability to maintain balance, particularly as we began the lateral movements. We worked on changing the position of my right side and maintaining solid contact without getting rigid in my arms. The concepts were not new to me, but getting a different perspective helped drive them home.

What I found extremely helpful was hearing Tracey and Lilo discuss my riding with each other during our breaks. Listening to two experienced professionals remark on my riding, and hearing their combined ideas on how I could become more effective and resolve specific issues was invaluable.

The real treat was watching Lilo work with Tracey, and then watching the two of them school a variety of talented horses throughout the day. It gave me an opportunity to absorb the ideas presented during my lessons, and see how the training techniques applied to different horses of different levels.

I very much appreciate them both taking the time to work with my "unconventional" dressage horse and me. I left Sporthorse America excited about the work that we had done and eager to continue my training with Tracey at home.