The Gifted Fund

Tracee Horn

USDF Region 2


Dreams Do Come True!

Having been selected to represent Region 2 as the recipient for The Gifted Grant has been a wonderful experience! Thank you to Carol Lavell and the Dressage Foundation for making this experience possible.

I used the grant to spend ten days with trainer Carol Shulz at Wynden Hill Farm right outside of Lansing, MI. I must say I had a very good time! They have great camaraderie at this barn. I wanted to work on collection, counter canter and hopefully start flying changes. Counter canter has always been my nemesis, for whatever reason. And not having much experience with changes made me unsure of how to start them. My main goal is to one day reach the FEI level, and one day to enter the ring wearing tails. We are getting closer!

Isabella is a Friesian Sporthorse, she just turn six this May. Bella is a true blessing. Because of some health issues with me I came within 12 hours of selling this mare, then as I was working her to get her ready for the buyer the next day I came to my senses and cancelled the deal. Smart move, as she is turning out to be my dream horse, not only with great gaits, but a great attitude and work ethic. She always tries, sometimes too much!

The first day I was there I had a saddle fitter readjust my saddle since Bella is ever changing and growing. Carol made notes as she watched me warm up and try my saddle to make sure the adjustment was okay for both of us.

We started Thursday out with Carol and I discussing where I want to go with Bella . Carol and I agreed Bella has the making of a great FEI horse! But I need to adjust my riding from a baby horse to an up and coming FEI horse, in other words demanding more of Bella and myself. I need to do less and expect more from Bella. We worked Bella on lowering her croup with half steps at the walk and getting the half halts to come through more. And without me pulling back, an old habit that I am working hard at to correct! It is getting better. We moved on to trot work again getting the half halts to come through even more, at time Bella offers passage! Quite cool. We went from collection to medium trot and then back to very collected trot. This really got her to lower the croup and carry even more. The canter work was very good today, we worked on collected walk on a ten-meter circle to collected canter trying to keep right between the aids and not let Miss Wiggles toss her haunches here and there! Here is where I need to step up the riding and have the timing of my aids much better and quicker. To catch her almost before she tries to wiggle out of the aids!

Friday we started with bending. Bella can hold herself right at the girth and look like she is bending but I can feel it is just not right as she offers no place to sit on the bending side making lateral exercises hard. This has been an ongoing issue for us that we work on all the time. We used an exercise similar to a shoulder out, using the wall kept Bella from blowing through my outside aids and helped establish correct bend. Then we went to a correct shoulder-in the bend was much better. We checked the rein back, which was quite good as were the turn on the haunches. Canter work today was quite good and we applied the same aids in canter as we did trot and she responded very nicely.

Saturday, I had the pleasure of riding Carol’s retired FEI horse to get a feel for changes. His changes are so good! It was almost too easy! Today with Bella we first worked on counter canter, after an adjustment to my inside leg position, bringing it more forward, right at the girth things got better, Bella would toss in a change if I shifted my weight too much. We used an exercise to break things down and slow things down for us both to work the changes. We started going from left canter to right. After making a turn onto the diagonal I straightened her more then used a leg yielding aid to change Bella’s bend and then gave on the new inside rein as I changed my leg aids after a couple attempts Bella gave me a nice change. The right was our harder way. I used more of a half pass to the wall then changed the bend then switched my leg position. After a few tries we got a nice clean change and quit on that note. We gave Bella Sunday off.

Monday Bella was a little cranky nothing bad but just not herself. We did a lot of work at the walk aliening her shoulders to get proper bend with the use of half halts, inside leg to outside rein and me being quicker to correct her wiggle butt! We then added this better bend to her trot, working today on half pass. I found myself leaning and using way to much outside leg. I needed to sit centered and lead Bella with my inside hip. I was working way to hard at this. This work transferred right into the canter half pass.

The next few days we added all these elements with Bella coming out and going right to work just as we had ended the last lesson. We were having some issues of Bella throwing her haunches to the inside during my canter depart to the left. Carol suggested I use more outside thigh instead of lower leg and that was the ticket. Bella is so sensitive to the leg that she has a tendency to over react.

The ten days ended with a final lesson on Friday afternoon. Bella was great even though she was tired, she really tried hard. Today we touched on medium gaits. We collected the trot to almost piaffe and then let her out into a medium, she kept her rhythm quite nicely and responded to me just adding a light half halt. Then we added this to canter, collect to medium and back, it was very nice. We finished up with that.

Those ten days were some of the most intense riding I have done in many years. To finally have a horse that is capable not only in her gaits but her mind too is almost too good to be true. Each day we built on what we did the previous day and were careful not to ask too much of Bella. Looking back at our progress from not have ridden for a year, to breaking Bella out, teaching her to canter, and now starting higher level collection seems like a dream. Please don't wake me up!