Bruce Peek and Ali (OR)
Team #1058: Bruce Peek and Ali
From: Beaverton, Oregon
Ages 75 & 28
Combined Age: 103
Test: First Level Test 1
June 21st I was privileged to complete my Century Club ride at the historic Lake Oswego Equestrian Center. I would like to thank the owner of my horse, Lorilee Hanson of Issaquah, Washington, for allowing me to lease Arrow Aliado, a 28-year-old Lusitano/Andalusion and Quarter Horse cross also known as an Azteca. I am 75, born in 1950.
I would also like to thank my teachers, Estell Keating, Lee Jorgenson, and Sara Huson. Growing up, we had ponies as children back in Michigan. Working on a political science degree at Michigan State University, I took classical dressage classes, where parenthetically, I took lessons from TDF Board member, Maryal Barnett. My primary teachers were Jim and Sharon Rowe. I was once lucky enough to clinic with their primary teacher, the great Dorita Konyot. They taught the general dressage curriculum – turn on the forehand, turn on the haunch, leg yield, shoulder in, half pass. They also taught French classical dressage in the Baucherist tradition. Seeing how successful Baucherism was with settling horses’ minds and letting them move more freely, I wanted a piece of that. Since the mid-1980s, I continued riding and owning horses when I could afford them and leasing them when I could not.
I was able to clinic several times with Dominque Barbier in the early 90s. He had been a working student of the great Nuno Olivera. Barbier reinforced both the rider releasing the rein and the importance of work in hand, what Buck Brannaman calls groundwork.
The thing I found after working with Buck’s students was that the roots of classical dressage were reinforced in the Domeq Vaquero and Rejonjero riding of the Iberian Peninsula, and they were carried forward by the Dorrance brothers, Ray Hunt and Buck Brannaman. I would remiss here if I did not also thank Buck Brannaman, Nick Donohue, and Ricky Quinn, all of whom teach Vaquero horsemanship.
For a time in the mid-90s, I did Union Cavalry re-enacting where I learned that classical dressage aids not only work, but they also keep you safe. Cookes tactics, a civil war mounted era drill manual, contains references to the rider performing neck flexions with the horse prior to even sitting on them. Phillip St. George Cooke was Jeb Stuarts father-in-law and stayed loyal to the Union. Baucherism was widely used and understood by both Union and Confederate officers in the Civil War.
Since retiring five years ago, I’ve been riding as much as possible. I strongly suggest everybody rides dressage. As we age, movement and balance become centrally important to staying healthy, and riding demands that we stay physically and psychologically fit.
