I know adult amateur covers a lot of ground, people with a lot of money or barely scraping by on borrowed horses, training level riders up to FEI folks, but just curious as to what everyone’s favorite thing they’ve ever done is as an ammy whether it was a strictly ammy event or not.
I think mine might be scribing, I learn a lot each time I do it, at least at the lower levels where there is enough time between scores to look up.
find the right horse and the right trainer.
if your horses doesnt want to do it, or physically cant, take time out and save for something more suitable. NO i dont mean everyone needs to spend £££££££ on a WB, many off breeds can do it and want to do it but i see so many nice riders on basically crappy horses that hold them back big time.
i took a year out of riding and bought a £3k 2yo. it was worth it to have a horse who so wants to do the job.
and find the right trainer, who pushes you but doesnt force you. I have schooled 3 horses to GP but spent my last lesson perfecting one god damn corner on my 4yo…my trainer is honest about what we need to do and honest about how we do it and i respect him all the more for it.
A few years ago the moon, the stars and the planets aligned and I had the time, money and both Sophie and I were both sound and we got to spend a month at a local trainer’s barn and she had time to teach me.
Now I consider myself lucky to have time to ride.
I spent a week in Spain taking dressage lessons on extremely well trained horses.
Loved it so much, I bought a horse from them the following year.
Both those things put me well into the red. Both have been the best thing I’ve done so far.
A couple times I took a week off and did a week of “boot camp” with a trainer I really like who lives a couple hours away. My two horses stayed at her barn, and I took the week of of work and stayed at a motel near her. She also had some horses in training that she was able to use as lesson horses occasionally. I had 2 - 3 lessons per day on my onw horses and on a couple of others that she thought would be a good experience for me for certain reasons. I also spent a lot of time just hanging out, watching her do training rides, etc.
Also, I LOVE e-scribing. A couple of local shows use a system where a second scribe sits in the booth with a computer and just enters the numbers for each movement. It is even better than scribing because there is really time to watch the horses as you hear the comments.
Leased a schoolmaster.
I got trained in massage therapy for horses. Its brought me to a place that I couldn’t get to with dressage alone. I gained confidence in my assessments, and it enhances my biomechanics lessons. Learning anatomy and physiology of both me and my horse have been super helpful.
^^ times 100!
FEIwannabe, that is what I want to do next year for my 50th. I have never ridden a baroque breed before and I need to since I have a Lusitano X filly coming up!! Would love some information on what where etc.
[QUOTE=khall;8680786]
FEIwannabe, that is what I want to do next year for my 50th. I have never ridden a baroque breed before and I need to since I have a Lusitano X filly coming up!! Would love some information on what where etc.[/QUOTE]
We went to Epona Spain. It’s just outside of Seville. They have different programs that are each one week long. My friend and I did the Classical program which ended the week with a lesson with Rafael Soto, who was very gracious and encouraging to us even though we were not upper level riders. There were 2 riding lessons a day. We had a couple of in-hand lessons and a couple of lunge line seat lessons too, all very educational. I got to ride my first passage, piaffe and Spanish Walk.
But there were also additional perks, such as a trip to see the show at the Royal School in Jerez, visits to a couple tack shops, and even a flamenco show in Seville. So it was great fun.
It’s a great location for touring too. We had 2 non-riders with us and they were able to go to Seville on a couple of the days while we had our lessons.
I’m hoping to go again one day and do the program with Rafael Soto.
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