Category Archives: Gaited Dressage Clinics

RNR Ranch in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin hosted a five-day Gaited Dressage Clinic with Larry Whitesell and Jennifer Bauer August 27-31. The clinic featured five Tennessee walking horses, a Foxtrotter, a Rocky, and a Singlefooter and their riders from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Larry brought his professional teaching, coaching and communication skills to unpack his unique riding philosophy which is based upon classical dressage and years of showing and training gaited horses. His training focus is in meeting the horse’s needs.

Larry says, “Don’t teach the horse what NOT to do. Teach the horse what TO do.” Instead of punishing the horse for making a mistake, redirect the horse to find balance and relaxation and at the same time the horse’s need for security will be satisfied, and the horse will better trust the rider as a reliable leader. This translates into less spooks, bolts, bucks, buddy sourness, and rears. The more a horse trusts the rider to keep it secure, the more the rider can trust the horse on the trail. It’s a win-win training method.

Participants learned exercises to help their horses find balance and relaxation which in turn will help the horses become safer and happier trail mounts. Jennifer coached riders into establishing a better riding position while Larry helped each rider/horse team through the exercises. Participants were amazed with how much influence a good riding position has on a horse’s balance.

The clinic was filled with mounted and dismounted exercises, working the horses in hand, lunging, and riding through exercises that helped each horse unlock the braces in their poll, neck, shoulders and back. Exercises included turn on the forehand, turn on the haunches, shoulder in, halt, rein back, transitions within a gait, and transitions between gaits every few steps. Larry identified each horse’s level of training and gave each horse/rider team tips for improving balance, relaxation, impulsion, and collection.

After each clinic day, riders were welcome to enjoy RNR’s beautifully groomed trails. Three riders even had a close encounter with a big buck as they rode through the mature forests, rolling meadows, and farmland.

Published in the the September 2012 Heritage Highlights newsletter for the Tennessee Walking Horse Heritage Society.

I hope this is helpful. Let me know your thoughts by sending a message.

Visit website: NaturallyGaitedHorse.com
Subscribe: Naturally Gaited youtube channel
Follow: facebook.com/naturallygaitedhorse

Gaited Dressage: Form and function

September 3, 2012 Jennifer Klitzke 5 Comments

By Jennifer Klitzke

I took an arsenal of questions with me to a recent gaited dressage clinic with Larry Whitesell and Jennifer Bauer. Questions like how do I ride a head-shaking horse on-the-bit, how do I get my horse more forward, and how do I unlock my horse’s stiff back. My first question led to an interesting discussion about head nod. And little did I know that my questions all relate to form and function.

Larry explained that the mechanics of overstride with swinging straight legs and an exaggerated head nod stem from a stiff back. It is why horses shown this way are trained on straight lines versus circles, serpentines, and lateral movements. The mechanics of dressage require lengthened topline muscles, a round and relaxed back, and bending hock and haunch joints. The result is a different expression of movement.

This led to an eye-opening realization: I had been expecting the same movement of my Tennessee walking horse at dressage shows as at Tennessee walking horse rail classes. Gaited dressage and show ring gaited classes are not ridden and measured the same way. Its like riding in an english pleasure class with western attire and in western form. If dressage is the way I intend to ride and train my gaited horse, I need to adjust my form and function to that of gaited dressage mechanics and stop fixating on exaggerated head nod and maximum overtrack.

As the clinic progressed I discovered that a stiff back is also why my horse hasn’t been moving forward with impulsion and engagement, and why her canter has been flat. Larry and Jennifer taught us several exercises to unlock a horse’s braced back such as reinback, turn on the forehand, and shoulder in. These exercises teach a horse to bend and round through the back and step deeper under its belly. We also worked on upward transitions between gaits and within gaits to improve impulsion and downward transitions to soften our horses.

Riding my Walking horse in correct dressage form will likely minimize her head nod and overtrack, but Larry promised that correct dressage training methods will purify her four-beat gait and make it smoother than ever!

Photo gallery with commentary>

For more about Larry Whitesell, his training DVDs and clinic schedule, visit www.WhitesellGaitedHorsemanship.com.
For more about Jennifer Bauer, visit www.gaitedhorsemanship.com

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Clinics

Gaited Dressage featured at Western Dressage Clinic

March 28, 2012 Jennifer Klitzke 1 Comment

By Jennifer Klitzke

Driving to the Western Dressage Clinic on Saturday, May 24, reminded me of our Annual B.L.E.S.S. Your Horse Clinics in Proctor, MN because the dense fog gave me a viewing distance of two car lengths. Thankfully I had a passenger who knew where we were headed, otherwise I think my GPS would have made me more lost than ever!

Over fifty fun and friendly horse people came together for a wonderful clinic hosted by Enchanted Hollow Farm in Buffalo, MN and organized by Judy Conger and Gene Hacket which focused on the up-and-coming equine sport of Western Dressage.

Speakers included AnnMarie Brockhouse with the Western Dressage Association of Minnesota and Western Dressage Association of America, Judy Conger, Jan Halter and me.

After a morning of lively conversations, education, an informational overview about the WDAA, door prizes and lunch, we headed to the barn for an afternoon of riding demonstrations. Jan Halter showed her Second Level dressage gelding and how dressage has improved their partnership. I rode my TWH mare, Gift of Freedom through the NWHA First Level, Test One gaited dressage test after demonstrating first level gaits, lateral exercises, the power of “long and low,” and relaxation in bringing a gaited horse into a frame to begin four-beat gaited movements.

Afterwards, Jan rode her quarter horse through a western dressage test, and then dressage instructor Judy Conger coached two brave volunteers through the basics of western dressage on their horses. The “before’s” and “after’s” were inspiring. Both horses were jogging in a relaxed and round frame.

Photo Gallery>

NWHA First Level, Test One gaits
httpv://youtu.be/k5EPaqEsgRo

NWHA First Level, Test One
httpv://youtu.be/gE7i4QSFTOk

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Clinics, Gaited Dressage Videos

Northwoods Dressage Clinic features Gaited Dressage

August 21, 2011 Jennifer Klitzke

Northwoods Dressage Association Gaited Dressage Demonstration

Tennessee walking horse Gift of Freedom and Jennifer Klitzke were featured as one of the demonstration teams at the Northwoods Dressage “Ride-A-Test” Clinic in Proctor, MN. The team demonstrated how gaited dressage training can improve the natural movement of the gaited horse and rode through NWHA First Level, Test Two before a couple dozen onlookers.

Dressage is More than Trot

I was honored to bring my seven-year-old naturally gaited Tennessee walking horse mare, Gift of Freedom, to the Northwoods Dressage “Ride-A-Test” Clinic in Proctor, MN to demonstrate the benefits of gaited dressage training.We were among five demonstration horse/rider teams over the lunch hour. Other informative and well-executed demonstrations included gymnastic grid training over fences, dressage driving, tandem driving, and an encapsulation of Training-Fourth Level frames, gaits, and movements.

After a bouncy, three-hour trailer ride along 35W road construction, Makana, my saintly husband, and I made it safely to the Dirt Floor Arena with an hour to spare before our NWHA First Level, Test Two gaited dressage demonstration. There were the usual Proctor race track distractions such as a model airplane show to our right, heavy equipment prepping the race track behind us, and a well-used port-a-potty relieving spectators to our left, plus cones, jumps, and carts chasing horses around the warm up arena. My husband even caught on camera some impromptu port-a-potty inspired piaffe between restroom visitors.

Makana rode a respectable test–gaited dressage style–demonstrating the range of gaits: medium walk, free walk, flat walk, running walk, canter, medium canter, and halt. Afterwards we demonstrated suppling exercises that help establish balance, bending, engagement and range of motion. These exercises included the leg yield, shoulder in, haunches in, rein back, transitions between flat walk and canter, serpentines, and 10- and 15-meter canter circles. In case you are wondering, these exercises are not intended to train the gaited horse to trot. Rather, these dressage exercises are meant to bring out the best natural, innate smooth gaits your horse can achieve!

While USEF tests require a trot, dressage as a training method is not measured by whether your horse trots or not. The essence of dressage is to produce balance, rhythm, relaxation, connection, harmony and engagement. These qualities improve the movement of all horse breeds, whether they trot or gait, and to help any horse be the best it can be and a joy to ride.

Whether you intend to show gaited dressage at schooling shows, recognized dressage shows that offer gaited dressage classes or just ride for pleasure, dressage training builds teamwork with your horse and improves your horse’s movement without the use of mechanical devices, harsh bits, and expensive shoes. I’ve witnessed dozens of pacey horses transformed into four-beat, smooth mounts with the use of dressage training–and not one of them trots!

Photos: Gaited dressage demo»

Dressage for the Gaited Horse, Gaited Dressage Clinics

2011 BLESS Clinic

June 12, 2011 Jennifer Klitzke

contact — Jennifer Klitzke riding Gift of Freedom at the 2011 BLESS Your Walking Horse Clinic with Bucky Sparks

By Jennifer Klitzke

June 5-6, 2011 marked my fourth trip with Gift of Freedom to Proctor, MN for the B.L.E.S.S. Your Walking Horse Clinic with Bucky Sparks. And yes, clinic participant Barb Nunke said it best, “The sun really does shine in Proctor!” No parkas, rain suits, or knives to cut through the thick Proctor fog this year.

For me, the 2011 BLESS Clinic was all about breaking through the mystery about contact. How do I ride a head-shaking horse with contact? Do my hands move with the motion? Do I keep the reins slack so that I don’t bump the horse’s mouth with each nod?

Not interrupting the head-nod was the main reason I switched to an Imus Comfort Bit, but a curb and a snaffle function differently. A curb bit has leverage and poll pressure that a snaffle does not, and for dressage, a snaffle is essential in training the lateral movements, and it is the only legal bit in showing at the lower levels.

While I love how free Makana moves in the Imus Bit without contact, Bucky helped us ride forward into a light (not loose) contact without stopping. This was simply breakthrough for us! A training level frame we get, and now Bucky has helped us capture impulsion into the outside rein for a first level dressage frame.

We began the exercise at a flatwalk on a 20 meter circle with a shoulder-fore position. As Bucky’s German schoolmaster would say, “You need to ride shoulder-fore for the rest of your life.” Shoulder-fore can be ridden on a circle and a straight line where the horse is slightly bent to the inside. You should see the inside eye of the horse, and the horse should bend slightly through the poll, neck, rib cage, and spine. The outside rein helps keep the horse from overbending the neck and popping the outside shoulder.

On our second day, Bucky helped us school second and third-level movements as shoulder-in, hauches-in, traver, and renver. He helped bring awareness to the rib cage. Whenever Makana was stiff on the inside rein, it was because she was stiff in the rib cage. Once we established bend through the rib cage by applying inside leg at the girth and outside slightly back to hold the haunches from falling out, Makana became soft and round and light on the inside rein through these exercises. Once we learn these movements fluently at a walk, they can be ridden at a flatwalk.

According to Bucky the shoulder-in and haunches-in are three-track movements and the traver and renver are four-track movements. All four exercises help establish balance, suppleness and softness, a more upright frame, and contact.

For more about Bucky Sparks, visit www.blessyourhorse.com.