Gift of Freedom was the only gaited horse entered. She did wonderfully in her First Level test with a high score of 68.1%!
Judge Mary Spaeth who has been officiating dressage shows for 26 years had never seen a gaited horse ride to a dressage test. Although she didn’t know how to score the flat walk and running walk, her collective remarks include, “Fluid, obedient and willing – shows harmony and confidence.”
Video: My First FOSH Gaited Dressage First Level Test
By Jennifer Klitzke
Breaking through the Proctor fog was the sunny smile and personalized teaching of F.O.S.H. Clinician Bucky Sparks. He brought along some new tools to share from his training toolbox. This marked Bucky’s sixth consecutive 2,000-mile trip to Minnesota. He imparted wisdom to riders and auditors who had traveled from all corners of Minnesota and Wisconsin for the clinic held June 4-7, 2010 in Proctor, MN.
Bucky’s toolbox is filled with effective training techniques geared to B.L.E.S.S. the horse. B.L.E.S.S. stands for balance, looseness, engagement, softness, and soundness. In fact, everything Bucky teaches, he applies to the horses he trains and shows. You’ll see him successfully showing barefoot (the horse that is) and in a snaffle bridle.
This year, we saw dramatic transformations in many returning horses. Ones that had paced are now solid in their flat walks. Horses that had started the canter last year worked on softness and balance through simple changes and counter canter. Other horses that have mastered the basics worked on improving collection and engagement through lateral exercises like shoulder-in, haunches-in, and leg yielding.
One of Bucky’s new tools introduced this year was “breaking it down” which helps a young horse stay focused and not “take two steps of stupid,” as Bucky says.
Breaking it down redirects the attention of the horse away from doing something dangerous to listening to the rider. It is also effective for horses that have developed a habit of bracing in the neck and poll. Breaking it down applies a tug and release of one rein with some leg pressure as the horse moves forward. It redirects the horse to relaxation when they realize there is nothing to brace against.
For more about Bucky Sparks, visit www.blessyourhorse.com.
Larry’s horse meets him at the gate, looking at him with soft brown eyes. His horse has learned to trust him and enjoy his role as a dance partner.
It hasn’t always been this way though. Larry had been hard to beat in the show ring. He was a consecutive national champion, but the cost to win came at the expense of the horse: harsh bits that created pain avoidance and other unnatural gadgets and shoeing that sacrificed the horse’s comfort. His horse wasn’t a teammate or a dance partner; his horse was an object to build his success.
The nagging thoughts of losing in the show ring after being introduced to classical dressage training brought Larry to a cross roads in what had become a successful riding career. Would he continue to win at the expense of the horse’s comfort and happiness or would Larry find a new way to make a living and enjoy the trust and collaboration a dance partner brings?
Larry took another look into those soft brown eyes and his heart melted. There was no going back to harsh training methods just to produce his success. Thanks to Larry’s choice, he is imparting his classical dressage training methods to people around the country, teaching horses to be relaxed, in balance, comfortable and safer on the trail and at home. Larry’s techniques and training methodology put the horse’s well being before human agenda. And they put the joy into riding for both the horse and the rider.
Clinic with Larry Whitesell, May 2010
I took my six-year-old Walking horse Gift of Freedom to a gaited dressage clinic with Larry Whitesell. He is an amazing horseman of classical dressage and has decades of experience training gaited horses.
Larry has a marvelous training theory: pressure and release to teach relaxation, balance and forwardness to the bit. His methods model that of classical French dressage and he continually takes lessons with FEI level dressage instructors.
In all my years of taking dressage lessons and attending clinics, I have never heard dressage taught with practicality from the horse’s perspective. Larry becomes the best rider he can be to meet the horse’s needs vs. training the horse to do what he wants and meet his agenda. He uses every moment with the horse to build trust and relaxation through balance. The better this is communicated the more the horse relies on the rider as the trusted leader to keep him safe vs. the horse taking matters into its own hands through fight, flight and evasions. Each ride becomes a beautiful dance.
Since I am also working with a three-year-old Arabian Fareed, Larry gave me pointers on breaking a horse to ride. He starts a young horse in a snaffle bit and works them in hand to eliminate braces in the poll, neck, and shoulder through teaching a horse how to relax through pressure and release. Larry spends three days with desensitization training. Then he introduces one-rein stops, disengagement of the hindquarters, and shoulder-in to teach the horse how to move forward onto the bit in a relaxed and balanced frame. Larry also works a young horse on a lunge line using side reins for two weeks. After this work is complete, he begins work in the saddle. What Larry teaches from the ground directly translates to his aids when he begins work in the saddle.
By Jennifer Klitzke
Bucky Sparks returned for the fifth year to the Dirt Floor Arena in Proctor, MN for more B.L.E.S.S.ing. While the humane training methods that produce balance, looseness, engagement, softness, and soundness, blessed the horses, the education and encouragement blessed the riders.
Remembering the erratic weather of years gone by, I packed my pickup prepared for anything. Yet I felt foolish loading up my truck with winter coats, hats, and mittens when it was nearly 90 degrees on departure day.
While the 2009 B.L.E.S.S. Your Horse Clinic in MN came in like a lamb, it went out with a roar. On the last day of the clinic it was only 39-degrees, with pouring rain and gale-force winds. Was I ever glad to have been foolish!
The first two days of the clinic focused on the basic exercises of stretching the bit, lateral flexion, and rein-back. The last two days focused on curling and canter exercises. During all four days, the clinic began with a group session followed by individual lessons.
I loved how Makana, my five-year-old Tennessee walking horse felt at the clinic: impulsive, light, and forward with a dramatic head nod, flopping ears, and clicking teeth. These are three things that sound really strange to a classical dressage rider of hard trotting horses, yet to a walking horse enthusiast, these are three highly desired attributes.
Now as both a dressage rider and walking horse enthusiast, I have noticed that when Makana is correct in her dressage frame, she reflects the true walking horse attributes in a flat walk. She produces an even four-beat, smooth gait with an overstride, along with a nodding head, flopping ears, and clicking teeth.
In our first lesson, Bucky remembered us from last year, the complete rookie at this gaited thing with a four-year-old green horse. This year, we had several months of applying B.L.E.S.S. techniques through stretching the bit, lateral stretching, forwardness, rein-back, and leg-yielding exercises that paid off. This year Bucky challenged us to go to the next level of training: bending on a 20-meter circle, canter departs, and running walk.
You see, many gaited horse riders believe that the canter ruins the flat walk, but this is such a myth. Not only did the canter improve Makana’s flat walk, but bending on a 20-meter circle improved the canter departs and the pureness of gait as well.
As a five-year old, we were just beginning to work on Makana’s canter work. My approach to getting the correct canter lead had been to counter bend Makana along the fence and ask for the canter with my outside leg in the corner of the arena. While this is a somewhat common method at producing the correct lead, it was at the cost of Makana’s frame. She lacked roundness, softness, and the correct bend.
Bucky challenged me to bend Makana in a 20-meter circle using the inside leg at the girth and the outside hind leg slightly behind the girth. Then he asked me to slightly raise my inside rein. Once Makana was in soft, round, supple and bending correctly, that when I asked for the canter depart with the “inside” leg. Amazingly, Makana took the correct lead, and this application had produced a round, soft, and correctly bent canter. That felt connected and controlled.
After cantering a few circles, we transitioned to a flat walk which had notably improved. The canter work had clearly produced a pure flat walk with more overtrack than ever!
Next we worked on running walk. Bucky asked me to establish bend at a flat walk and then ask for more speed. He said that when increasing the tempo, it is common to experience more resistance. Instead of dropping down to a flat walk to fix Makana’s frame, Bucky encouraged us to correct the frame in the higher speed.
As always, the four-day clinic provided enriching and effective training methods to help us bring the best out of our walking horses. And gave me plenty of homework for the coming year.
For more about Bucky Sparks, visit www.blessyourhorse.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment.