Eastern Dressage Liaison Group

Reports....

Reports will be added below as we receive them from attendees....

* July 2011 - Paul Hayler Lecture/Demo by Carolyn Davis

* March 2010 - Workshop with Jill Day by Sue Darken

* 2009 Christmas Bash Report by Lesley Burling

Reports are generously contributed by individuals attending EDLG events and are their personal opinions and feedback on the event, rather than an 'official' EDLG view. The reports and any associated photographs should not be reproduced without the express permission of the originator.

Friday 1st July 2011

Advanced Medium to Grand Prix

Paul Hayler

This Lecture/Demo was held at Norton Heath EC and was well received by around 40 attendees. Download a detailed report with pictures here by Carolyn Davis

March 2010 Workshop

Basic Training will prepare for Advanced Dressage Movements

Jill Day

An entertaining and informative afternoon was spent at Wix Equestrian Centre with Jill Day working three horses and their riders. Jill started the afternoon by finding out what it was the audience wanted to take away from the afternoon and what they did not want!! There was quite a variety of request and with this information Jill began working the first horse. He was a lovely young horse and they started with making sure that his basic understanding of moving forward from the leg and stopping for the hand was clear. Jill explained how she felt this was so important and that without this being really established how it would affect the horses ability to learn the half halt and therefore progress in his training in the future. The afternoon continued with two more lovely horses, working at increasingly higher levels. Jill emphasised the importance of the correct basic training throughout and relevance to the more difficult movements and flying changes. Her ability to put things across in a clear and logical way made us all feel we could go home and work on the things she had covered. We also covered virtually everything that everyone had listed in the beginning!!

Also many thanks to Mary Thornley for having us and her warm hospitality. Mary was presented with the Liz Saunders Memorial Trophy for all her support of the EDLG.

We have another afternoon booked with Jill at Hallingbury Hall on Monday 19 April 2010 from 2pm - 4pm

Look forward too seeing you all there.

Sue Darken

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Christmas Bash 2009 - John Lassetter - Training Novice to Advanced

Well the fact is, if you are thinking of getting tickets for this.... you are too late! It all happened last week and Jolly Good Fun it was too.

There was a super turnout in the foulest of weather, everybody wanting to be entertained and informed by John Lassetter and his team. The arena was already furnished with copious amounts of cones and poles when we arrived, leaving us briefly wondering if we were about to see mounted games! No, but just as much fun. His team of guinea pigs all answered to their nicknames which included DeeDee, Tinky, Gilly-chops and Sharon (actually Tracy from Essex), and were clearly at home with the exercises and the horses they rode.

Charlotte Lassetter had rescheduled her flight to America in order to attend and ride for us. It was a pleasure to watch her working with John, and we were grateful that she had delayed her flight to come along.

John started by explaining the importance of rider suppleness and gave us all some exercises to do ‘before we sit down to Christmas lunch’ – ok…… Such as, standing upright, legs together, turning toes firstly 180^o outwards, then 180^o inwards. Then, just to really get us in the mood, a very interesting back bend… Needless to say we all performed these exercises perfectly before sitting down to recover with our three course Christmas lunch.

Suppleness of rider and horse was one of the central themes of John’s training. He made the exercises easy to understand by preparing and performing in walk, using poles placed on the ground to teach accuracy, especially of 10m circles.

Satellite circles were also a mainstay of the training for all of the combinations, which ranged from 5 yo through to Advanced medium / PSG level.

It was impressive to see John working three horses on the same exercise, and never losing sight of any of them for a single moment. All three working on a 20m circle with a satellite (10m) – this exercise was especially useful in working towards teaching flying changes, with the large circle ridden in counter canter then the horse given a break with a 10m true canter to restore relaxation and flow in the canter.

Not everything was on circles, however. Shoulder-fore, leg yield, renvers and travers were explained and shown as aids to suppling and submission.

Exercises to teach flying changes also varied from the circle, but emphasis was put on the rider’s aids. These movements were not easy but it was made clear that before the horse could be expected to perform the changes properly, the rider absolutely must be giving the correct aids, at the correct time.

Humbling to watch a young lady called Tinky on her wonderful bay mare performing single changes then through four time, three time and finally ‘flip – flap’ and ‘flap – flip’ one times. John explained that flap-flip and flip-flap are his pet names for 2 one times, first flipping from right to left, then flapping back left to right. Simple. :-) But awe inspiring bearing in mind that she is almost completely deaf. John used a variety of methods to communicate, including wireless hearing aids and hand signals. Humbling indeed for those of us who are fortunate to have no such handicaps and sometimes spend too much time grumbling.

But then it all got a little surreal with the last Combination. Introduced as Curly, we were given the opportunity to see a truly precisely lateral walk, a lateral trot and even flying changes of which some were late in front and others late behind. And a very quick demonstration of how to perform Rollkur correctly… Before you all start getting worried, please study the photos ….. I can assure you that horse welfare was not an issue.

Many many thanks to the committee of EDLG for once again organising such a great event, and of course John Lassetter and his team for taking time out to entertain and inform us.

As you can see, Curly has been expertly trained in the higher school movements of Lateral Walk, Lateral Trot and of course early Rollkur. You will see from the expression on his face that he is not at all stressed by the difficulty of performing these movements, which have been developed over many years.

Grateful thanks to his jockey Tracey-Sharon from Essex.

Lesley Burling