Paula Paglia Dressage Newsletter
March 2017
|
Hello Spring!
March and April are pretty much the months that we wait all year for. The weather is flat-out perfect! Clear, sunny days give way to cool evenings and signs of spring are popping up everywhere. From the blooming cactus flowers, to the busy birds building nests, it's a great time at the ranch.
Spring is when I like to take trail rides through the desert to enjoy the lush greenery and desert flowers. The air is fresh and the sky is bright blue.
Paula Paglia
|
|
Barn News & Updates
My Safire Award
What a pleasant surprise it was to receive this beautiful pin in the mail! This is the award that I earned from scores in California on Tango and Lucy!
Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show
Maren Conchrin competed her young horse Velvet at the  Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show this past month. They were fantastic! Even with the rain pouring down, this pair left the ring scoring a 70.9 and the title of Reserve Champion for the Training Level. Congrats for just one year under saddle for this young mare. A job well done!
Welcome to a New Horse!
Amy Roth has a beautiful new boy. He is a 7-year-old,16-hand gelding. Out of Rocket Man and Rotspon (out of a Don Schofro daughter), Amy's new Rocket Boy, barn name Remi, is ready to get to work! Congrats to Amy and Remi.
Congrats to Another New Horse/Rider Pair!
Congratulations to Ann Garvin on the purchase of the Grand Prix Schoolmaster Revanche (barn name Rio). We are so excited for this new pair! Ann's dream is to climb the dressage ladder and Rio is her perfect teacher. I am sure they will have a very successful future together, and I know that Rio will enjoy summering in Colorado!
|
|
Dressage Training
How to Create a Self-Going Horse
By: Laura Graves
www.PracticalHorsemanMag.com
You are working harder than your horse!" Does this sound familiar? I've heard riders say it to friends and peers at competitions, clinics and more lessons than I can count. This is not a compliment. Unfortunately, many riders believe that dressage requires tremendous physical effort to make the horse perform. Not true. It's the horse's job to produce energy. As riders, in an ideal world, we are simply able to direct that energy.
A horse can be in front of the leg and what I call "self-going"-receptive and responsive to light aids and able to maintain the gait without constant rider input-at any level. When you watch a Grand Prix horse performing a transition from passage to extended trot and back to passage, that's the same skill that a lower-level horse demonstrates when making a transition smoothly from medium walk to free walk and back to medium walk.
Riding a self-going horse feels magical. He's physically engaged and ready to respond to every aid. You have all the controls you need to move him forward and back and keep his body straight, which enables him to push equally off the ground with all four legs and thus produce more balanced movement. The more control you have over his body, the more effectively you can communicate with him and the quieter you can be in your own body. Nothing disrupts your position. It's easy to sit comfortably and beautifully in the saddle.
A physically engaged horse is also much easier to engage mentally, which helps to eliminate common behavioral avoidances of work, such as spooking, bucking and rearing. A self-going horse is less spooky because he is focusing on you and the task at hand rather than worrying about what is on the other side of the arena. Sometimes an honest spook is unavoidable, but the more physically and mentally engaged a horse is, the less this will be a problem.
I have vivid flashbacks of learning the self-going lesson the hard way while training my first dressage horse, a Quarter Horse named Sunny, in Vermont. I remember riding him on 20-degree winter days in a tank top, sweating bullets. After years of riding this way, I met a trainer who taught me how to get a horse in front of my leg for the first time. Sunny is now 22 and is in the best shape of his life thanks to the benefits of my learning this lesson. He helped me discover skills that have benefited every horse I've ridden since then.
Riding a horse who is behind your leg is like learning to drive stick shift. First you get stuck in neutral, then-BANG-you leap into third gear and stall. There's no fluidity. To accomplish anything, you must constantly nag him with your aids-punch the gas, shift gears, hit the brake. After being behind the leg for years, some horses learn to tune out and ignore their riders' aids altogether. Very sensitive horses who have been ridden behind the leg can become irritable and perhaps even develop dangerous habits, such as bucking or rearing.
Not knowing how to produce a self-going horse is one of the most common reasons I see for riders getting stuck at one level for years on end. I love to witness that lightbulb moment when they discover how easy everything is once they teach their horses to be in front of the leg. Success in dressage is not about learning "tricks" like half-pass, piaffe and flying changes. It's about developing the quality of gaits that enables the horse to do them more easily.
Click here for the rest of the article.
|
|
Dressage Training
The Madness Behind the Inside Leg to the Outside Rein
Source: www.FreedomWoods.net
Often times I feel like a broken record. I tell my students and myself when I am riding, use the inside leg to the outside rein. Why?
The outside rein holds the track. Without it you are inherently falling in and teaching the horse to fall in. The inside leg, because if you solely use the outside rein, your horse and you are also falling in.
People tell me, I want to go back to basics, and my response is that it is all basics. The basics of a good trot and a good canter is the same basics as riding to the fence. If done well, they all contain good rhythm and a straight horse. You produce it in the same fashion. Sure, the pressures are different, but the concept is the same. So why is it so hard?
When the horse is leaning, the natural instinct is to grab or to pull. When the horse is turning, the instinct is to hang on the inside rein to make the turn. Why does my horse run? Why does my horse fall in? Why can my horse not make the change? The answer for almost all of them is the same, they are off balance and they are not straight.
Balance, connection, and feel. This is what riding thrives upon. If you merely just hold the outside rein, your horse is not in balance, they are falling in. If you over ride the inner rein and leg with failure to keep the outer rein, you will also fall in the turn.
The key is, inside leg to the outside rein. Not outside rein to the inside leg. The order you do it in is key. You must push the horse into the outer rein. This pushes your horse onto the track and balances the horse on the outer legs through the turn. It allows them to hold the desired track well. It allows them to free up the inside leg to raise up and change the lead. If the horse is off balance they tend to speed up in an attempt to regain balance.
It is so simple, so why is it so hard?
Our instincts tell us to grab the left rein when turning left. Our instincts tell us to grip up when our horse tightens or speeds up. Our instincts are wrong. Hence why we must remind ourselves to ride from the inside leg to the outside rein.
Because our brains operate on two legs, but we are riding an animal with four. Once things become habit, we will remind ourselves less, but it is not instinctual. We must think.
Inside leg to outside rein. It produces a straight horse. When turning or circling we must work the inner rein to produce the bend, but it is secondary. We still want the horse's haunch on the outer track and to hold the track. The inside rein is used solely to produce bend and create suppling of the mouth, all of which is secondary.
Too quickly riders go to grabbing and locking, attempting to over power the horse. When you think this through logically, you cannot over power them. Locking enforces the horse to lock up. Locking causes your failure to feel them give to you. You cannot force an animal that outweighs you by ten times. It is illogical. If you try to over power the horse you will fail.
So, you work with them. You intend to get them to supple by being supple. You offer them balance. You offer them rhythm, When you get it right, they will trust you. They are not intellectual, they are not intelligent in the same way as humans, but they understand rhythm and balance.
Hence, the madness behind inside leg to outside rein. The madness isn't in the theory, but in consistently doing it right because it is not instinctual for us. We must work and rework it. As trainers, we must teach it and reteach it. If done right, it offers balance and feeling. It communicates a solid turn to the next fence, allowing you to find the distance. This in itself is more than half the battle when walking, trotting, or cantering properly. It is more then half the battle when riding to the fence.
I encourage everyone to work these aids and rework them. Until they make sense. Until they are habit. You will know when you are doing it right, it will feel right. It will make life easier. A balanced horse is a simpler horse.
|
|
Horse Care Tip of the Month
Optimizing Dressage Horses' Bodies for Peak Performance
"There are three reasons for a dressage horse not to win," Murray said. "They're not good enough, they're not well-enough prepared, or they're injured."
She said that in a review of dressage horses, 33% of injuries were lameness-related, while about 20% were related to back pain.
So how can we keep dressage horses performing at peak level? Murray shared some steps to take to maintain performance.
Veterinary problems
"Repetitive overload injury is a major problem in dressage horses and is one of the frequent limitations for performance," Murray said. Therefore, she said, it's important for owners, riders, and trainers to detect subclinical problems as early as possible so they can provide the appropriate veterinary care.
She also noted that respiratory problems have been shown to increase dressage horses' lameness risk, so monitor dressage horses for signs of respiratory disease carefully and provide these animals with an environment designed to promote respiratory health.
Training
Don't base your training schedule solely on perfecting your dressage test. Although dressage horses' heart rates generally remain low compared to horses competing in some other disciplines, these animals are still athletes that require a careful balance of strength, endurance, fitness, flexibility, and skill training to prepare their bodies for competition.
"Core muscle development is vital to perform the required skills and provide a stable support platform for the rider and (their own) limbs, which is increasingly important with greater extravagance of movement," she said.
Murray recommends including both stable exercises (such as carrot stretches and dynamic mobility exercises) and groundwork in dressage horses' training regimen, as well as cross-training, jumping, hacking, and working on varying surfaces. Additionally, she said, plan to give horses ample time between skill sessions that require muscle strength training (i.e., practicing piaffe or pirouette) for their muscles to recover-at least two days. Skill training builds neural pathways, coordination, and muscle memory so it is important the muscles are not too tired or stiff to be able to perform a movement correctly without incoordination or injury. Additionally, she said, results from one study showed that turnout was not a risk factor for injury; rather, this provides another exercise option.
During the competition season it's important to create a training schedule that helps the horse peak at the time of each event without overtraining and, thus, increasing injury risk, Murray said. Vary the training routine as described, and be sure not to overwork the horse in the days preceding the competition. This could leave him fatigued when he's meant to be performing at his best.
Tack
While it might seem obvious to ensure your horse's tack fits properly, Murray stressed that the horse/rider/tack interaction is crucial for both the horse's and rider's posture and movement. She encouraged veterinarians to reassess the saddle frequently to ensure its fit has not changed because of changes in the horse's muscle development or posture.
Shoeing
Base a horse's shoeing protocol on his gaits, the surface he'll be competing on, and the level that he's performing at, Murray said, and aim to compete in the middle of the shoeing cycle.
Nutrition
The adage says, "you are what you eat," but a dressage horse will only perform as well as his diet allows him to. Murray said it's important to consider muscle development, energy release, travel, and nutrition-related health issues-such as gastric ulcers and metabolic problems-when designing a dressage horse's diet. Aim to strike a balance between starch, fat, and fiber tailored to the individual horse to optimize performance and behavior; ensure you're feeding good-quality forage; and ensure your horse's nutrient intake is balanced. She also stressed the importance of feeding the same forage and concentrates when traveling as you do at home, so as not to disrupt the horse's hindgut bacterial balance.
Click here for the rest of the article.
|
|
|
In This Issue
- Barn News & Updates
- Dressage Training: How to Create a Self-Going Horse
- Dressage Training: The Madness Behind the Inside Leg to Outside Rein
- Horse Care Tip of the Month: Optimizing Dressage Horses' Bodies for Peak Performance
- Paula's Favorite Recipe of the Month: Strawberry Pie
- Paula's Pearls: "A Ha!" Moments in Riding
- A Little Inspiration
- Paula Recommends: PferdiaTV training DVDs
|
|
Paula Paglia Dressage
Services
- Boarding/Training
- Lessons
- Showing
- Purchase/Sale
- Clinics
- International Equine Procurement
Amenities
- Regulation arena with premium footing
- Over-sized stalls, cleaned multiple times daily with premium shavings
- Fly misting system and cooling misting system
- Three all-weather turnouts
- Medical, shaded turnout
- Premium hay feed 5x a day
- Personalized grain/supplement feedings 2-3x a day
- Automatic waterers/outside tubs and interior buckets cleaned daily
- Hot water wash racks
- Locked tack rooms
- Laundry rooms
- Blanketing/final night check
- Caveletti course
- Access to Equine Corridor trails
- Regularly scheduled on-site clinics
- Trailering to shows available
|
|
Paula's Recipe of the Month
Strawberry Pie
Ingredients
- ½ c. (1 stick) butter, softened
- 3 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 c. flour
Filling
- 2 c. water
- 2 c. sugar
- 6 Tbsp. cornstarch
- 1 (6 oz.) package strawberry jell-o
- 3 quarts strawberries, cleaned and de-stemmed
*If you are using a shallow pie plate, cut filling recipe in half.
Directions
Crust
Mix butter, sugar, and flour and press into a greased deep pie plate. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
Filling
- Bring water, sugar, and cornstarch to a boil, stirring, until thick and clear.
- Remove from heat; add strawberry jell-o.
- Mix well and cool.
- Fold in strawberries.
- Pour into pie shell.
Store in refrigerator until set; serve with whipped cream.
|
|
Paula's Pearls
"Ah ha!" Moments in Riding
When your horse has this lovely neck which relaxes and hangs down, your arms become very soft and relaxed.
|
|
A Little Inspiration
No matter what level you are, pick a Test of Choice a couple of levels above where you currently ride and learn it. Strive to reach that goal!
|
|
Some More Inspiration
 |
|
|
Van mending with her animals nearby
|
My dear mother, Evangeline Paglia - nickname Van - comes to the ranch a couple of times a week by Uber and does a variety of tasks. She washes and vacuums the trucks and cars. Her specialty is sewing and ironing and giving the dogs lots of walks and love. At 86 years old, she still loves to go shopping to Walmart and taking her dogs for a walk. She often says she wouldn't know what to do without her animals. I think many of us can relate to that!
|
|
Paula Recommends
PferdiaTV training DVDs
paula, want to say something here?
|
Change the Way You Ride!
Guaranteed to teach riders to sit in unison with their horses, this tool improves muscle memory and seat development, consequently enhancing the horse's performance.
Use of this system will bridge the gap between the description of a correct seat and actually feeling it by using a non-verbal, kinesthetic approach.
The Unisit will work for you whether you are a world class trainer, judge and FEI competitor, an amateur, therapeutic riding instructor, young rider or aspiring upper level athlete.
"I originally purchased it for one client who needed some help with a big moving mare. It quickly became the hottest item in the barn.
I found it gave everyone that used it a chance to feel the union of sitting in the horses back and not just being a passenger. This is critical for collected work, sometimes we just need to feel these things to make the move to the next several levels. I recommend this for anyone who is looking for the jump to the next level in their riding, or just tired of trying it without stirrups." -Gold and Silver Medalist Pati Pierucci
|
 |
|
