Dear Rita,

Training camp at Gladstone is about to begin for our short-listed dressage team: Steffen Peters with Ravel, Todd Flettrich with Otto, Katherine Bateson-Chandler with Nartan, Tina Konyot with Calecto, Pierre St. Jacques with Lucky Tiger and last but not least, yours truly with W. We will train together at U.S. Team Headquarters until the 18^th of September when everybody ships out to Kentucky.

W is in fine form. He had some relaxed time since the Selection Trials with only one-two hard training sessions per week. This did his body an awful lot of good, but he gets so BORED when he isn’t being pushed. So I took him over to Randi Leoni’s stable last week to ride our freestyle as an exhibition. We both like to show off so it was a fun evening!

I got a chance to practice that flying change sequence (15 ones on a diagonal to seven twos on a half circle to 15 ones on the diagonal) in our freestyle—one handed. Hah! Where I come from, that is showing off “Hoch 3.”

In any case, W is now back from his holidays and getting serious about training again. Here is a short clip of some piaffe training we did yesterday. I do normally ride with a helmet, but mine was full of ticks yesterday so I opted for the immediate danger. The content of this clip however, shouldn’t be missed. I have a few students out there that are working on this very thing. 

It will be easy for me to make some short training clips for the blog over the next few weeks. So if y’all have any requests let me know.  

I’m still answering those Frequent Questions that get presented at clinics so here goes:

I’m Catherine Haddad, and I’m saying it like it is from Gladstone, N.J.

Training Tip of the Day: In training the piaffe to sit more, make sure the hind legs are super active first. Then elevate the front end. It helps to tap the horse on the front of his rib cage with your spur when you want him to pick up the withers. Pay attention to the tilt of your pelvis.

InternationalDressage.com