The
Centerline
Arizona Dressage Association
www.azdressage.org
Vol. 21, Issue 5
May 2021
Riding with Mary Wanless by Missy Gilliland
I used my ADA scholarship to ride in a clinic with Mary Wanless. Mary is from the UK, but she has worked with my coach, Heather Blitz, for many years, and occasionally comes to the US for clinics or seminars. Heather was nice enough to let me borrow one of her horses for the clinic, and the trip to Florida was well worth it, as I am a staunch believer in biomechanics based riding and Mary is the pioneer of this field. My personal summary of Mary’s life and work is that she is a genius scientist with multiple degrees, including physics and sports coaching. She was also an aspiring amateur dressage rider, who despite all her efforts and enthusiasm, could not seem to make much progress. So she set out to “study” riding how a scientist would approach a problem. She observed all the best riders in the world, and tried to identify all the commonalities in how they sat on their horses and studied how it influenced the horses. I think she is to the rider what Hillary Clayton is to the science of horse biomechanics. I have studied biomechanics for a long time, first with Tracey Lert, and then with Heather Blitz for the last 6 years, so working with Mary was a bit of a fan girl experience for me. The main things that Mary worked on in Continued on page 3