ESDCTA Collective Remarks - June 2020

ESDCTA MAGAZINE

COLLECTIVE REMARKS

WWW.ESDCTA.ORG June 2020

Cover Photo of: Paige Zimmerman

Table of Contents 5

ESDCTA Grant Survery

6

News from Outside the Ring

7

Book Review

8

Riding Tips to Remember As We All Get Back in the Saddle

11

The Amateur Dilemma

13 Horse Treats

14 Business Members

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Board of Trustees OFFICERS

Phone only before 9 p.m. please

President

Holly Cornell

president@esdcta.org

732.208.8715

Vice President

Ellen Brindle-Clark

vicepresident@esdcta.org

609.351.1054

Secretary

Ruth McCormick

secretary@esdcta.org

201.240.4505

Treasurer

Betty Audduci 260 Betty Lane Gilbert, PA 18331

treasurer@esdcta

610.564.9169

Dressage at Large

Jena Rondinelli

MAL@esdcta.org

732.814.1117

Eventing at Large

Jennifer Duelfer

MAL@esdcta.org

732.598.3077 201.874.0373

Executive Board

Dressage Competitions

Dr. Lisa Toaldo

dressage@esdcta.org

Eventing Competitions

Janice Pellegrino

eventing@esdcta.org

Marketing

Erin Gale

marketing@esdcta.org

Membership

Tamara Purdy

membership@esdcta.org

Membership

Heidi Lemack

membership@esdcta.org

609.306.8221

Finance

Gary Maholic

finance@esdcta.org

215.489.1557 6093511054

Education

Victoria Shilton

education@esdcta.org

Youth

Stephanie Warner

youth@esdcta.org

NJEAB Representative

Carolyn Montgomery

crunner141@comcast.net

Awards

Debra Tomajko

awards@esdcta.org

908.392.1774 TEXT ONLY

OFF BOARD COMMITTEE CHAIRS Calendars/Activities

Vacant

activities@esdcta.org

Grants

Debra Tomajko

grants@esdcta.org

Equipment

Wilma Pfeer

dressage@esdcta.org

Newsletter

Meredith Rogers

newsletter@esdcta.org

Nominating

Eliza Banks

chivalryhillfarm@aol.com

Omnibus

Mia Zimmerman

omnibus@esdcta.org

Show Results

Jean Goetz

results@esdcta.org 1

Become a friend of the ESDCTA on Facebook Follow us on Twitter @ESDCTA

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CROSS COUNTRY...

News Across Our Region COMMUNITY NEWS

Milestone

If you’re reading this, you are probably a member of ESDCTA, but I’m sure you know of someone who rides dressage or events who is not a member. You know all about the wonderful things offered like educational programs, clinics with big name trainers, horse shows, year-end awards, and not least, that sense of being part of a community of likeminded people. The more members ESDCTA has, the better the programs we can offer. Our membership numbers are also important considerations when state and local governments decide on legislature that affects us (like open space), and we advocate for our sports (we’re working on better footing at the HPNJ). Please reach out to your equestrian buddies and tell them about all of the benefits of membership and have them sign up. The more the merrier!

Please Contact Linda Marciante if you know any ESDCTA members who have achieved any Milestones.

Success at a show, regional/national/international award, new horse, or anything else you want to celebrate.

WHAT’S YOUR TALENT??

Let us know what you would like to help us with in 2020. All skills and interests wanted. Have an idea? We want to hear about it. Remember, this club is what YOU make it. Contact president@esdcta.org if you are interested.

NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE

Have a great article that you would like to share?

Please send article to: Meredith Rogers: newsletter@esdcta.org All submissions are due by the 15th of the month. Due to space considerations, the editor reserves the right to edit submitted articles.

If necessary, articles will be edited and returned for your review.

AND YOU GET VOLUNTEER HOURS FOR EACH STORY!

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e-mail: lindalbbf@gmail.com

MEMBERSHIP QUESTIONS For membership questions including updating physical or e-mail addresses please contact: Tamara Purdy membership@esdcta.org

2020 ADVERTISING RATES

MEMBER NON-MEMBER FULL PAGE $100 $130 HALF PAGE $65 $85 QUARTER PAGE $40 $60 BUSINESS CARD $20 $30 CARD FOR 3 MONTHS $45 $65 CLASSIFIEDS $10 $15 Deadline: 15th of prior month Email: newsletter@esdcta.org Please have electronic ads in Adobe PDF or .jpg format

You will receive an invoice for ad via email.

Send Payment to: Betty Adduci 266 Betty Lane Gilbert, PA 18331 Email: treasurer@esdcta.org

OPEN BOARD POSITIONS • Calendar

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Did you know that ESDCTA offers grants?!!? Did you know that these grants are available to Dressage Riders and Eventers of all ages?

Every year ESDCTA offers several grants to their membership. These grants can be used for educational events such as clinics, conferences, etc. or can be used towards funding for youth riders attending the Lendon Gray’s Youth Dressage Festival. Over the past few years, we have seen a decrease in members applying for these grants. We created a survey to help get feedback from our members on how this could possibly be! We want to hear from you to learn why you are not applying for these grants, so we can adjust these offerings to better meet your needs.

Please click the below button to visit the survey.

ESDCTA Grant Survey

Click Here ESDCTA Grant Survey

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News from Outside the Ring Juan Matute Guimon Update Juan Matute Guimon is a 22-year-old member of the Spanish dressage team. He collapsed on May 5 after a riding lesson, but had been suffering multiple headaches the prior week. With all of the confusion, people initially thought his malady was related to COVID-19, but after being rushed to the hospital, it was found to be a congenital malformation in his brain. His first surgery immediately upon getting to the hospital stopped the bleeding but could not fix the arteriovenous malformation that caused his collapse. On May 9 he underwent a second lengthy surgery, which was deemed successful. On May 23 he finally opened his eyes after being in an artificial comma to help his healing. A little bit of good news and a lesson to us all to pay attention to our health.

Location, Location, Location With land dedicated to horses shrinking all around the country, it’s a nice surprise to see us gaining some property. Not that many of us get down to Florida for the winter season, but if you do, you may get to enjoy some extra open space. The World Equestrian Center, a state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor facility and equestrian community in Ocala, Florida, is looking to expand by purchasing another 1,000 acres to add to its current 3,200-acre footprint. But, of course, they still need to overcome the zoning board.

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Book Review: Competition Riding Success

by Natasha Althoff

By Meredith Rogers

For a lot of us during this shut-down, all we have is time – time we can use to catch up on our equestrian reading lists. And, I believe just about all of us, especially during these trying times, could use a good pep talk. Natasha Althoff fulfils both of these things.

For those of you not familiar with “Tash” as she’s known to her worldwide fan club (me included), she’s a grand prix rider out of Australia who has generously put out there hundreds of free videos on youtube.com on riding dressage (eg, how to ride a shoulder-in), motivation, overcoming fear, and other horse-related topics. She also has specific programs that you can subscribe to (check out: https://www.yourridingsuccess.com/). I happen to like the way she explains things, and she doesn’t sugar coat the work that you need to put into your riding if you want to do it well. I reviewed her book FearLESS Riding Success a few years ago. In that book she uses neuro linguistic programming (NLP) to overcome riding fear. It worked for me.

In this book, she again pulls from NLP techniques to help you achieve your competition goals. The cornerstone of NLP is visualization. Since your mind can’t distinguish between real practice and mentally practicing, take advantage of this and visualize riding that perfect test or completing that cross-country course, and with NLP, you manipulate that vision to suit your needs. NLP helps you to replace a negative emotion or thought with a positive. For example, if you get nervous when you hear the sound of the bell before your test, NLP can help you to replace that anxiety with a calm feeling. Think you’re going to forget your test? Instead, NLP can help you believe in yourself that you are good at remembering tests. NLP can even help you slow down time! Since many of us either can’t ride now or are just getting back into it due to the global pandemic, this is the perfect time to try these techniques.

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Riding Tips to Remember As We All Get Back in the Saddle By, Paige Zimmerman

For this month’s article, as many of you are just now getting back into your stables and back on your horses after several months, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of basic concepts and some great tips that I have picked up and feel are important to keep in the front of all of our minds. Even if we aren’t able to ride for one reason or another, dressage is not just a physical sport, and that’s one of the things I love about it. I am grateful that we always have something to learn, and even in the safety and comfort of our homes, we can develop a mental understanding of the concepts we need to utilize in the saddle.

1.) It is important to remember when you ask the horse to bend off of your inside leg, the you should not tighten or tense up in your hands and/or body. And when you put the leg on, you should not be gripping with it. Rather, it should feel like you are giving the horse’s belly a hug. If you are tight or tense, the horse will not bend. They will only stiffen and push their belly against you. They might even swing their haunches around away from your leg instead of pushing their belly over to the outside. If your inside rein is too strong, they probably will only turn their neck and their body will remain stiff. Asking for bend should come from soft aids with only “positive tension”, as if you are leading in a dance.

2.) Strong, tight, and sustained leg aids cause bracing, and I find that this is especially true when the rider is trying to get the horse to go forward. I have experienced it myself. Sitting astride and holding tighter and longer will cause the horse to become dull and resistant to the leg. In clinics with Felicitas von Neumann-Cosel, in order to get forward energy, she tells me to “flutter the leg” rather than kicking the horse or holding the leg on.

3.) When you feel that the horse is speeding up, rather than pulling on their mouth and hanging on for dear life, stay relaxed, and make a circle turn. Generally, when a horse is running away, their body is straight and stiff like a board. If you turn them, 8

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in whichever direction is convenient or necessary, it unlocks the bracing and allows them to relax and slow down. The circle turn does not have to be particularly small or difficult (unless you are in a dangerous situation, of course), but asking the horse to bring their mind back to you and move their body on a curved line helps to “reset” both horse and rider.

4.) Gripping legs and hands do not hold you in the saddle. Rather, they pop you out.

You can feel this even at a standstill: when you tighten your thighs, your seat disengages and pops out. It is not your leg that keeps you in the saddle, it is your seat! If you relax your legs and let them hang down the sides of the horse like wet towels, your seat stabilizes without becoming too heavy. It’s really interesting how relaxing your body, while maintaining core stability (ie, don’t slump or hunch over) can improve the entire picture and give you much more control.

5.) You never want to feel that you are pulling or holding a horse’s head down.

Getting the horse’s head down is not the objective in dressage. It is not collection, it’s not the desired “frame,” and it’s not self-carriage or throughness. Holding the head down creates a false and deceiving feeling that the horse is relaxed when he is not, and it does not let the horse’s back swing freely. It impedes the back and the hind legs, which are the horse’s engine.

Imagine that you are trying to go for a walk around your neighborhood but your neck is tight and locked and is being held there. The tension travels all the way down your back and causes pain. It also causes you to walk with stiff arms and legs – ie, without swing. However, if your neck is loose and able to be relaxed, your movement becomes natural and even powerful! Also, notice that you can breathe more easily, which also facilitates the proper use of your body. Rather than pulling the horse’s head down, you should try to feel that you can bend the horse within their body and make sure that they feel truly loose and relaxed. You should feel as if they can stretch their back and as if they have power coming from their hind quarters. At that moment, the neck and head will begin to stretch out and down. You will never have to pull on or hold the head. If the horse is responding to your soft leg and your hands are soft and welcoming, they will drop the head into your hands automatically. Your hand receives the contact naturally instead of artificially!

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6.) If you keep finding yourself pulling on the horse’s head, a good exercise is to give the hand forward by softening your elbows. You can even allow the rein to gap for a moment. You are testing if the horse will release their head and jaw and stretch a little bit. If the horse is relaxed and you put your hands a bit forward (maybe you can take a deep breath, exhale, and scratch the withers with your fingers or knuckles), they probably will relax too. This works especially well in shows when you are feeling nervous. When the nerves hit, try to be extra deliberate about checking that the horse has the chance to breathe and that you are not using constant, tight rein pressure. This release is actually a movement called the Überstreichen (in which the hand gives forward completely), and it is a great way to test the horse’s self-carriage, relaxation, and throughness at all levels.

7.) If something is not working, take a break, try a different movement, change direction, or just go back to basics! There’s no shame in that. If the horse is not picking up a right lead canter, for example, take a moment to re-evaluate. Ask yourself, am I tense in a muscle group? Am I holding somewhere? Am I crooked in my body and/or is my weight uneven in the saddle? Are my aids accurate? Is the horse bending in the proper direction and do I feel that they are responding to a soft but deliberate leg aid? Etc. Sometimes the simple act of working on something else for a while will help resolve a temporary problem because you will stop yourself from getting frustrated. Sometimes it really helps me to just take a deep breath, let the horse stretch in the walk for a moment, and try again.

I sincerely hope you find these tips helpful. I’m sending my best wishes to everyone for continued good health and luck both in the saddle and out as we all move forward during this unprecedented time! Stay safe.

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The Amateur Dilemma By, Meredith Rogers

I wanted to title this “What I learned on my Covid-19 vacation” but that trivializes the seriousness of what we are all going through. About a week after writing my last article, we were given permission to ride. Yay! I first got on PJ because he’s the sane one.

I learned that he hadn’t forgotten anything. Because I wasn’t sure he would be sound, I took things very slowly. After 6 weeks of not riding, I thought I would be dying to do ride to the max, but I knew what he needed was to go slow and that’s what I did.

It taught me that I really do have patience, despite my last’s month lack-of-patience article. With Leo, I learned I didn’t forget how to ride although I was very crooked. A position lesson on PJ helped with that.

During this time, I have learned about the generosity of others. A number of trainers put out FREE programs, either live or prerecorded. To show my appreciation, I’ll give a brief shout-out to those that I personally listened to and got something out of.

• Lauren Sprieser has hosted a number of live Virtual Cocktail parties with

experts on everything from the equipment we use to different training

methods to finding motivation during these trying times, and everything

in between. They’re still going on, so check out her website: http://spriesersporthorse.com/

• Natasha Althoff hosted daily (yes daily) live question-and-answer

sessions throughout April. Everyone who participated was very open

with their riding challenges, and Natasha provided guidance on

overcoming fear and training tips, as well as giving

motivational pep-talks. She continued weekly sessions through May, and

is always putting out short, inciteful videos. Her website is https://www. yourridingsuccess.com/

• Callie King puts out a lot of content even when we aren’t in the midst of

a pandemic, but during this time, she hosted a series of live 5-questions-

in-5 minutes sessions with different equestrians, such as a young horse

expert and a yoga instructor. They are archived online if you’re

interested. Her primary audience seems to be the advanced beginner, but

there are pearls of wisdom anyone from a dead beginner to an

intermediate rider can learn from. Her website is https://www.crktrainingblog.com/.

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I’m sure there are numerous other equestrians who have hosted live events during this time, and there are others who have always put out content on a regular basis. So, if your riding is still sidelined and you’re finding you have some extra time on your hands, look around the Internet. You just may be able to find help with that training problem you had before you had to stop riding, or more information than you ever wanted to know about hay! And, if you find a particularly interesting site, please share it with me and I’ll spread the news to the remaining ESDCTA community.

This is how we roll while self-isolating.

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Horse Treats By, Meredith Rogers

Ever wonder what a dream about a horse (other than your own, of course) means?

In general, dreaming about horses symbolizes energy or power. If you dream of riding or seeing passing horses, it denotes ease and comfort, but riding a runaway horse can signify that your interests will be interrupted by the folly of a friend or employer.

Dreaming of a bucking horse indicates that your desires will be difficult to achieve.

Seeing a herd of horses foretells you will hear about a friend’s illness, and a wounded horse denotes the trouble of friends. A herd of broodmares means congeniality and the absence of jealousy. If you are currying your horse, it means your business interests will not be neglected for frivolous reasons, and if you are trimming his mane or tail, it means you will be a good banker or farmer.

A white horse indicates prosperity or something good commingling with friends, but if the horse is dirty, it means you will be betrayed by a jealous friend.

A black horse means you will be successful in your future but you will practice deception. If in your dream you’re riding a bright bay horse, you will rise in fortune and have satisfaction in your endeavors. Spotted horses mean you will see a profit in your business enterprises.

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Anjelhart Equestrian Center

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Cheret Dressage

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Stone Horse Farm

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34 Centiennal Ave Holand Landing DC

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