The Riding

Yesterday I had my first official lesson with Lars. He has helped me for five minutes here and there and at the beginning Melissa gave me several lessons (before her clients came in for the season and she got busy). So this was very exciting for me!

It was a good lesson, seemingly the same lesson that I am learning over and over, don't try to fix everything with my hands! :) At least between my mom and Lars there is some consistency :) Vioen is doing well, she is getting stronger and starting to come along. We had to work through some rough spots. Lars really helped me here and double lunged Vioen for me several times to get her more tolerant and accepting of the contact. He reminded me yesterday of how far she has come since when we first started here almost two months ago but also that you can't expect it to all be there just yet. "Be happy with where she's at and keep working for where you want her to be," were his words. Her canter is getting much stronger and from going from basically four months off to full work has been an adjustment but she has been a real trooper.

We are working on getting her stronger to the bit. Because she likes to shrink back from the contact I have to get her in front of my leg and going to my hand reaching for the bit. Lars said that even if she gets a little heavy it's ok and that we can always make her lighter later down the road.

I would say that Lars' forte is getting the horses through to the aids. He wants the horses to go in a very specific way, some start deep and others you start up from the beginning but most importantly they must be active with their hind legs. He wants the horses to feel even in both reins and not too light. He says that sometimes you have to compromise with what you're asking depending on if the horse is coming off of an injury or if you are just warming them up.

I really like watching him teach the upper level students. He likes a lot of change within the pace to get the horses on their hind legs. With the greener horses like Vioen he suggests bringing them back until you think they can't carry it anymore and then immediately go out. He also used a great metaphor for me yesterday: because Vioen kept breaking to the trot in the small canter he wanted me to ride every stride as if I was asking her to canter from the trot so that I was using my seat in a positive way.

He also likes to use a lot of travers (haunches-in), renvers (haunches out) and shoulder-in to supple the horses. For the greener horses he uses a lot of leg-yielding across the diagonal. He wants the horses to keep a consistent tempo, stay VERY straight (or as straight as possible) and maintain the connection into the contact.

With the upper level horse he calls the small canter the "pirouette canter". So the horse has to come back as if you were going to do a pirouette. Before starting the tempe changes you have to perfect the single changes first. He wants to see the horse maintain their balance and rhythm in the canter throughout the change and they have to stay straight.

When teaching the tempes to a horse he recommends that you don't always have to do it in a certain number of strides. You can just canter down the long side and change when they feel right, then change again when they feel right, so on and so forth.

For the pirouettes in the canter he wants the horses to not swing their haunches in to much otherwise they will never be able to stay on the center line for the Grand Prix test.

He also talks about tuning the horse up to small aids. If they don't listen to a small aid then you can kick them or whatever but only to sharpen them to the small aid so that you are not always kicking OR squeezing to get them to go.

As far as how much I get to ride every day is different. The assistant trainer and Melissa already have their string of horses that they ride every day but there was a day when I rode eight horses in one day! It was fabulous!!! Now that Kim is here (the other working student from Georgia) we tend to split up the rides. Mostly we help him or Melissa by starting their horses up for them. The don't really call it "warming up" :) You learn to tack up fast because if you don't get in there quick enough then he's already done with the one he's on and you end up handing him the one you have. Darn, just put my boots and gloves on for nothin'. But anyhow that's mostly what I do. It's a fine balance because he is so specific about how he wants them to go. You HAVE to make them work but you also can't do too much so there's a fine line.

Lars and Melissa are going to be out of town from the 26th-2nd so we are in the middle of trying to figure out who is going to ride who while they are away. It is a huge responsibility. I can't even tell you how much these horses are worth!!! I'll just say it's in the six figures. So part of me is excited to get to sit on their top horses but another part of me is a little freaked out should anything go wrong. Cross your fingers, you know how horses are :)

In writing this I realise how much I have already learned in such a short time. Even tough I am just jotting down off of memory, it's good to put it down in writing. I feel so lucky to have the background that I do coming into this situation. Basically my lesson with Lars yesterday wouldn't have been much different then if I were riding with my mom :) But to see some top quality Grand Prix horses (and to sit on them) is a whole other ball game and I am learning a lot through riding and watching. Feel free to ask me any questions. I will be sure to show you some of the horses I have ridden once the sales page on their web site is finished.

I hear that there's a lot of snow at home. It's crazy because I feel like I have been fast forwarded on to Summer. I can only imagine how beautiful it is there. Stay warm!

Team Legacy

Here is a photo of all of us at Legacy Farms! From left to right it's Heidi on Anna, Sofie, me, Neve, Tayna, Melissa on Kismo, Lars, Ashley, Caroline, Cali, Bodo and Kim.

Web Page Update

Hi All! I can't be long, I am on my lunch break but wanted to tell you to go to the Legacy Farms web page (if you click on my profile and then click on the link to my web site it will take you directly to Lagacy's web site) and check out the updates. If you click on "about us" at the bottom of the page is a photo of us all! When they update the sales horse page I will tell which ones I get to ride! :) Gotta go but check it out if you get a chance!

The Low Down

Melissa Taylor on Chicco

Lars during the victory lap

Lars in his Grand Prix for the freestyle

So it was just another day. I am steadily adjusting to the routine and find myself settling in to this new situation. I don't really have a life other than work but again I really just felt that I needed to submerge myself into further pursuing my passion and developing my career as a trainer. Today was just another pleasant day, the weather was warm and it was truly a beautiful day. There are times when the sun rise or sun sets are so stunning that I almost feel as if I am on vacation to a tropical location. I so dearly miss everyone at home, all of my friends and family. I include my students on this list. We had all developed such a close relationship and I feel that everyone really cared about one another. I think that this is something really special and a habit that I want to continue throughout my life. Life is too short not to stop and smell the roses! So as I find myself longing for these friendly relationships and warm familiar faces I try to bury myself in what I'm doing for that moment and the day carries on.

I have been able to build new friendships with people here. All of us girls are getting along really well and seemed to have slipped into our pecking order while being able to support and respect one another. It was a bit rough in the beginning but is continuing to improve. The new working student, Kim, is from Georgia and we are kindred spirits. She is fun loving and up beat and we get along so well. I think that our favorite past-time will end up being enjoying a glass of wine to defuse from the long day of work and sharing laughs with one another. There is also Sophie. She is 19 years old and from Denmark. She came here after she finished her high school education to be a groom. She heard about Lars Peterson and Legacy Farm from a friend of a friend in Denmark. It is a small wold after all. She was looking for a grooms position either in Germany or America (those were the two languages that she studied in school) and then plans to continue her education. She is leaving in January and I already know that I am going to miss her. She really is the back bone behind all that gets done around here. While we are out riding she is always good about getting to the dirty bridles or hand walking. I call her Super Sophie and we all really miss her on her day off. She is quiet and could easily go unnoticed if you weren't paying attention but her and I have fun and she teases me about my American slang. She got really excited when I used the word, "awesome" and now it is her favorite word. :) I like to tease her back by assuring her that the difficult horses to hand walk like her more than me :)

Florida is a whole different animal. The barn is already starting to fill up with the "clients" who are coming down for the winter to compete and get out of the cold. There are people coming from Virginia, Pennsylvania, Canada and where ever else up north. They are wealthy and get their horses tacked up, warmed-up and then handed to them to ride. Then they get to hand their horse off for us to put away. I wonder where the relationship is between these owners and their horses. It seems to be simply a social and competitive activity for them. Very strange... but to each their own I guess.

The cost to keep a horse here is astounding! I think that the mentality of it is if they can afford to pay it then we'll charge it. To shoe a horse for front shoes only starts at $175.00. For full shoes it is anywhere from $250.00-$525.00. I honestly can't imagine. I am so fortunate to have a horse that can go barefoot because if for no other reason it is affordable! To have a dry stall in this barn, which means no hay, grain, cleaning or scrubbing starts at $1,000.00 per month during season. After March it goes down to $500.00 and that is basically just to rent the stall. I am not quite sure but I think that to have full board and training is somewhere around $5,000.00 per month. Lars charges $200.00 per lesson and Rudolf was $400.00 per lesson. Lars' lessons are a half hour long. Insanity! I can't imagine having money like this to spend on a hobby!


This last Saturday was amazing! We all got to sit in the VIP section to watch the competitors. We had a great view of the musical freestyles and it was so cool to sit among the "who's who" of the dressage world. Courtney King was there, Tuney Page, the list goes on. There was a catered meal with very yummy dinner entrees and desserts. It was neat to see Lars in action. He didn't ride his freestyle until 9:00pm so he came up and joined us for dinner. I told him that I was surprised he was eating. At a big competition like this I probably would have been in the barn chewing my nails nervously but he has been doing this for so long. He said that eating a lot would help him sit better b/c his belly would be full and weigh him down, although he only picked at his meal so I guess even the big wigs get a bit of the jitters. Watching him ride his freestyle was so amazing! I burst out at one point, "I've put a sheet on that horse!". He won his class by a pretty good margin and it was a huge celebration! After the awards ceremony we all went to a restaurant/bar on the show grounds to let loose and have fun. There was a small acoustic live band playing cover songs and we all danced! Even Lars danced in his white breeches! It was so much fun and made for a memorable night and a painful work day following. Such an experience and am looking forward for more to come, if I can hold up to it :)

How it's going

Today is my day off and I had the pleasure of going to Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington to watch some riders in the CDI 3* Dressage competition. It is a large show grounds with many many tent stalls and permanent barns. The Rolex/USEF National Show Jumping Championship was also going on as well so there were many horses there. The dressage show was pretty small with only 53 horses entered because it is early in the show season and it was a CDI. CDI is an abbreviation for Concourse (competition) Dressage International. It was pretty cool to watch Lars ride Susie Dutta's (one of his clients) mare in the PSG and to watch Susie ride one of her horses in the PSG. They are doing the small tour. Tomorrow the Grand Prix start and on Saturday they will have the Grand Prix Freestyle (where they ride the horses to music). We (the girls) get to go watch after work. The Freestyles start at 7:00pm. There will be a VIP area set up with tables and a wet bar where we will be able to watch the rides. I am so excited!

Over Thanksgiving weekend Rudolf Zeilinger was here teaching a four day clinic from Germany. On my day off I watched him teach and ride the horses all day long. It was so amazing. That man can get anything to piaffe and passage. It was very interesting how the clinic was conducted. He rode every horse at least once during the four days and to see the transformation when he got one them. It was incredible to see how much he could get the horses to lower their croups and activate their hind legs and carry the collection in the piaffe, passage and pirouettes. He also got one of the mares to "get her legs more out in front of her". Watching him do extensions throughout the arena and then go back to a passage extension like trot was very cool. He definitely could get everything out of the horse and all that it could possibly give. One of the horses was having a hard time sitting in the piaffe, it was almost like he was trying to hard. His rhythm was ok but his butt was up and he wasn't able to life his shoulder or his knees to match the hind end. When he got on the horse he really worked on this. A couple of time the horse reared and he just sat there as quiet as could be and smoothly turned the horse while it was standing in the air until it lowered and came down. Another mare was having difficulty sitting and carrying the collection in the canter pirouettes thus wasn't really able to stay more on the spot. So when he got on her he went from a piaffe directly into a canter pirouette. He used the piaffe to get the mare to get her hind legs underneath her and then to have her keep that in the pirouette. It was very interesting and I am so glad that I was able to see something like this. Rudolf is from Germany and is the coach for the Danish dressage team. I was able to sit next to Tim Dutta (Susie's husband and the owner of the Dutta Corporation which is an international horse transport company, "they give horses wings!") and pick his brain. He said that he strongly believed in education and wanted to have a clinician of Rudolf's caliber come every 3-4 months. Tim, Susie and Lars are business partners and are very close. Susie has her personal 2 horses in full training with Lars which means that she comes over and takes lessons. She is guaranteed at least four lessons per week with Lars. He is also riding another two of her horses that are in full training. Susie has her own barn across the road so her groom leads them over when it is their time to be worked. Anyhow I was asking Tim what he knew about Lars' future plans for international competition. Tim said that Lars was going to stay a Danish citizen because it is easier to get on the Danish team than it is the US team. In Denmark Rudolf Zeilinger basically has to like and approve of you and your horse and you are on the Danish team whereas in the US there are a lot more hoops and qualifying shows that you have to go to before you can even be considered. It sounds like Lars' next goal is the WEG in '10. As of what horse he takes we'll have to see. Rudolf really liked one of Susie's horses that Lars rides. This horse can piaffe and passage like it's breathing. He has a lot of knee action and kind of reminds me of Olympic Bonfire but when Rudolf got on him he did some fabulous trot extensions with him. He said, "for every extension I do you owe me a beer!" So he has a sense of humor and enjoys a cool frothy beer.

So far for me things are going well. I am adjusting to the schedule and am not so tired at the end of the day. It took me about a month. It is interesting to see White Fences (which is basically a gated horse community filled with barns and arenas and is like Pleasant ville for dressage) fill up for the season. There are more horses in the arenas and you see more trucks and trailers in the driveways whereas when I first came it seemed a bit more like a ghost town. This area really is a horsey area. There are barns everywhere! Anyhow, I ride some days more than others. Two weekends ago Neve (the assistant trainer) was in Europe renewing her visa and I rode eight horses one day. Some I get on and warm-up for Lars or Melissa and others I ride. I haven't gotten lesson from Lars yet but he has given me lots of little tid bits of advice when I am riding different horses. I have had several lessons with Melissa on Vioen. We were just commenting a couple weeks ago about what a good girl she was and what a good little worker she was. Although she has not been herself the past week and I have been having trouble with her the past week. I think that it is pain related and I am trying to find a saddle that fits better than mine. Jen- and suggestions???

The past couple of days we have had more wintery weather. Last Sunday is was very very windy. There were huge gusts of wind that would come through and almost take you off your feet. I tried taking the quietest horse out first to hand walk. There were branches and debris flying all over the place and even the quiet one was trying to canter circles around me so we decided to wait until the arena was empty and walk them in there. These horses are not turned out, they are fit and hopped up on grain so needless to say it was a long and stressful day trying to not let a six figure horse get away from you or hurt themselves! Tuesday night we had a cold front come through and of course it was my night for night check so in addition to throwing everyone a flake of hay I had to switch 19 horses from sheets to blankets and put on a total of 22 blankets. It took some time. Today, however, it is sunny and warm. Definitely t-shirt and shorts weather. I hope everyone had a joyous Thanksgiving dinner. We all went to a dinner party at one of Susie's students house in Wellington. It was all of us at Legacy and other horse people that run in the same horse circle's plus Rudolf. There was A LOT of wine and good food. It was definitely a party. I have to say that the only thing that really resembled Thanksgiving was the turkey! :)

Right now I am using Kim's computer who has so graciously let me borrow. She is the fifth employee (not counting Reynaldo). Another working student from Georgia. She is a lot of fun and very fun loving. I think that I am going to have a really good time during season. We will see what happens in the off season b/c a lot of people will go home but in the meantime I am making a lot of new friends and we all have one thing in common, horses! I am in the process of getting my own computer so that I can stay in better contact with the rest of the world. The computer that we were all sharing basically went dead so it's really time that I get my own. I think it's time for me to go work Vioen, I also have errands to run so until next time, I miss all of you and can't wait to come home to visit and see all of your familiar faces!

Trying to keep touch

Hi All!
Sorry that it has been so long since I last wrote! I no longer have access to the internet. It's a long story but I will try to make time to go to the library on my day off to catch everyone up. I am using my new best friend's computer (Kim, another working student from Georgia) and will hopefully be getting a computer of my own by christmas time. Love everyone and miss you all so much!