At the end of the day, dressage competition is done in a 20×60 arena, with perfectly manicured footing, and as such that’s where we spend a fair amount of our training time. But staying within the confines of the Little White Box is a great way to make a rider crazy, and forget what it does to the horse, a creature evolved from wandering grazers, although admittedly every time one of my fancy Dutch things goes catapulting through the air because he’s spotted a leaf or a bird, I am reminded of how much smart the domestication process has apparently taken out.

Terrifying birds and leaves aside, cross training is, in my opinion, crucial for the proper development of the dressage horse, not to mention a welcome breath of fresh air in a training process that, even done by the best, is inevitably full of periods of tedious repetition. And I am so lucky as to work out of 135 acres of gorgeous Virginia countryside that allows my horses, my students and I to play with lots of fun options. Here are some of the things we do to think outside the box.

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Some of them have been in my program for years, and some are new. Some are on horses who we’ve helped bring up the levels from the beginning of their dressage careers, and some are on horses that were already schooled to the middle levels when we met, but all are horses who we’re finishing to the level, which is pretty fun. They are the six students of mine in pursuit of their USDF Silver Medals this year, or, as I like to call them, the Prix St. Georges Club of 2016.

They have come to this place in their respective journeys in different ways—from eventing, from the jumpers, from learning to ride as an adult. And they’re on all sorts of horses—a homebred, a converted driving horse, a hunter/jumper reject, and a few that came up in dressage and have known nothing else. But even though they have different jobs, different budgets, different constraints on their time, they have a few things in common.

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I tell my clients, and my friends, and my fellow riders, the same thing, a hundred times a day: horses figure “it” out, whatever “it” is, exactly when they are ready to do so, and not a minute sooner, and there’s nothing to do except calmly and coolly soldier on until they get it.

But the same is true of riders, of teenagers in pursuit of maturity, of anyone in pursuit of anything, and it’s the beautiful thing about life, I think: we all trundle along, feeling like we’re stuck in the mud, or feeling like we’ve lost the path, and usually when it’s least expected, there it is. The rise. The jump to the next level.

Ella and I found it.

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<img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-760" src="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha3-300×300.jpeg" alt="omaha3" width="300" height="300" srcset="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha3-300×300 acheter cialis avec paypal.jpeg 300w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha3-150×150.jpeg 150w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha3.jpeg 750w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />Ella’s been in my life for 10 years, and she’s not really a spooky horse. She’s very, very simple minded, not a Rhodes Scholar, and that’s an asset. I tell her what to do, and she does it.

She can heat up, but usually in a very fun and useful way, and while no one can go in the CDI Grand Prix ring and piaffe 15 steps with no whip on a 100-degree day without having a pretty keen horse, Ella usually makes me inspire her, not hold her back.

Also know this: In the course of Ella’s life there has not been one day where she was malicious, wicked or unkind. She’s not wired that way. She’s never been aggressive, vindictive or cheeky.

So when, as we were trying to go around the outside of the arena for our CDI4* Grand Prix in the Omaha International last night, and she stopped and twirled and twirled and stood up and ran backwards and twirled and inched forward and then nope, not doing it and over and over and over again, it was because she was desperately, desperately afraid.

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<img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-757" src="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha2-300×169.jpg" alt="omaha2" width="300" height="169" srcset="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha2-300×169.jpg 300w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha2-768×432 cialis generique pas cher.jpg 768w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha2-150×84.jpg 150w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha2.jpg 960w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />We’re here! It’s great! And now we wait.

This is how showing is, with one horse, something I very rarely do. In Wellington I had the rest of the barn to keep myself amused, and at the CDI in Saugerties I went to last fall it was just me caring for Ella, so at least there was barn work to keep me busy. I brought working student Sarah with me to Omaha because I wanted someone with me for the driving, not because I really needed the extra set of hands (but I appreciate it, and Sarah is great, so this is not a complaint!). But it does mean that, between the two of us, we’re done in the barn pretty quick.

So… we wait.

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var addthis_config = {
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title: “The International Omaha, Day 3: Killing Time”
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<img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-754" src="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha-300×226.jpg" alt="omaha" width="300" height="226" srcset="http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha-300×226.jpg 300w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha-150×113 cialis livraison rapide canada.jpg 150w, http://spriesersporthorse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/omaha.jpg 640w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />First, I have to apologize to the people of Nebraska.

I was born in Chicago and lived in Northern Illinois, so I am abundantly aware of everything that’s said about the Midwest. It’s flat. It’s empty. It’s the Flyover States. Yeah, yeah. I got it.

But when the FEI announced that they’d be hosting the World Cup Final in Omaha in 2017, I said, “…for real? Omaha?! Why?!?” And in my defense, I wasn’t alone.

Now that I’m here, I get it. And I’m a believer.

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