What Happens At Home Before The Big Show

By |2021-09-12T08:54:59-04:00August 10th, 2021|COTH Posts|

Huzzah! I’m qualified for the U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions. I’ll ride The Elvis Syndicate’s wonderful Guernsey Elvis in the Developing Grand Prix Championship, for 8- to 10-year-old horses at the Grand Prix level. It’s a big deal, and it was my big goal for the year. Mission: accomplished.

But now that I’m qualified, I have to, you know, go.

I’m in the middle of a four-week gap between my last outing and the championships, and I’m making the most of that time to get Elvis and I as ready as possible. He had a little downtime after that show in July, the last in a long slog of competitions. I’ve spent this entire spring and summer addressing his fitness. As I’ve mentioned before, Elvis isn’t a super hot horse by nature, so I’ve needed to make a concentrated effort to increase his conditioning. By the time we leave for the Festival of Champions, being held Aug. 24-29 at Lamplight Equestrian Center in Wayne, Illinois, he’ll be walking five days a week for north of 40 minutes, up and down my Virginia hills, in addition to his daily dressage work.

But there’s more than just dressage, and even more than just fitness, involved in successfully getting down centerline at a big show. Here’s what I’m up to this month.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!

National Championships Bound! August 2021 Newsletter

By |2021-08-09T13:28:36-04:00August 9th, 2021|News & Events|

It’s been a minute (or three months, oops) since our latest newsletter, but we haven’t been bored! We’ve been up to our winning ways, including some high score awards, some medal scores, and sending two homemade Grand Prix horses to the USEF National Championships. Read on to learn all about it, and sign up to receive our monthly (or, you know, whenever we have time) newsletters directly in your inbox!

Snippets, Horse Crip Walking Edition

By |2021-08-07T06:08:53-04:00August 7th, 2021|Snippets|

There’ve been a lot of horsey news stories in the last few weeks, between the Olympics, and various things happening in domestic horse sport management. I don’t have enough thoughts on any one individual phenomenon to write a proper blog about it, so here’s a bunch of little, well, snippets.

On dressage at the Olympics: First all, way to go, Team USA Dressage. I met Sabine when Sanceo was a young horse, and she rode him at the 5- or 6-year-old national championships, I forget which. I remember being staggeringly impressed – something I am usually not at that age of horse – because it was both such a quality test, and so clearly a horse that was going to go to the upper levels, not just be a young hotshot that never learned to close. I remember seeking Sabine out because the judges were not impressed, and I went over to be like dude, WTF, this horse is awesome. Sabine was gracious and classy about it. So Sabine, you rock, and you showed ‘em.

Second, a huge thank you to whoever unearthed the videos of Dalera and Gio as young horses. Gio at 4 would have been interesting to me, but I must confess that I would have said “isn’t that a nice future amateur horse!” watching the video of Dalera at 7. It is so, so inspiring to see that brilliant Grand Prix horses are made, not born, and not necessarily made from $400,000 3 year olds. There’s hope for us all.

On Olympic dressage in the world at large: horse crip walking, my friends. I LOVE this (if you’re aghast at the lack of seriousness about our sport, get a big ol’ grip, friend), and Mr. Dogg, if you’re reading this, I volunteer as tribute to participate in your next video. I have a pretty prancy palomino who would love to channel his inner gangsta.

Also, I loved Steffen’s music, as did the internet, but as usual, I found much of the rest of the freestyle music to be fairly painful. A little more rock concert and a little less Grey Poupon in international horse sport might make the sport a little sexier, y’all.

On other Olympic horse sports: I ran triathlons for a little while. I loved running, and I LOVED swimming. But I was a sucky cyclist, and so I’d usually smoke around the swim, lose a ton of ground on the bike, and then play catch up in the run to finish 2nd or 3rd in my division every time. Someone at some point told me this: you cannot win a triathlon on your swim, but you can certainly lose.

I recognize that I have no business telling any rider at any level how to jump their horse over anything, but maybe, just maybe, it’s time for American event riders to get a little bit more serious about dressage.

On other Olympic horse sports, part 2: wow, pentathlon riding is tremendously bad.

On USEF horse news: They’re trying to make the amateur rule better and fairer. This is fantastic, and much needed. But I think breaking classes down by one’s occupation is a dumb way of breaking classes down, and that breaking them down by rider experience would be way better.

One’s job title doesn’t mean one is a good or bad rider. I know lots of extremely competent amateurs. I know lots of mediocre pros. One of the beautiful things about dressage is that we get a score at the end, and while there’s judges who are tough and judges who are like Christmas and a whole lot of judges in between, at least we can recognize that someone who places fifth on a 72% was probably better than a winner on 57%.

There’s a championship here in the mid-Atlantic that’s been around forever – the CBLMs – that has two divisions for senior riders, the A division for riders without extensive experience above the level they’re showing, and the B division for riders that do. So at First Level, an adult amateur like my mom (who’s shown through I1) would compete her next young horse against professionals like me, and my beginner rider working student who’s in her first year of dressage showing but is (according to the USEF amateur rule) a professional would compete against amateurs in their first year of dressage showing. And at Intermediate I, my mom (see above) would compete against professionals like my assistant trainer, showing I1 for the first time as well, but amateurs like Alice Tarjan, with extensive Grand Prix experience, would compete against professionals like me.

It has to be possible for some sort of similar designation to be applied to riders in other disciplines, and it has to be possible for a relatively foolproof database to come into existence so show management can easily check their riders’ status.

On other USEF horse news, plus the news at large: the Delta Variant is real, and we’re definitely heading for another mask mandate, in some capacity, so gear up. More importantly, get freaking vaccinated already. If you’re eligible for a vaccine, and don’t have a health issue that prevents you from doing so, sign the hell up. Not doing so is cowardly and un-patriotic. Vaccinated octogenarian grandma immigrants are braver and better Americans than you.

Ride Times for Claudio Oliveira Clinic

By |2021-08-03T15:13:38-04:00August 3rd, 2021|News & Events|

Auditing is $40/day at the door, but an RSVP is requested. Masking will be required indoors (tack room, bathroom, etc. – not the indoor arena) even if vaccinated, and required everywhere for unvaccinated folks. Socially distant seating is available. Email lauren@spriesersporthorse.com to let us know you’re coming!

SATURDAY
8:00 Lauren Sprieser & Kingrose, 6 yr KWPN Gelding, 1st Level
8:45 Jean Loonam & Red Hot Chili Pepper, 15 yr Hanoverian Gelding, PSG
9:30 Lauren Sprieser & Helio, 10 yr Lusitano, I1+
10:15 Kaitlynn Mosing & Petacchi, 14 yr KWPN Gelding, I1
11 Lauren Sprieser & Gretzky, 10 yr KWPN Gelding, I1+
11:45 Kaitlynn Mosing & Riesling De Buissy, 16 yr Gelding, 4th Level
12:30 Lunch
1 Liza Broadbent & Incroyable, 8 yr KWPN Mare, 3rd Level
1:45 Jodie Harney & Sullivan, 9 yr Oldenburg Gelding, 2nd Level
2:30 Heather Richards & Halcyon, 9 yr KWPN Mare, 3rd Level
3:15 Adrienne Pagalilauan & Viva Westfalia, 9 yr Westfalen Gelding, PSG
4 Nancy Sulek & Range Rover, 14 yr Oldenburg Gelding, PSG
4:45 Adrienne Pagalilauan & Deeclair, 13 yr KWPN Mare, I1+

SUNDAY
6:45 Adrienne Pagalilauan & Viva Westfalia, 9 yr Westfalen Gelding, PSG
7:30 Lauren Sprieser & Gretzky, 10 yr KWPN Gelding, I1+
8:15 Adrienne Pagalilauan & Deeclair, 13 yr KWPN Mare, I1+
9 Lauren Sprieser & Helio, 10 yr Lusitano, I1+
9:45 Heather Richards & Halcyon, 9 yr KWPN Mare, 3rd Level
10:30 Nancy Sulek & Range Rover, 14 yr Oldenburg Gelding, PSG
11:15 Lunch
11:45 Jodie Harney & Sullivan, 9 yr Oldenburg Gelding, 2nd Level
12:30 Kaitlynn Mosing & Petacchi, 14 yr KWPN Gelding, I1
1:15 Liza Broadbent & Incroyable, 8 yr KWPN Mare, 3rd Level
2:00 Kaitlynn Mosing & Riesling De Buissy, 16 yr Gelding, 4th Level
2:45 Lauren Sprieser & Kingrose, 6 yr KWPN Gelding, 1st Level

Go to Top