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When I applied for the TDC Scholarship last summer, I had no horse. My mare, Keri on Dancin', had been retired in March and we were searching for a new partner. It was becoming painfully apparent that we couldn't afford a "made" horse and I wasn't ready to take on the challenge of training a young one. So to improve my riding skills and begin learning upper level movements, I started taking weekly riding lessons with Dorie Vlatten-Schmitz at the Central Arizona Riding Academy (CARA) in Chandler. CARA is owned by Dorie and her husband, Uli. Both have competed at the Grand Prix level and they have gone 13 times to Advanced Young Riders Championships with students.
At my first lesson with Dorie I rode, Fanny, a Holsteiner mare. After several lessons, during which Dorie assessed my strengths and weaknesses, I moved on to Veba, a Trakehner mare who was trained to PSG and to Pasedena, a Holsteiner gelding of years that Dori didn't want to count. Of the dozen lessons I took with Dori, I rode Pasedena most often. Dori had shown Pasedena at Prix St. Georges in his prime. I learned that except for the one tempi changes, he had perfected all of the other Grand Prix movements. Pasadena had a wonderful, friendly disposition and was a perfect schoolmaster.
Before each lesson, I would groom and tack up Pasedena. Even at 7:30 AM, when I took most of my lessons, it was hot! Uli would water the arena as Pasadena and I warmed up. Dori arrived just as I was ready to begin the lesson. Always, she greeted me with a smile. Sometimes
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she sat in her monogrammed director's chair at the side of the arena, but often she walked or ran beside me giving instructions.
Dori gave me some background on Pasadena and told me how I should ride him. I learned that he had only a few more extended trots left in him, so we would not be doing that. I had to keep him very organized and collected or he would string himself out and pull muscles. We began work at the posting trot, with a lower poll, to help Pasadena's back warm up. Pasadena's stride was considerably different than Keri's; she was rougher. Once he was warmed up, he was like riding a cloud. We also warmed up at the canter. Then we progressed to lateral work at the trot.
We used the long side and did shoulder in until E or B and made a ten-meter circle and haunches in until the end of the arena. We repeated this process numerous times each direction, to ensure that I knew how to shift my weight and which leg to use to bring the shoulder-in, instead of making the common mistake of shoving the haunches out and making a false shoulder-in. Then we moved on to the half pass at the trot and canter, which was fairly simple because Pasadena only needed to be bent in the correct position and the outside leg applied.
After three lessons, we began flying changes. I had never done a "dressage" flying change, only a "hunter"change after a fence. The first time Dori told me to do a flying change, I had no idea what to do, so I tried something. It wasn't a great change, but Dori congratulated me. She said I had
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shown her that I knew how to take a lesson because I had tried to figure it out instead of just stopping and asking how to do it.
Dori had me do single changes at specific places in the arena. First, I had Pasadena do changes at X across the diagonal each direction. Then we started counting the strides between the changes. Counting was easy for me because I'd done it many times when I showed Keri in hunter classes. Dori was pleased because she said that people can either count right away or she spends the next three years teaching them how. I was very excited when we had progressed to doing changes every five strides. Dori taught me how to ask for a change and at what point in the stride it is easiest for the horse to do it. Pasadena and Dori were both great teachers. Never once were either of them impatient with me. In fact, Dori's favorite expression was, "try again."
Thank you TDC for the junior scholarship that helped finance my lessons with Dori. Many of you may have seen me putting my flying change lessons into action. Last October, Ellie Stine-Masek found the perfect horse for me, Cast Iron or Casey, as we call him. I am leasing Casey and we are currently showing at Fourth Level.
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