Congratulations to Jennifer Foulon and Ferrero, for their 76.8% at Training Level 3! The pair earned high score for the Training Level division for the entire weekend, beating out Reserve by 4%!

Congrats to Jennifer and Morgen, for their 64.4% and Fourth Place in the Training Level 4 test.

Barbara Strawson and Zivona ISF cleaned up with multiple wins at First Level, including many scores in the high 60s.

GREAT start to the season!

June 27 and 28 are just around corner, which means it is time to start planning for the PVDA Ride for Life Licensed Show and Saturday evening Dancing Horse Challenge at the Prince George’s Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, MD. 

While you are waiting to hear Debbie McDonald speak at the Gala, ride for a great cause or watch Courtney King-Dye, Michael Barisone, Betsy Steiner and Cathy Morelli perform on Saturday’s Challenge, here is what you can do now…

Donate – Support The Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Center and the PVDA Ride for Life, by clicking: http://www.pvdarideforlife.org/supporter_donations.asp

Buy Gala Tickets - You can sign up online through Paypal at www.pvdarideforlife.org/gala.asp or send a check payable to PVDA to: Jeannette Bair, at 6801 Dorsey Lane Woodbine, MD. 21279.  All reservations must be made by June 19th.  This event was sold out last year so do not wait and miss the opportunity for a great time and a unique chance to support breast cancer research through your donation.  See below for more information.

Tell a friend… or 10!  - Let everyone know that you support the PVDA Ride for Life and hope they will attend/support this event. www.pvdarideforlife.org and the IRide Million Hits Campaign at www.youtube.com/user/iride4L

Let everyone know about June 15-24  - Online auction of a Debbie McDonald clinic (full day!) to be held anywhere in the continental U.S. – Tell all of your friends in other GMOs and Regions. Visit www.pvdarideforlife.org for more information.

Donate to the Silent Auction - During the Saturday evening celebration, spectators will have the opportunity to bid on some amazing items offered in the Silent Auction. Don't be outbid on items such as lessons with top trainers, sports ticket packages, equine products, and original artwork.  All of the proceeds from the Silent Auction are donated to the Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer Center and last year we raised more than $10,000 from the Silent Auction, alone!  Ifyou have a product or service you can donate?  Click here: http://www.pvdarideforlife.org/documents/supporterforms_auctiondonation.pdf and you will open the Silent Auction Donation Form that will guide you in donating an item.  

Hang posters, solicit sponsors, encourage attendance and volunteer for the weekend… we need your help and want to hear from you today!

 

GALA: Don’t miss this year’s Gala where you will enter into the European city delight of Paris for a Parisian Masquerade – a Celebration of Life. Come and see the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge, stroll through the Trullieres Garden while listening to the strains for blues music provided by the Unruly Blues Band.  Appetizers and cash bar will open at 6:15 p.m. so that you can get something to eat and drink to take to your seats in the VIP seating area to watch the fabulous Dancing Horse Challenge.  Dinner will be served immediately following the show at 8:00.  Food will remain available for a couple of hours so that everyone, including riders and coordinators for the evening event will not go hungry!  The band will play and the bar will remain open until 11:30 p.m.  Dancing is encouraged!  We will also have a talk by our own Olympian, Debbie McDonald and plenty of opportunity to meet her throughout the event.

Dinner is a superb meal offering three entrees on our buffet; salmon filets, lemongrass beef and butternut squash and goat cheese ravioli. Wine will be served with dinner.  Dress for the evening is black tie optional but of course any chosen wear is fine.  We do encourage you to dress to the occasion in “masks” in the Masquerade Ball tradition.  There will be prizes for best costume and mask.

 

Thank you in advance for your participation.

What a journey! The number of times that I have been encouraged, supported and told “Yes, you can do it!” since beginning my work towards my USDF Associate Instructorship has been incredible.

The PVDA immediately offered to sponsor my goal, which has helped with costs and spoken to their commitment to their members and the growth of this sport in the area.

I would like to say that my trainer and boss, Barbara Strawson, went out of her way to prepare me for this Certification; the fact is, she has been going out of her way to prepare me to be the best dressage trainer well before this goal came about. Her background in psychology, as well as her BALIMO certification, compliment her formal dressage training in a way that make her an unbelievable resource for learning to teach dressage to horses and riders in a systematic way.

The Workshops themselves were run in a similarly systematic way: For Riding the Horse, Lungeing the Horse and Rider, and Teaching, our 45-minute hands-on sections were always broken down into an assessment/warm-up, followed by a training period and then final assessment/cool down. My mounted and unmounted lessons at home prepared me entirely for this 45-minute program at the Workshops.

My hard work seemed to pay off when I taught one of my best lessons of the year in front of Lendon Gray, my Teaching Workshop instructor. I was more nervous than I have been in a LONG time, but she noted that I taught my hands-on demonstration with “confidence and conviction” and seemed to be the only Participating Instructor that seemed entirely focused on my demo student. I was over the moon, especially when I saw that her final recommendation was that I go right to Testing to become a USDF Certified Instructor through Second Level.

When I got home, one of my students joked that she was going to call Lendon and tell her that I was a great teacher. To have had so many students and supporters back home that truly believed in me, was the icing on the cake. I had proven my skills to the unbiased members of the dressage community, even if the biased dressage riders were willing to call on my behalf!

Now that I am home, I am not sure those clients are as happy that they were willing to let me leave, as I returned with many new exercises to help them improve them and their horses… some of which have led to some sore muscles and generally tired students, many of  whom had just came off substitute lessons with Barbara and a clinic with Nicole Uphoff-Selke, while I was away. Barbara even offered to work my horse while I was away, increasing her workload simply to help me out.

As you can see, I was not the only one working hard because of this Workshop! But, if this journey has reinforced one thing, it has been that in order to succeed in dressage we must work at it. From the moment I decided to work towards my USDF Associate Instructor’s Certification, I knew that it would be just as hard. The monetary costs alone for the three workshops are $1050, with another $2,000 or so going to hotels, travel, “renting” demo horses and First Aid Certification. Scheduling three Workshop weekends away in other Regions, when I teach both days, was a tremendous burden on the business, Barbara, Lauren (her apprentice trainer), Nicole and my clients.

Nine days away and over $3,000 later, I am not only proud to say that I am a USDF Associate Instructor, but I am entirely confidant in the path that I have chosen as a trainer and student of dressage – The GMO I belong to, the teaching I receive, the team I belong to and the clients I am lucky enough to work with every day.