May And June Update

Hello all, I have been extremely busy which is great, but it meant I had no time to write the news for May. So i’m combining May and June’s news together.

I have had clinics/lesson days nearly every saturday recently, and i’m really pleased to say that my clients have had some outstanding success! Elly and Bonnie from Badshot Lea equestrian centre went to Oldencraig last thursday and achieved  a whopping 70% in the prelim class and 1st palce. Elly hasn’t competed for a while, but has been working really hard on her mare in the past months and it showed with her best ever score.

Stephanie Moreland and Pannie of whom has only recently started lessons with me, previously used to get scores in the 50% bracket, she went to the Priory a couple of weeks ago and got her personal best score of 67%. Jenny Martin and Duncan also had a great result with 1st place at a prelim show with a 67% score. Many congratulations to them all. I am becoming a very big headed trainer with all my clients doing so well!!

I want to say a big welcome to Helen Scott - Cowell  who has joined us with her beautiful black hanoverian mare ‘Diva’, they have made very good progress and hope to be out competing very soon.

Highbrook is now proud to announce they’ve now got 200 acres of land, which we are all enjoying hacking around- it’s great for me because it means I can safely hack Rocho out without worrying about the road, and he can have a break from training a couple of times a week in the beautiful surroundings. Last saturday we had a cross country building day with everyone building a jump each in a team. There were prizes for the jumps, and a lovely BBQ in the evening. It was great fun, and was a brilliant way to get some jumps up, and they are all very professional looking fences. So Highbrook has now got a x-country course to add to it’s impressive facilities.

May/ June’s top training tip:

 If you are heading out to dressage competitions this summer, remember to learn your test really well so you feel confident in where you are going. That way you will feel completely prepared and in control if your horse turns out to be a demanding ride. However make sure you don’t practise it too much on board, as they will start to know it rather too well and predict the moves! Instead, break the difficult bits down in training and practise them separately.

April’s News

April has just flown by so far for me, I am delighted to say that I’ve been nicely busy at Highbrook, teaching clients old and new. Natalie has been welcoming liveries in for short stay training with me, and long term boxes are filling up fast. Nicky Brown’s lovely mare made some cracking progress while she was with us, and we welcomed Karen and her beautifulblack mare Weiser to the yard as a permenant livery, training of both horse and rider is progressing well.

Rocho has been going really well, and I have been concientiously keeping up my Michael Peace training in conjunction with normal stuff. The spooking is much better, and he has been getting mid to late 60 per cent scores again,  much to my relief - and not a mention of tension or a related comment!! Hopefully we can continue this progress and keep improving those scores!

A well done to Jenny Martin for gaining 65% in her second ever riding club elementry, and also to Kerry Dodd-Irwin for her 63% at Merrist Wood recently. Kerry has worked tirelessly since christmas on the lunge to completely re- learn and develop a classical dressage seat and position, she has been so dedicated and great to work with. I am so pleased all her hard work is paying off, and she is gaining the higher marks now- just goes to show it’s so valuable to work on the rider to generally improve the horses way of going.

My clinics are proving really popular I am delighted to say, the Solent Riding club and I had a lovely day at the beginning of the month, and I have a full day of people for my own clinic this saturday. Thankyou for all the people who booked in, i’m sure we’ll have a great day - even if it’s raining!( Indoor school on it’s way…) I will be organising one per month now, details of which are available if you fill out the web enquiry form. These clinics are great for new faces to come and meet me for assessment, one off help or a trial to see about regular sessions. All standards and abilities more than welcome! If you’re really lucky you may even get a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea!!!!

April’s Top Training Tip 

If you suffer badly from nerves before your competitions, try to give yourself a bit of a pep talk and say to yourself that there is no reason for you to get stressed about what may or may not happen. Just remember you have nothing to lose by going out there and trying your best, you often get better results if you enjoy the whole thing and just let it flow!

 

March News

Hi everyone, I hope you have all managed to enjoy your riding despite the horrible weather we have had recently. I managed to get a fairly nice day for my first clinic with the Solent Riding Club. Thankyou to everyone who attended, and thankyou for the complimentry feed back, i’m really pleased you all enjoyed it and found my training helpful. I will be running a clinic open to all every month from now on. Please feel free to email me for the dates and to book in.

I would also like to thank trainer and behaviourist Michael Peace who visited Highbrook and helped me with Rocho’s spooking problems. I wasn’t getting anywhere with it myself, and I had found Michaels approach to clipping really helpful. It has worked brilliantly, and I was thrilled when we got him to walk over tarpaulins calmly and confidently in one session! Something I didn’t think I would see my boy do with me on board. I  look forward to developing the training I started with Michael, and can see that it will greatly help Rocho’s confidence in the show arena. Hopefully this will mean better scores, and not so much tension!

 March’s Top Training Tip

Take time out of your usual training regime to do something different with your horse. I have found this important with Rocho to keep a freshness to his work, and help develop his mind. Even the most talented horses need a change from time to time.

February Update

February has been a busy and exciting month. Rocho and I have been to a couple of shows at Merrist wood. The first wasn’t great score wise, he was still placed, but it proved to be invaluable for training purposes as my trainer Eileen came to watch, and it gave us a great chance to see how to tackle the tension that he seems to get from the atmosphere of the arena at shows.  We then spent a week training at home to get him really through and settled going past various objects near the school, and when I took him back he was much better- realising that the pot of flowers really wasn’t going to kill him!! We got 63.4% and 3rd place which leaves still plenty of room for improvement, but the comments I got were much more favourable and not a word about him being tense and hollow.

Another bit of exciting news is that the feed company Simple System Ltd has offered Rocho and I support by way of sponsorship. I am delighted to work with them and there will be a link to their website shortly. For now the site is www.simplesystem.co.uk Many thanks to Tim Warren and Jane Van Lennep for their help and support.

Things at Highbrook are going really well, and more and more liveries are coming in. The plans for the new indoor arena are going through as planned and we have great hopes for the construction to start soon. Natalie Parry (Highbrook’s yard manager) did her first point-to-point of the season on her beautiful black horse Glenny, and was delighted by the way he ran, and is training for another one in the near future. Clinics are now underway, approx one a month. Please email for details and dates.

 February’s Top Training Tip

Work on your seat and position to gain a really strong, correct and effective position. It will take some hard work on the lunge without stirrups, but is of course worth it, and the only way to achieve a good position. Please get in touch if you would like to book a lunge lesson.

Happy New Year!

New years greetings to you all! I hope 2008 brings a great deal of success and happy riding!

Rocho and I have an exciting year coming up, as we hope to start Prix St George this year. There is also lots going on at Highbrook in the coming months, and lots of exciting things in the pipeline. Keep logging on to hear the latest as I continue to update this blog.

2008 is off to a great start, as we are already welcoming new clients, and generating alot of interest in my training at Highbrook.  I am working with clients on a wide range of areas such as basic improvement for a couple of my ladies to raise their 3 day event scores, and also with others who are trying to improve/strengthen their seat and get their horses to work more sharply on the aids.

 If these are areas where I can be of assistance to you, I have made it easier to get in touch with me by just filling out the form on the contact page or alternatively by my other contact details displayed on the site.

 Thankyou for visiting the site, and i’ll look forward to hearing from you soon!

January’s top training tip: Transitions, transitions and more transitions! You really can’t do enough of them.

My Competition News

My lovely horse Rocho, did me proud a week last saturday when we went to Merrist Wood to do two advanced mediums. For those of you that don’t know Rocho, he can be very tricky and has lots of attitude. Recently he has developed a very infuriating habit of spooking at pretty much anything! So although he’s competed very well in the last few shows, it’s always hard to know what to expect on any given day. Luckily he’s proving to be very consistent when it matters, and limits the sillyness to generally at home! This show did go very well, and we managed  62% in the first test - 3rd place and 62 again with a first place. We have only done three advanced mediums so far, so i’m chuffed he is already doing so well. So now i’m needing to focus on picking up those scores!

Congratulations also to my client Kelly, and her horse Dream for gaining 63% in their first ever prelim test!

Keep a look out for updates to this blog page for more competition news. I will be holding a clinic at Highbrook in January focusing on accuracy and help to improve your tests. Any level will be welcome. For information about this or any other topic please get in touch.

Introduction

Welcome everyone to my new site, I hope you will keep visiting regularly and read this blog where I will be publishing my clinic dates, general news and some short articles based around dressage in general, with some advice about any schooling problems people would like to discuss and get some ideas about. If any of you have any thoughts about what you would like me to comment on please contact me on info@dominiquepark.co.uk

I hope you find this site useful and keep visiting to find more pictures and helpful tips and advice.