May Dressage Letters

May 2021 ~ Dressage Letters ~ Page 3 California Dressage Society www.california-dressage.org CDS Central Office Paula Langan • manager/editor [email protected] P. O. Box 417 Carmel Valley, CA 93924 (831) 659-5696 • fax (831) 659-2383 Tue, Wed, 2-7pm • Thur, Fri, 1-5pm DressageLetters:May 2021,Vol27,Issue5 Publishedmonthlyby theCaliforniaDressageSociety, . Periodicals#5940atCarmelValley,CA andadditionalmailingoffices. POSTMASTER:Pleasesend addresschanges to POBox417,CarmelValley,CA93924-0417 PrintedbyAPi-Marketing President Joan Williams (408) 512-2890 Vice President Pat Hart (714) 299-6507 Scholarship Committee Chair Nancy Szakacs (408) 476-4743 Treasurer Diana Muravez • (760) 728-6325 [email protected] Insurance Equine Insurance Donna Parker 800/321-5723 [email protected] Junior Rider Sara Mosqueda • (909) 203-9290 Mari Naten • (916) 798-5844 CONTENTS Articles CDS Central Chapter Reports................................. pages 1, 4-8 JRYR Championships.............................................. page 6 RAAC....................................................................... page 5 Sponsorship.............................................................. page 11 Monthly Departments Activities Calendar ................................................. page 18 Bulletin..................................................................... page 12 CDS Pylons.............................................................. page 24 Classifieds................................................................ pages 22-23 Membership Renewal Form ................................... page 24 Monthly Clinics ...................................................... page 14 President’s Column.................................................. page 3 Show Calendar ........................................................ pages 16-17 USEF, USDF, FEI ................................................... pages 10 President’s Column by Joan Williams I wanted to write this month’s article on Quadrille and Pas De Deux. I LOVE quadrille. I have had many teams through the years, one even winning the CDS quadrille award! I was also honored to be included in a demo ride at Championships one year on an Intermediate I quadrille team! I was so thoroughly delighted to be at the breast cancer awareness Freestyles in Wellington Florida. There were so many teams competing in the grand prix quadrilles with costumes, music and much fanfare. It was so exciting to watch!! These teams got their start learning to ride next to each other watching their spacing, alignment and synchrony. I believe quadrille is an important part of learning to ride dressage. It helps develop teamwork and camaraderie with your partners. It helps in learning how to ride close to another horse, boot to boot with your partner and in a straight line behind your group. It teaches us to look up and look at where we are going instead of the standard looking down at our horses ears and neck to see if he is on the bit. Quadrille patterns help us all ride our horses better by “feel” rather than by watching the horse. It helps us look up and focus outward to our circle points and letters at the end of our lines of travel. There are so many fun exercises to do with our teammates to make more precise patterns. Walking them on foot between cones, pushing a wheelbarrow with our partners between cones, moving soda cans around on a table with each rider pushing their own can...(and we can toast and drink a cold soda when we have competed our patterns!) Not to mention of course, the riding these patterns with our teammates! We can walk our patterns until all the new horses are comfortable and then trot. Finally canter is for the more advanced horses. Learning to ride these patterns also has the side benefit of your horse is no longer “claustrophobic” and worried about being so close to another horse in warm up. Did I mention yet how much fun these rides are? We are laughing and joking and thoroughly enjoying our horses and each other. If a horse is frightened of being alone in the arena, riding by a more seasoned horse is super helpful. At our last in person annual meeting in January of 2019, CDS had a special meeting with quadrille people from around the state. Marily Reese, Sarah Pinney, Christiane Noelting, Louise Koch, Jackie Bretschneider and I met to brainstorm how to get more people involved in the sport of quadrille. Sarah, Christiane and Laurel from Osierlea committed to start ongoing quadrille practices for local riders. One team was even planning a demo ride at the CDS championships! Enter Covid...no clinics, demo rides, or practices for quadrille. We have all this enthusiasm and energy to devote to quadrille but feel like we will wait til things are more “normal” in the country before starting our endeavors. I would love to encourage a few diligent trainers to suggest this sport and coach their riders into competition teams. What YOU can do - talk to your barn’s trainer and discuss starting a weekly quadrille practice for interested riders. Print out one of the competition quadrille patterns that is able to be ridden by the group of horses at your barn. Especially during this difficult time...not being able to be social and be around large groups of people, an outdoor sport with three other riders is perfect!