Peter Grey talks about all the dressage rides and offers his perspective as a trainer and judge

Olympian and eventing dressage judge Peter Gray starts the ECP Symposium with a discussion featuring his perspective as an eventing trainer and judge. He also answers questions from the participants.

Jan Byyny works with a rider get more out of her talented modified level horse. They work on lateral work  as well as transitions within the gaits to help make him even more powerful and expressive.

Bettina Hoy teaches a lesson with a 5 year old Holsteiner and from the beginning asks for effective riding, insisting on closed fingers on the reins and a purposeful rising trot. They walk/trot/canter and do sitting trot until…

Trotting with no stirrups…They do trot/canter transitions while Bettina helps her with her arm position. At the walk they talk about the use of the moving seat without affecting what the arms are doing. The results can be seen in how the horse moves.

Improvement in her position are evident as she picks up her stirrups. As she moves her seat she is encouraged to leave the front door open allowing the horse to move forward. They end the lesson in the free walk and even here the use of the seat is emphasized.

Liz works with a rider and her young event horse. As the pair warms up, they focus on transitions to help him engage his hind legs and bring more weight off the front end. They also do 3-loop serpentines to help the horse understand bend, going straight and then changing the bend.

Olympic medalist David O'Connor works with Sinead Halpin to demonstrate that the rider's seat dictates the tempo and the length of stride. He explains that altering the tempo of their posting, the rider can influence the tempo of the horse's trot and his stride length. This creates smoother movem...

World Equestrian Games Medalist and International coach Dorothy Crowell gives a lesson on improving the transitions. Focusing on tempo, rhythm and balance, Dorothy works with the rider in detail to improve first her position, and then her aids. By following the horse and being more in balance, sh...

Part 1: Dorothy introduces the horse, an OTTB and his young rider and talks a little bit about why she likes to pair her young horses with young riders at a certain point, and how this builds confidence for them. She then presents an exercise that is a staple in her program, the sensitizer test, ...

Part 2: Starting at the trot, Dorothy has the young rider work around the arena and on a circle while improving her position. Dorothy makes adjustments that allow the rider to follow the horse more and better support him, while pushing forward and creating increasingly elastic and supple steps. T...

International eventing star Liz Halliday-Sharp brings us a wonderful dressage lesson concentrating on suppleness and a round frame. She uses lateral work to keep the horse from locking up and losing flexibility.

Liz starts this lesson by warming the horse up and getting him more flexible and through all while riding without stirrups. She recommends the rider use more leg and positioning when he locks up.

They continue to work on bend in the ribcage. Liz instructs the rider to use her leg before her hand to keep him supple, and when he comes out stiff to think of being in shoulder-in, travers or leg yield.

They move on to the canter work, with the goal of keeping the roundness and bend to help get the horse's hind leg more under his body.

The trot after the canter work shows great improvement. To finish the ride, they work on square halts ridden in a forward manner.

Part 2: The rider gets back in the saddle and Doug Payne continues the lesson by explaining that her horse likes to pop hi shoulders to evade her, and she can work on this by opening the opposite rein a little, and maintaining correct bend. He encourages the rider to soften as soon as the horse b...

Part 3: While the horse takes a break, Doug reminds the rider that her hands are a powerful tool to help make her life easier and overcome her horse's issues. By maintaining a shorter rein but keeping her hands more forward, her aids can be more effective, and she can avoid a lot of the wiggling ...

Colleen discusses and demonstrates how she rides a half-halt with her body, which helps the horse balance back, keep his energy, but not fall on his forehand. A proper half-halt will help the horse rebalance, change the horse’s tempo or let the horse know something different is coming up.

Using the half-halts in a well-trained horse shows how the horse gathers and engages himself. Colleen also explains what happens when she doesn’t execute a half-halt as well as she should have and what she could do to improve it.

Colleen rides a younger mare that struggles more with her balance. This requires more half-halts to keep her hind legs coming up underneath herself. When the horse loses her balance, she also loses her confidence. The half-halts are important to help the horse keep her balance.

The complete halt is the culmination of the half-halts. Having the horse thinking forward even in the halt shows that the horse is in front of the leg.

Colleen demonstrates one of her favorite exercises for riding round, balanced circles. It also can show the difference between riding corners and riding curves. She explains where she places markers that help with visually showing where the rider should go to do either a square or a circle.