Highlights of My Two and a Half Week Trip to UK and Europe!

UK Celebration – 6,000 horse lovers there for the show, fabulous weather, great horses for our demos, 30 or more of our instructors, many with their own horses, wonderful seeing everyone there and getting to meet some of you. I wrote a blog about one of the demos, hopefully you saw that.

France – visit to Parelli Professional Marie Claire de Sellier’s center. It’s gorgeous, they’ve done an amazing renovation of beautiful old buildings surrounded by forest, resident students doing a great job. I helped them with the Game of Contact and also showed them how to get more provocative for one of the left-brain horses there.

Spain – 2 days riding with Luis Lucio (Spanish Team) and getting to ride his horses. He is a phenomenal trainer and rider, plus he uses Parelli ground skills and solves problems quickly. He taught me a lot about higher levels of self carriage and collection, especially at the canter. I already used some of what I learned with West Point and improved his canter tenfold.

Luis coaching me on Nervi, his fabulous Grand Prix Andalusian stallion

Switzerland – two-day private clinic with Luis. Watched him make really big changes to the riders and horses. I renamed him “Luis – pat him – Lucio” because in teaching the riders how to give more, when they asked something from the horse he would say “pat him!” and the rider would reach the forward with the rein and touch the horse on the neck. Super results because he really got them releasing well, they did it numerous times in each lesson. I think the most impressive change was to their trainer who bothered the horses a lot in the mouth, made them tense and Luis was a little concerned about her not making much progress since last time. I suggested he use a Savvy String around the horse’s neck to tame her hands (she held it in one hand with reins in two hands) and the results were spectacular. Luis trains his horses using the string and often has students use it too, so they can ask more of the body but not pull on the mouth.

I also got to play with a very challenging horse. Left-Brain Extrovert/Introvert cusp gone Right-Brain Introvert that had become quite dangerous, freezing then running off with the riders and crashing through doors into the barn. Although he was shut down in fear of being pushed, he was also lacking ‘reason’ for what he was doing so I got to use Left-Brain Introvert strategies pretty quickly by planting carrots around the arena and driving him towards them. After he saw the pattern it didn’t take long for him to perk up and his whole attitude changed. Before long he was really connected to me, had a different look in his eye and I kept having grazing breaks with him on the grass next to me, and loose. I then was able to mount him and ride a little bit, but trying to trot was almost impossible. Finally got a little. Everyone was really worried about me getting on him, but I said I wouldn’t until he passed all the tests – Pat has taught me well! The next day I even hopped on him bareback and in the halter. Did the same things then headed for the grass. I advised them to get him restarted with one of our top professionals because in Pat’s colt-starting formula he did not meet any of the criteria: accept the human, accept the saddle, accept the bit. None of it was there and they were trying to do high-level dressage with him. It was hard not to want to bring him home!

Luis is so interested in Horsenality, he thought he didn’t really know it but every time I asked him what Horsenality he thought the horse was, he nailed it. He is also one of the best dressage trainers I’ve seen with Left-Brain Extrovert’s, so provocative.

Germany - Next stop, Klaus Balkenhol’s stables in Germany. What an honor to be invited there (by Anabel, his daughter) to help with some behavioral issues. Interestingly they were all Left-Brain Extrovert and had things like hiding from the bit, hard to bridle and explosive. Of course it all went very well, and I was very impressed with their attitude to training horses. They take their time, they’re gentle, and watching Klaus riding of course was a real treat. Susanne Neff was with me, helping with translations and also with some of the riders and horses after I got things started. They took us to lunch, and the next day to dinner – in fact that was with Dr. Werner Schade who Pat and I met when he was running Equitana about 10 years ago! Great to see him again and he now is the managing and breeding director of the Hanoverian Society. I was excited to show him photos of Westy and just sent him a copy of his breeding as he was interested to know more. Cool huh?

L to R: Wife - Judith, Klaus Balkenhol, me, daughter - Anabel

Doing so much with dressage horses, I realized that I worked on three things in particular: appropriate response to pressure (respect), confidence and harmony. Will be writing about that soon, in Savvy Times.
Finally I was so ready to go home, too long without Pat, my ponies and doggies! Shortly after getting back, Walter Zettl arrived and we had lessons these past three days… I had 3 days to prepare for them and thanks to the good work of Lyndsey and Amy, my horses were ready to go.

This morning Pat flew to MN horse fair and I’m en route in the bus with the dogs (Rhett driving) to Texas for Pat’s great event on Colt Starting (Pat will join us tomorrow night). I SO HOPE you will be there next weekend or watch it on the webcast. There is so much that will inform you about your own horses, horsemanship and affect you in ways I cannot describe. This is something I learned so much about in the early days with Pat and the effect is profound.

Tagged as: linda parelli