Our recent Pilates for Riders 
class gave all CWDS members an opportunity to enjoy an evening of Pilates with Pam Brooks. Ms. Brooks is a certified Pilates instructor and an avid rider. We spent our session concentrating on Pilates basics that would particularly be valuable for Dressage riders. Among other techniques, we learned the value of concentrating on the core muscles of our pelvic floor and abdominal wall. One such exercise is the chest lift with rotation. This exercise utilizes the oblique muscles of the abdomen and builds 
flexibility through rotational activities that are common during riding. In addition to the excellent instruction we enjoyed good fellowship and good food!
Category: People
CWDS April Schooling Show was Fun for Everyone!
There was a wonderful turnout of competitors and volunteers for our CWDS April Schooling Show, which was fun for everyone! Individuals of all ages competed in a wide range of traditional Dressage classes including Intro to Second Level. We also had competitors participate in Western Dressage and LeadLine classes.
Here are some pictures from our Dressage Classes…
Our Western Dressage Classes…
Our girls and Moms who competed in the leadlining classes…
And our Horses in Waiting.
Our Junior High Point Award was won by Emily Glover and Star, and our Adult High Point Award went to Cheryl Beaudry and Lyrica, owned by Judy Lewis…
Results for the Show can be seen by following this Link:
CWDS April Schooling Show Results
Our Judge Lucy Curley took the time to help coach the riders…
Our volunteers Karen Lenberg, Judy Schott and Ann Hays helped tally scores…
Our team consisting of Rae, Jerry, Tim, Mark, Diane, Megan, Judy,and Marli set-up the arena…
We would like to offer special thanks to Lucy Curley for being our Judge and for assisting/coaching our competitors. We would also like to offer special thanks to our CWDS VP Judy Schott and Megan Hays who organized the show. We greatly appreciate Jim and Ellen Roy who loaned us equipment, as well as Karen Lindhorst for gate keeping the whole time, Anne and Teresa for scribing, Karen Lenberg for scoring, and to Shannon, Ellen, Rae, Tess, Allison, Cindy, Barb, and Emily for helping to do whatever was needed.
“Let’s Talk about Financial Well Being” – The Dressage Foundation
“Let’s Talk About Financial Well Being”
By Beth Baumert/President & CEO of The Dressage Foundation
This article is based on the talk given at the USDF/USEF Young Rider Graduate Program held in January 2014 in Wellington, Florida. Whereas TDF President, Beth Baumert wanted to talk about The Dressage Foundation grants available to young people, she couldn’t help but put herself in their shoes and think of what she wishes someone had told her when she was their age. Here is the substance of her talk on what happens to money–personal money and TDF money.
Money moves. It’s the nature of money. If I give you $10, how long will you have it? You might buy groceries with it, or you might add it to other money so you can pay your rent. You might add it to funds with which you plan to buy a car some day. You might give it to someone who needs it more than you. It’s hard to make money stop moving. You earn it and then you spend it. (Notice the sequence. You don’t spend it and then earn it. You earn it first and then spend it.)
People who are financially responsible “earmark” money that they earn. That is, they categorize expenditures into what you might call “buckets” of money. I like to call them buckets because it sounds like you have a lot of money even when you don’t at first.
- One bucket of money is for your necessary, fixed expenses. That might include your rent, your groceries, your phone-internet bill, fuel for your car, insurance, taxes and other expenditures that you consider necessary.
- One bucket of money is to save for something important. Maybe you know your car may only last two more years so you’re saving for the car you will need in the future.
- For developing professional riders, a training program is another necessary expense. You need to put aside some funds for your training.
- One bucket of money is to give away to a cause that you’re passionate about. The universe gives to those who give. I’m not sure how that works, but I’m old enough to know that it works. It’s a Law of the Universe. I’m not saying you should give to TDF (although that would be very nice), but you should give to some cause that’s greater than you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can’t give enough to make a difference because even if you start out by giving away $25 a year, that’s something. That means you have designated a bucket–even though it may be small–of money to give away for a cause that’s greater than yourself.
- One bucket of money should be for you to save forever for your retirement. It seems ridiculous to think of that now, but later I will give you a very compelling reason to start now. My favorite quote about personal finances came from a young person who said, “If I’m financially fine right now, and I’m fine for the future, I figure I’m totally fine.” That means that from the very beginning, you save for your future; you pay yourself by starting to save when you’re very young. That’s especially important if you’re going to pursue a career that is financially challenging. Training horses definitely falls into that category, so I want to talk about saving for your future again later.
Now I want to talk a little bit about The Dressage Foundation (TDF). TDF is, financially, like a bank. Donations come in from people who want to support the sport of dressage. Then TDF invests that money in several different ways:
- TDF investment advisors invest the funds in the traditional way: In stocks of solid, respectable companies, in bonds and in CDs.
- TDF awards prizes and grants to worthy recipients, and that’s an investment too. For example, when Catherine Chamberlain (AZ) was chosen for the International Dream Program (formerly called Olympic Dream) in 2012, TDF made a good investment because when Catherine came back, she spread the word about what she learned; she rode better and taught better than she would have if she hadn’t gone on that trip to Europe. As a bonus, Catherine has done fundraisers for TDF, and she has given back financially too!
Whereas TDF is, financially, like a bank, emotionally, it’s made up of a group of people like you who are passionate about dressage. We are a little army of donors that seek to “up the game” for riders at all levels. That is, we have grants for young riders, graduate young riders, adult amateurs, breeders, judges, instructors and high performance riders. We want to, bit by bit, change the game across the board.
Now, I’ve already mentioned how easy it is to spend money. TDF is the same. It’s really fun to give money away, but those awards depend on donors–big donors and small donors. The big donors of TDF are like the generals, colonels and majors of our little army. They are directly responsible for the grants that TDF is able to award. Some of them are: Carol Lavell, her father Gordon Cadwgan, Maryal Barnett, Renee Isler, Ralph Dreitzler, Anne Ramsay, the Boomer family, Violet Hopkins and others. They are directly responsible for the grants that TDF awards–which was nearly $200,000 last year. These funds that are given as grants and awards are “restricted,” which means they can not be used to pay ordinary TDF operating expenses. Restricted funds are reserved for grant-giving.
The smaller donors, who are the captains, lieutenants and foot soldiers in our little army are indispensable because they implement the ideas of our generals, colonels and majors. Some of them add to the restricted funds that are given as awards, but they also help pay for TDF’s operating expenses. Some of the major donors help with operating expenses too. Just as you, in your personal finances, have necessary expenses, the TDF office has printing, mailing, paying our extraordinary staff and professional advisors. The donors who help pay the expenses of operating TDF are extraordinarily important because, without them, we couldn’t survive.
Now to get back to your personal expenses: Financial well being is within the reach of almost everyone, but it has to do with the buckets of money for saving and for giving away. The one for giving is from-your-heart generosity, and the one for saving comes from your head. Paying yourself is just smart.
The US government has provided an avenue for you to become financially comfortable forever–that’s with a Roth IRA. An IRA is an Individual Retirement Account, and the key to its success is to start saving very early in life. If you don’t know what a Roth IRA is, learn about it online. I’m going to give you some examples. Currently, you are allowed to save $5500 per year in a Roth IRA, but even if can you only save $2500 per year, and you start when you’re 21, and the market does its average thing over the next 49 years, you’ll have over $1.5 million–tax free–when you’re 70 years old. If, however, you don’t start saving until you’re 30 years old, you’ll have about $1 million and if you’re 40 years old when you start, you’ll have $475,000, and if you’re 50 when you start, you’ll have about $125,000. Are you getting the idea? If you don’t know about Roth IRAs, learn about them online and start saving as early as possible. It will make you feel financially whole.
And don’t forget about the bucket of money that you give away to a cause that’s greater than yourself. Generosity is always rewarded. It’s the personal quality that somehow magically bounces back to you. The Universe gives to those who give.
I wish you all great financial well being and, of course, success with your horses.
Most important, to see how The Dressage Foundation can help you reach your dressage goals, check it out online at www.dressagefoundation.org!
Do you need money for your Dressage education?
CALLING ALL ADULT AMATEUR RIDERS!
by Carolyn Desnoyer, Gifted Fund Recipient
Carol Lavell and Carolyn Desnoyer/Photo by Jennifer Bryant of USDF Connection
My horse life has been pretty exciting lately. First came the news of winning one of the eleven Gifted Memorial Fund scholarships granted annually to Adult Amateurs in pursuit of dressage education. Then, quite coincidentally, came the opportunity to meet dressage legend Carol Lavell and thank her in person for her sponsorship of this wonderful program. My scholarship journey has really just begun. In fact my training week hasn’t even happened yet, but I’ve already gotten such enormous value from the experience! So when Ms. Lavell commented that “The money’s there. I just don’t understand why more amateurs don’t apply”, I was surprised and started thinking through the reasons Adult Amateurs may not take full advantage of the opportunity.
Perhaps I speak for the many amateur riders out there bound by the reality of trying to fit their horse hobby into an already-overbooked schedule, juggling work, school, family, and myriad other priorities that always seem to take away from time with our horses. We may feel that because we’re not able to spend hours every day in the saddle honing our skills, somehow we’re not “serious” enough about dressage to be worthy of a grant. We’re intimidated by the idea of riders who immerse themselves in the sport and are able to dedicate copious amounts of time to riding, taking lessons, and showing. But Carol Lavell and The Dressage Foundation have crafted this scholarship exactly for people like us, the “reality bound” riders! It’s intended to provide the recipient with a chance to get away from the pressures of daily life to spend several days of concentrated time riding, training and just bonding with the horse. Spending time grazing your horse, pampering him with a leisurely bath, or just having the time to stand in the stall and scratch his ears are all part of the intended plan for scholarship recipients.
Maybe just the thought of filling out the application is a bit intimidating. Rest easy, the process to apply is not nearly as daunting as it may seem at first glance. The Dressage Foundation’s website has excellent resources to assist, including an application checklist that details each bit of information required, step-by-step, and easily leads you through the process.
One piece of information required is your training plan. You are encouraged to think about your riding skills and your horse’s level of training, as well as training goals for both short and long term. Then you need to document what you would do differently from what you do now to achieve those goals, should you receive one of the scholarships. I found this part of the application to be especially valuable as it forced me to become more analytical about current strengths and weaknesses, both for myself and my horse. This is a marvelous opportunity for introspection! And having those goals in writing helped strengthen my resolve and commitment to really make them happen. Much like writing down a fitness goal, or a weight loss goal, actually documenting your training plan makes it real and helps you stay focused on it so you’re much more likely to achieve success.
Volunteerism is an important part of the selection criteria. Carol Lavell is a staunch believer in giving back to our sport and that is, in part, what led to the creation of the Gifted Memorial Fund. Volunteering your time to help beginner riders, holding an office for your local GMO, working on the newsletters, helping run dressage events and activities, are all ways you could get involved and there are countless more. We can each give back in some way and the intrinsic benefits received by giving of your time are immeasurable.
So my fellow Adult Amateurs, whatever your reason for not yet taking the plunge into this wonderful opportunity, I strongly encourage you to go for it! The application deadline is September of each year. Regardless of the outcome, you won’t regret the experience. You’ll learn a lot about yourself just from the application process and you’ll find a renewed dedication to your horse and yourself. Who knows, your efforts just might pay off in scholarship dollars too!
This article appears in the July/August 2014 issue of USDF Connection. Thank you to USDF for allowing us to share the article with you.
MORE TDF GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Not only are Gifted Fund grants available for Adult Amateurs this year, The Dressage Foundation is proud to offer grants to instructors, judges, breeders, young riders, high performance teams, and dressage clubs/groups. The donors support dressage enthusiasts across the board!
The following grants have application deadlines this summer and fall. Mark your calendars today!
Heldenberg Training Center Fund – Young Riders and Adult Amateurs
Applications Due: July 1st
Continuing Education for Instructors– Instructors participating in the USDF Instructor Certification Program
Applications Due: July 1st
Region 9 Teaching Excellence Award– Instructors
Applications Due: August 1st
Caroll Lavell Gifted Memorial Fund– Adult Amateurs
Applications Due: September 15th
Major Anders Lindgren Scholarships– Instructors
Applications Due: September 30th
Anne L. Barlow $25,000 Grant– High Performance Teams
Applications Due: October 25th
Be sure to visit The Dressage Foundation website to learn more about these and other opportunities!
Yakima Valley Business Times article Features a CWDS Member
The Yakima Valley Business Times recently published the following article that featured CWDS Member Megan Hays in their April 18, 2014 Issue. The article was written by Linda Prier and is reprinted here with permission of the Editor.
Not-so-easy Riders:
Lessons, Training Can Help Novices Handle a Horse
Horse trainers tend to have been raised on and around horses. They carry the knowledge learned when they were just babes on into their adult relationships with horses and with the people who ride them.
Members of the Hart family, owners of Hart Ranch in Selah, have all been in the saddle since they could walk.
Roger was raised in Mabton and Sue in Sunnyside; after they married, they raised 2,000 mother cows on a large ranch near Conconully for 20 years.
During that time, their young sons, Willy and John, were in the saddle much of the day. It was here that they, like their parents, learned the art of training horses. Twenty years ago, when Roger and Sue decided to move back closer to warmer winters and to where they were raised, they purchased their horse facility in Selah and focused entirely on horses, with a few cows on hand for roping.
The Hart family — from left, Willy, Sue and Roger — have spent their lives around horses. Hart Ranch offers horse training services plus boarding and riding lessons.
Hart Ranch specializes in training and boarding horses and giving riding lessons. The ranch is well set up to do so. The Harts have a huge indoor arena, over 40 indoor stalls and many outdoor spaces for boarding horses. They also sponsor a number of horse clinics, usually weekend events put on by renowned horse trainers.
Roger and Sue, both in their seventies now, still give riding lessons, but it is Willy who trains horses. And while he quit competing in team roping in the Pro Rodeo Circuit in 2009, that is going to change this year, now that the circuit finals will be held in Yakima.
All kinds of saddles, boots and other equine equipment abound at the Hart Ranch, which features an indoor riding arena, 40 indoor horse stalls and more space for boarding horses outside.
He has a large tack room full of saddles he has won over the years, and now those saddles are used for riders who come to Hart Ranch for lessons.
He said that as a child, his father taught the children by letting them ride with saddles, but without stirrups, which helped Willy and his brother learn balance. Another thing that really helped him was participating in FHA and in FFA in which English saddles were used.
“I learned to feel which lead my horse was on by using an English saddle,” he said.
The five most important things to teach a young horse are to “stop, stop, stop, stop and stop,” Willy said.
And along with teaching that important lesson, as a trainer, it is his job to inspire confidence in the horses he trains. “When a horse shows fear, it’s like taking your child to the haunted house. You have to be calm,” he said.
He said horses need to be taught by using small steps. “The art of getting on a young horse is not mashing on the gas pedal. You must imagine the reins as kite strings. You are very gentle, as you would be with a kite, and you are somewhat more aggressive with your legs,” he said.
He also said that it is often helpful to have someone on hand who is riding a veteran horse, for that horse’s presence creates an aura of calm.
He has trained several hundred horses; he tries to take new horses to different venues so they get used to scary new places. He specializes in colt breaking and colt starting and in team roping.
Hart charges $850 per month for training, and he provides full care. Lessons cost $40 per hour if people take their own horse or $60 per hour if they use one of the Harts’ school horses.
A Life in the Saddle
Like the Hart family, Megan Hays has been riding since she was a toddler. She said she has always been “horse crazy” and that she started riding Tuffy the pony when she was she was 4.
By the age of 9 she had graduated to Top Secret and was very active in the Yakima Pony Club, where she learned horse management and care, dressage and jumping. By the age of 17, she had progressed to a C3 rating and was clearing jumps that were over 3 feet.
She said that she has always really loved dressage and after pony club, she took lessons in Olympia, with famed dressage trainer and dressage judge Mike Osinski. After working with him, she won (with the help of her horse Satin) the US Dressage Federation’s Silver Medal.
Hays said that dressage is a “ballet between horse and rider, where the rider communicates with the horse in a way that emphasizes harmony and grace.”
Hays and her horses continue to compete. For them, competition this year begins at the end of April in Boring, Ore., and ends in September in Nampa, Idaho. Hays said that this year, she and her horse, Ca Zare’s Darjeeling (an Anglo Arab) are trying for gold.
Megan Hays starting riding horses as a toddler. She specializes in dressage riding and started offering training last year. She also competes in dressage events around the country.
She started training horses professionally last year. She is in the midst of building an outdoor arena, which will be ready for use at the end of spring, but for now, she primarily goes to people’s homes to train their horses.
She currently has 15 students who range in age from 15 to 60. Some of her students are beginners, but most choose Hays as a teacher because they want to learn dressage or to learn basic dressage.
When asked what her biggest challenge as a trainer is, she said, “There’s a tendency for people to over-horse themselves.” By this she means that people tend to buy horses that they may not be comfortable riding or handling.
“It is my job to teach students to become more comfortable with their horses, or to help them find a horse that is the right fit,” Hays said.
Another challenge is taking in a horse, training it, and then returning it to an owner who doesn’t know how to ask the horse to do the skills it has learned. Hays said that to make sure that the owners progress at the same rate as the horse in training, she asks the owners to have a weekly lesson on the horse while it’s being trained (once the horse is safe to ride) so that horse and owner skills are in sync and improve together.
Hays is also a registered nurse and is on call at the Kittitas Hospital in Ellensburg, and she occasionally fills in at her parents veterinary practice in the West Valley.
She charges $575 per month for training and $45 per hour for riding lessons. She can be reached at 360-348-8519.
Teaching The Basics
Emily and Tristan Bettinger, owners of the Golden Nugget Ranch in Selah, have also been in the saddle since they were children. They were both active in 4H, and while Emily hails from Spokane and Tristan from the Washington Coast, they met up in Powell, Wyo., where they both attended North West College and graduated from a two-year equine riding and training program in 2008.
They started the Golden Nugget Ranch in 2012.
Emily Scherzinger works with a horse in the ring at Golden Nugget Ranch in Selah.
“We are an amateur- and youth-friendly barn. Our training program is designed to produce safe horses who enjoy being ridden,” Tristan said.
He said they primarily offer Western-style riding lessons and that kids make up 80 percent of their clientele.
He said that their barn is set up to train six horses right now, but that most of their business involves teaching young riders the basics. “Getting the kids to the point where they are in charge of the horse is very gratifying.”
Tristan and Emily Scherzinger of Selah’s Golden Nugget Ranch, work mainly with young and inexperienced riders trying to learn the basics of horse management. Here Tristan puts a horse through its paces.
What’s the hardest part of being a trainer?
“Most trainers develop a technique and get comfortable with that technique. But horses, like people, are individuals, and you have to adapt your training methods to match individual horses,” he said.
But he added that good trainers know how to adapt and most are naturally adaptive.
And like the other trainers, Bettinger stressed that green riders should not be paired with green horses and that when he trains a horse for someone, lessons for the rider are included as well.
The Bettingers have a large, outdoor arena and charge $40 per lesson for riders who take their own horse or $35 per lesson for two people who supply their own horses. Their phone number is 509-481-1196.
2013 Winners of the Carol Lavell Gifted Memorial Scholarship from Region 6
The Dressage Foundation has just announced this year’s recipients of the Carol Lavell Gifted Memorial Fund Scholarships for Adult Amateurs. The full list of all recipients nationwide is published here: http://www.dressagefoundation.org/2014_Gifted_Fund_Recipients.htm. Gifted Fund recipients will each receive a $1,000 Scholarship to enable them to set aside quality time in concentrated training with a horse they own, with a trainer of choice, away from the daily pressures of jobs and family.
The two selections from Region 6 are both ODS members who are heavily involved as volunteers locally as well as state-wide. The first is Lisa Koch from Redmond, OR. She is an “L” Graduate and is the Vice President of the Central Oregon Chapter and is a Director at Large on the ODS Board of Directors.
The second recipient is Ed Miller. He is known by many ODS members as our most recent ODS Past President. He is from Ashland, OR, where he serves as treasurer for the State of Jefferson Chapter – ODS.
“Congratulations to these deserving Adult Amateurs for being selected to receive a $1,000 scholarship! Thanks to the generosity of Carol Lavell, her family, and friends, we are thrilled to provide this support,” said Jenny Johnson, Administrative Director of The Dressage Foundation. “We hope that each recipient will make the most of the concentrated training time that this scholarship will allow, and we look forward to hearing from each recipient about his or her experience.”
If you are an adult amateur, now is the time to set calendar reminders to apply for next year’s “Carol Lavell Gifted Memorial Fund Scholarships for Adult Amateurs” next fall. The deadline for 2015 funds will be 9/15/2014 and the full program information is available on The Dressage Foundation’s website: http://www.dressagefoundation.org/The_Carol_Lavell_Gifted_Fund.htm.
This member writes books!
I rode with Penny to the scribing clinic and shared stories. I was awed that Penny, a member living in Ellensburg, found time to author a book! So I took the opportunity to google her story and learned the following! Way to Go Penny!
Memories of a Female Trucker,
published this February, is written from the cab of an eighteen-wheeler where Penny lived for five-years. The gist of the book takes place within the schism of the lush life of the 1950’s and the rebellion of the 60’s. It uses the grid of the interstate driving to deftly weave a collage of time and place. It is nightmare, visitation and new meanings where the past is squarely placed in the rearview mirror while the highway is always moving forward. This is a story of a woman and a man as well as of a mother and a daughter in which the intellectual brutality is always offset with the juxtaposition fo nature. It is a journey of healing and success. Available from amazon kindle… and just a side note, Penny has received 5 out of 5 stars for this story! I can’t wait to read this!
Members do more than ride!
Deborah’s creativity: In addition to riding my horse, raising my daughter and teaching lessons I also enjoy the art of Lampworking (making glass beads with a torch). Once the beads are made I like to photograph them for reference and also for people to look at when they are deciding what they would like for their Lampwork browbands. Last night I was playing with pics of some of my beads that I make…….cropping out sections from the photo and then resizing it to see all the wondrous detail that dwells in these tiny artworks on a supersized canvas. Some of them look like pictures taken by the hubble telescope! I was struck by the of some of them I am using them as backgrounds for my computer! I am hoping to get one REALLY outstanding pic (eventually) that I can show at the fair next year…….along with the bead that the photo came from. Anyway……….enjoy!
I do some really beautiful organics (like the ones that these pics came from) with a glass that is loaded with silver and copper and has GREAT reactions. There are some that get a beautiful metallic shimmer on the outside which also creates a mother-of-pearl effect when encased in clear glass. I can combine some of the lovely, organic beads with some solid colored beads for a nice contrast. Also there is a beautiful ivory that gets a really great webbing in it when superheated. It makes a nice accent with the organics. Also reacts quite well with the silver glass! There are sooooo many possibilities!
One of the members recently ordered a cap and browband with matching bead sets. I’ll be happy to help you with a selection for your horse, or yourself. Let me know! Debbie D
What are your other interests? We’d like to hear from you and share your story!
Recipient of the Carol Lavell Gifted Scholarship
Our very own Nicole Bisping has been honored as a recipient of the Gifted Scholarship program. Nicole has promised us her exclusive story here at Central Washington Dressage Society!
From the USDF press news:
“The Dressage Foundation is proud to announce this year’s recipients of the Carol Lavell Gifted Scholarships for Adult Amateurs. Each will receive a $1,000 Scholarship to enable them to set aside quality time in concentrated training with a horse they own, with a trainer of choice, away from the daily pressures of job and family.
“All of these adult amateurs are so deserving of these scholarships. They are all very active volunteers for their GMOs, busy with their daily lives, and deserve to have a bit of time to concentrate on their horses and their riding,” said Jenny Johnson, Administrative Director of The Dressage Foundation. “We thank all of the donors to this Fund, who have made it possible for the Foundation to provide these scholarships!”
The following Adult Amateurs were chosen as recipients from their respective USDF Regions to receive $1,000 grants for training in the 2012 calendar year.
USDF Region 6 – Nicole Bisping (WA) and her horse, Con Brio, plan to train with Mike Osinski. Nicole is a member of Central Washington Dressage Society.”
Nicole, we are grateful for your inspiration!
Here is a report of her experience from Nicole herself!