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Friday, May 11, 2007

Elly Schobel Participates in a Clinic with Christoph Hess at the American Dressage Trainers Club
Elly Schobel - thehomestedt.com

Riding With Christoph Hess

Our first lesson with Christoph was scheduled for Thursday afternoon and I was thrilled to find, that my trainer and coach Anne Gribbons, along with her husband David were in attendance. Anne and Christoph have been friends for decades and this continuity of training is of great importance to me.

Christoph is a staunch supporter of the classical principle of training dressage horses. His lessons are always based on the training scale and it was a pleasure to observe, how this principle worked on each and every horse. Gaits improved, overall suppleness improved, connections improved - thus the more advanced movements became more effortless, more expressive.

Raison d'Etre was a bit tight during our first lesson which Christoph immediately recognized and he asked me, to ride the horse in a more forward posting trot and later in a 2 point seat at the canter. He also changed my leg position during the passage and piaffe ( a bit more forward) - at the end of the session, the horse was super soft and his passage-piaffe-passage transitions light and effortless.