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Nancy Pugh Later has been around horses her entire life. She has competed at the Grand Prix level in the United States and Europe and is a bronze, silver and gold medalist with the United States Dressage Federation (USDF). She owns Nancy Later Dressage Horses and is currently competing her own mare, Alexis-D, in the Grand Prix level, while also competing horses for others. Later has had four horses with the United States Equestrian Team (USET) Developing Horse List which has enabled her to participate in USET sponsored training clinics, symposiums and compete in USET Championships. Later spends eight months each year in Florida and the other four months in Massachusetts.

Dressage


Dressage (a French term meaning "training") is a path and destination of competitive horse training, with competitions held at all levels from amateur to the Olympics. Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless. Dressage is occasionally referred to as "Horse Ballet." Although the discipline has its roots in classical Greek horsemanship, mainly through the influence of Xenophon, dressage was first recognized as an important equestrian pursuit during the Renaissance in Western Europe. The great European riding masters of that period developed a sequential training system that has changed little since then and classical dressage is still considered the basis of trained modern dressage.

Early European aristocrats displayed their horses' training in equestrian pageants, but in modern dressage competition, successful training at the various levels is demonstrated through the performance of "tests," or prescribed series of movements within a standard arena. Judges evaluate each movement on the basis of an objective standard appropriate to the level of the test and assign each movement a score from zero to ten - zero being "not executed" and ten being "excellent." A score of nine (or "very good") is considered a particularly high mark, while a competitor achieving all sixes (or 60% overall) should be considering moving on to the next level.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Schumacher Symposium

The symposium was more than I could ever imagine! Mr Schumacher was so fantastic. I am so happy it will be on dressagetrainingonline so that more people can access it, and..........we can relive it again. He took so much time to work thru the training process and emphasized again and again the positive spirit of the horses and their desire to please. His technique and ability to choose the most basic factor to work on and move forward with the lesson is fantastic. We had more than 150 people there saturday and............100 people on sunday. So fantastic! Thank you so much to everyone that made it possible!
Posted by at 6:02 AM

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