piaffe73
New User
Hello everyone! I've just joined the forum and was hoping all you UK locals could give me some advice. I went to Olympia over the holidays, fell in love with England and ever since then I've been itching to come to the UK as a working student (for about 6 months or perhaps longer, I live in Hawaii). Id want to be somewhere I could really challenge myself and be immersed in becoming a better rider. Heres some background on me:
In total I have been riding for 19 years, I started out as a hunter jumper and then became thoroughly engrossed in dressage and have been doing solely that for about 14 of those years. When I was 16 I bought an Oldenburg mare and started competing seriously. She was doing really well in training and we started schooling more upper level work when her hocks began to give her problems. I retired her, went to university far from home and didn't do much riding. After graduating I moved back to Hawaii and have been riding her lightly. It has been difficult to find opportunities to improve my riding, good instruction and good quality horses (my amazing instructor has moved to LA to pursue his own riding dreams on a more national level). I really miss the progress and excitement of training and revel in the thought of being in an environment where I broaden my training knowledge and be totally engrossed in horsey life for a while.
Id seen an advertisement for Oldencraig at Olympia so I started there. I became a bit worried about them after seeing quite a lot of negative posts about them on this forum, but there were positive ones too. If its an issue of the trainers being strict and really pushing the students, I dont think that would be a problem as my instructor was pretty demanding (but not abusive), but I saw one post about draw reins that totally freaked me out... Are there any of you that have worked there? Or ridden there consistently? What are their horses like? Im also worried that as a working student they could totally take advantage of the free labor and you only end up riding once a week or something...
I saw Talland mentioned as a good place to go, any comments on the quality of the dressage and training there? As Im from the US I really need local insight into the dressage community in the UK, other than these two are there other top dressage barns I could look into? Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where Richard Davison rides? Or any of the other British riders at Olympia for that matter...
Sorry this is so long winded, any comments would be really appreciated!
In total I have been riding for 19 years, I started out as a hunter jumper and then became thoroughly engrossed in dressage and have been doing solely that for about 14 of those years. When I was 16 I bought an Oldenburg mare and started competing seriously. She was doing really well in training and we started schooling more upper level work when her hocks began to give her problems. I retired her, went to university far from home and didn't do much riding. After graduating I moved back to Hawaii and have been riding her lightly. It has been difficult to find opportunities to improve my riding, good instruction and good quality horses (my amazing instructor has moved to LA to pursue his own riding dreams on a more national level). I really miss the progress and excitement of training and revel in the thought of being in an environment where I broaden my training knowledge and be totally engrossed in horsey life for a while.
Id seen an advertisement for Oldencraig at Olympia so I started there. I became a bit worried about them after seeing quite a lot of negative posts about them on this forum, but there were positive ones too. If its an issue of the trainers being strict and really pushing the students, I dont think that would be a problem as my instructor was pretty demanding (but not abusive), but I saw one post about draw reins that totally freaked me out... Are there any of you that have worked there? Or ridden there consistently? What are their horses like? Im also worried that as a working student they could totally take advantage of the free labor and you only end up riding once a week or something...
I saw Talland mentioned as a good place to go, any comments on the quality of the dressage and training there? As Im from the US I really need local insight into the dressage community in the UK, other than these two are there other top dressage barns I could look into? Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where Richard Davison rides? Or any of the other British riders at Olympia for that matter...
Sorry this is so long winded, any comments would be really appreciated!