Читать книгу Cowboy Dressage - Jessica Black - Страница 15

Anyone can learn to do Cowboy Dressage if he or she is interested and willing. When I asked Deb why they had originally gone beyond training individual horses to start on the long road that would lead to Cowboy Dressage, she paused, thought a bit, and then said, “We wanted to generate an outlet. There were all these people who saw what Eitan was doing with his horses, particularly Compadre,” she told me, “and they wanted to do similar things, but there was no guidance, no path for them to follow.”

Deb and Eitan realized that it was time to start giving back to the community that had given them so much, and they wanted to include as many people as possible. It was difficult at first, because Eitan had never envisioned himself as a teacher, but he felt the imperative to share his knowledge, and with Debbie’s insistence and help, he took the plunge. “I got smarter,” Eitan says; he was learning, but he did his best to form a new community that was open to everyone (fig. 1.2).

1.2 – Anyone can do Cowboy Dressage with any horse (or mule or pony!) anywhere. Cowboy Dressage shows include youth and amateur divisions, as well as the Welcome Arena, an opportunity offered during one day of a show for youth and amateur riders to ride and be scored by learner judges and scribes. In this picture, Debby Miller caresses Indie after a successful test at the Cowboy Dressage World Finals in November of 2014. Debby is over 80 years old, and like many older people doing Cowboy Dressage, enjoys the relaxed atmosphere and focus on self-improvement of the Cowboy Dressage shows.

You can do Cowboy Dressage with any horse, anywhere. What Debbie and Eitan had wanted was not just to show what could be done with a horse, but to give other people the means to do it. Perhaps they could not do everything Eitan was doing with his horses, but with his guidance, they could work together toward cementing the kind of relationship with their horses that Eitan had with his.

Not everyone has enough room for a traditional dressage ring. Many horse owners cannot afford to travel across the country to show, and they may not be members of the pertinent organizations. Others do not have the time to ride their horse every day. Some may not even have a horse they can ride, but groundwork is an important aspect of Cowboy Dressage that can be done with ponies and miniature horses, or larger breeds that for some reason cannot be ridden. Eitan and Deb, and all of the people who have advocated some form of Cowboy Dressage over the years, provide a blueprint for progressing toward the goal of a better relationship, anywhere, and at the speed that suits both horse and rider.