Horse and Hound have launched their first FREE online training academy course and it is one me and Scottie can do; Perfecting Your Prelim.
This course is aimed at anyone currently at Prelim level or thinking about moving up to Prelim level. The idea is that everyone will have their own aim for the course, popular aims could include:
- Improve prelim scores
- Improve horses way of going
- Compete more
- School more
- Find new methods/exercises
- Meet like-minded people
The course starts 16th January and will involve 2 weekly emails to help you reach your goal. These emails will include:
- e-lessons from grand prix dressage rider Keith Robertson
- test riding training videos by top judge Isobel Wessels
- exercises to ride at home
- coaching
- training advise
Horse and hound also claims that they course will be focusing on all the Prelim tests currently available. In my mind this means that after this course you will be able to confidently attempt any prelim test, but also hopefully have a better understanding of which tests suit your horse best.
So you might now be wondering where competing against Scottie comes into all this. Well alongside all the training resources, there will also be an optional online competition you can enter via EQUO events (which I’m assuming will also be free!) This will be judged by a BD judge and some, if not all, the results will be published in the Horse and Hound magazine. There will also be prizes up for grabs and a Facebook group available for everyone who signs up to support each other and share their progress etc.
I have signed up for this as we are currently working at Prelim level and wanting to improve so we can hopefully start attempting Novice by the end of the year. Since the end of E-Dressage I have struggled with finding the motivation to school without the approaching deadline of a test to film! So I’m hoping that a change of yard plus this course will help me actually do what I need to do to achieve my goals. If the optional online competitions are also free, we will definitely be doing a few of those throughout the course. I am unsure if we will be doing many (if any) if they aren’t. It will depend on how much time I have and how well we are doing I think!
This is the first of Horse and Hounds online courses and they hope it will be the inspiration you need to kick off 2017 as you mean to go on! If you do sign up and enter a competition do let us know how you get on! Sign Up Here!
Last Updated on 05/06/2022
I hope it’s okay for US participants to compete. I don’t see why signing up for the training would be a problem but they might have restrictions on competing.
You should email them and ask 😊