Pinnacle Equestrian

05/28/2026

05/26/2026

We all had so much FUN the last 2 weeks competing at home at both the Blue Sky Classic and Edmonton Classic horse shows. With such a late spring we were barely able to get outside before heading to the competitions. Luckily we had good weather for the duration of both shows.
So proud of all our Pinnacle athletes for their great efforts and team spirit. Big thanks to all of our supporters who came to watch and help us - it takes a village!

05/12/2026

Same thing goes for visiting friends, especially at shows.

We asked top trainers, what are your expectations for parents of your students who choose to stay and watch a lesson or the warm up at a horse show?

Here are their answers:

“My expectations would include parents finding the balance between providing emotional support and not interfering with the learning process and the educational environment the trainer is creating.” -Rob Van Jacobs

“I love when parents are supportive and a huge part of their kids’ lives! Saying that, they also need to respect that they pay me to be their kids’ trainer! They should watch and not be on top of me or their kid. Water is for before and after the lesson, and discussions and questions are the same!” –Dana Hart-Callanan

“My expectations are for them to have an encouraging word and a sip of water for their kid during breaks. If they are capable of helping jump crew and/or manure clean up, extra bonus points! Sideline coaching, negative remarks about anyone’s performance, or poor sportsmanship are a major no-no. Parents are there to be support crew. As a coach, setting a good example and having clear expectations for parents creates a positive culture in your program that helps everyone thrive in a positive educational environment.” -Allyson Hartenburg

📎 Save & share this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/05/20/trainer-tuesday-what-are-your-expectations-for-parents-who-choose-to-stay-with-their-children-and-watch-a-lesson-or-while-warming-up-at-a-horse-show/

05/09/2026

Great training last weekend at Carousel Ridge with Christine Illnicki. Finally we were able to get outside!! Bring on show season. 👏🏻😁

04/21/2026

“Together we rise up!”
Reminds me of how our team strives to support each other! ❤️

Horse shows are not known for their gentleness. They are loud with comparison. Who moved up. Who moved down. Who got the catch ride. Who won the hack. Who was called back first. Who wasn’t.

Reputations travel quickly, and it’s easy to see competitors as threats. Scarcity can feel real. There is only one tricolor. Only one blue ribbon. But author and performance coach Brad Stulberg offers a different lens that may fundamentally shift how riders experience competition.

“The word compete,” he explains, “comes from the Latin roots co, which means with or together, and then petere, which means to aspire or to rise up.” In its truest form, he says, compete means “to rise up together.”

Riders often assume that in order to perform well, they must detach from the people around them. Stay focused. Avoid eye contact. Block out the competition. But Stulberg argues that competition, when understood properly, is not about isolation. It’s about elevation.

“The whole point of competition,” he says, “is to rise up together to get the best out of yourself.”

Wanting to win is not the problem, but ego can be.

Stulberg makes a critical distinction: “Do you want to win? Absolutely. Is it okay to want to win and have intensity around that? Yes. But if you sacrifice the joy of the sport for that… then you’ve lost.”

That sacrifice can happen quietly. Riders stop appreciating beautiful rounds because they didn’t ride them. They start measuring their own worth against someone else’s ribbon count. They allow another rider’s success to diminish their own effort. And in doing so, they misunderstand what competition is offering them.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/04/16/rethinking-rivalry-in-the-show-ring/
📸 © Olivia Danielle Photography

04/20/2026

❤️ this

Notes from my arena notebook.

✅Most people want the horse to be calm. Fewer want to become the kind of person a horse is calm around.

✅The rider who is always correcting is always behind. The rider who is always preparing is always early.

✅The horse that needs to be forced has already told you something. You just didn't listen early enough.

✅The horse is a leverage machine. Not for control. For self-knowledge.

✅Presence is the only aid that works before you've asked anything.

✅Dressage is just meditation with consequences.

🚩The rider who talks about their horse's talent is usually describing their own ceiling.

🚩If you need the horse to behave before you can ride well, you can't ride well.

🚩The horse that gets blamed the most is usually the one being ridden the worst.

🚩Buying more equipment is the most expensive way to avoid developing feel.

🚩Showing way before you're ready isn't ambition. It's impatience wearing a stock tie.

04/13/2026

Good feel is key to much of what you do with your horse. It’s that, often seemingly magical, ability that the best riders possess to really sense what is happening underneath them, and, as Teall shares, “You must immediately start developing an awareness of the concepts, if you ever want to ride effectively, effortlessly and invisibly.

Feel and lightness are closely related to each other. In order to be an effective rider, you need to learn to feel just the right amount of hands, legs, seat and weight. The more you can feel what that right amount is, the more lightness you will have in your riding.”

The ideal combination of lightness and feel is what Teall describes as “the Goldilocks Factor” – it’s neither not enough nor too much, but rather just right.

To help achieve this Goldilocks Factor, here’s a look at two of the exercises that Teall shares within his book.

When schooling at home, your goal should always be to get your horse working longer, lower and lighter. You want him to work with his muscles stretched out, as opposed to working with his muscles tight or bunched together.

Just as you would stretch your own muscles before doing any strenuous exercise, stretching your horse’s muscles will enable him to perform better. Tight muscles produce a sore horse. Long and stretched muscles produce a relaxed horse. This trotting exercise is an easy way to help you develop the lightest aids possible while you cultivate a feel for riding a horse with long, stretched muscles.

1. Ask your horse to trot around the perimeter of the arena. Post the trot. Use your legs to tell him to move forward. Your hands lightly balance him so he doesn’t pick up a canter. Hold yourself centered, relaxed, and balanced on the horse.

2. Pay attention to where the horse’s impulsion comes from. If he is pulling himself along with his front legs, feel how slightly altering your balance or changing your hand position affects him. Practice until you can feel the horse using his hindquarters to push himself forward.

3. When the horse consistently pushes himself forward with his hind end, encourage him to stretch his body. Gently close your legs around his sides. Pay attention to how his neck feels as he trots. Ride him forward so that his neck starts to get longer, not shorter. Think: forward, out, and down.

4. Once the horse is stretching his head and neck forward while pushing from behind, feel the difference in his trot. Practice until you can have the horse push forward with his hind end and stretch forward with his head whenever you ask him to.

5. When your horse will consistently stretch his front end and push off with his hind end, pay attention to your weight. While the horse moves forward, concentrate on keeping your weight down in your heels. Feel how that anchors you to the horse.

6. Once your heels are well down, consciously pay attention to the position of your hands. Feel how light they can be while still being effective.

7. Trot on a circle, tracking to the right. When it feels good going to the right, change directions and track to the left. Periodically reevaluate how well your horse is moving, how well you can feel him, and how strong and correct your position is.

This exercise makes you aware of where the horse’s impulsion comes from. You always want the horse to work from his hind legs and move forward from his hindquarters. The more you can get him working through his topline, the more comfortable and relaxed he will become. Moving forward correctly will also keep him sounder longer. If you develop a feel for riding a horse lightly while he is working correctly, soon that will become the norm. Then you will always ride with that feeling as your goal.

📎 Read the second exercise at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2020/11/19/developing-lightness-and-feel-exercises-from-geoff-teall/

02/23/2026

Love this!

The biomechanics of a horse's energy follow the same Newtonian laws of motion that affect all movement. Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But today we see too many riders opposing the physics of natural equine movement.

We see dressage riders giving conflicting cues of forward and holding back to achieve "collection". We see riders unable to balance their horses to the extent that they impede their horse's natural movement. This post addresses the physics of optimum equine movement. For many riders it might be beyond their current understanding, but I think it will be useful for them to see where their learning can lead in time.

Auto engineers employ a principle of physics called "torque vectoring" that is illustrated by the white arrow in the pictured sports car. This is the same principle we apply when we pick up the correct canter lead in a bend or sit during the correct diagonal at the trot.

Both leads and diagonals help drive our horses correctly forward from the outside hind (green arrow in left image) in a bend just as the sports car is optimally pushed forward from the outside rear wheel. Both are examples of the advantage of torque vectoring. Both examples will create a turn that more effectively and more accurately propels the mass of the car or horse forward in a smoother and more powerful turn.

If instead the power of the car's or of the horse's energy came primarily from the inside rear wheel or hind leg (red arrow in left image), this would push the car or horse out away from the direction of the turn. By contrast, power from the outside rear creates an equal and opposite reaction that pushes the car or horse forward toward the inside of the turn, which is more effective because it does not oppose the laws of physics.

Applying the energy from the inside hind straightens the horse's spine and destroys the bend. It chokes off a horse's energy by restricting the horse's muscle groups required for the bend. The right image shows how to apply the aids in a manner where there is no opposition to the horse's natural energy flow. All the muscle groups required for an optimal bend are applied to the turn and the horse's spine bends more easily due to the complete lack of opposition to the horse's correct natural movement. Thus, the equal and opposite action of the horse pushing from the outside hind creates a smooth powerful turn.

The right image explains how to "gather up" your horse for a correct balanced bend. We hold an effective bend using three steps. First is #1 - inside leg to outside supporting rein. Second #2 - outside leg to inside supporting rein. Lastly, we "turn our belt buckle" in the direction of the turn such that our seat bones (blue dots) support the turn at the spine. By adjusting these three applications of aids, that hold and maximize the effectiveness of the bend, we get the positive result of outside hind torque vectoring.

02/11/2026

Pinnacle Equestrian
Horse Show Meeting
11am - Monday,
Feb. 16th

01/09/2026

Mark your calendars for the 2026 season at Varenna Equestrian!