Hedlund Dressage, LLC

06/22/2026

06/21/2026

Exchanging one grey horse for another!!!
“Litri “🦄 gets to go home and “Rio” 🦄 is back for summer camp!! Unloading assistant is the famous “Harvey” Riverfield Farms’ rescue donkey 💝

06/18/2026

Just a reminder to not drive like a Indy 500 driver….😉

06/13/2026

“But, if you observe the top German riders such as Schultheis, Klimke etc., you will notice that this is not what happens. They are not ignorant of the 'descente de main' which is the result and reward of real collection. Otto Loerke, the great German master who had been Schultheis's teacher was a great follower of the methods of Englishman James Fillis who (If you wish) is a product of the French School, Francois Baucher.

I possess a film of Schultheis on a grey horse showing the Grand Prix movements. You can often see the reins slack, almost loose, when the horse flexes his haunches well. In 1982 World Championships at Lausanne, Reiner Klimke also, demonstrates very often in his test, 'descente de main '.

If a horse is not truly light, exercises such as the pirouette, the passage, the piaffe and especially the transition from passage to piaffe are not really accurate and brilliant.

It is necessary to delve a little into history in order to appreciate our present day and to understand a little the basic fundamentals of Equestrian Art and its evolution. “

-Nuno Oliveira

Photo… Left to right…. Rosemarie Springer- Alf Athenstaedt- Willi Schultheis

06/10/2026

More on the German phrase that says “riding is only learned by sweeping.”

I remember an example of this one night, about 40 years ago, when I was spending a month at Walter Christensen’s dressage training stable, Stal Tasdorf, in Tasdorf, Germany. (photo of Walter teaching)

Walter’s main barn had a cobblestone type of floor, hard to keep clean because of all the indentations, and in various corners were funny little Hansel and Gretel type brooms, straight handles with what looked like a bunch of twigs wired to one end.

Everyone had left, all the working students, all the riders, and here was the master, then coach of the Swedish Olympic dressage team, vigorously giving the aisle one last cleanup before turning out the lights.

In the great scheme of things, why would it matter one iota whether the aisle was immaculate? Early next morning, when all the horses were being fed, hay and straw would get spilled all around, and who was going to see that floor in the middle of the night?

But that’s not the point, is it? And for those who do see the point, they probably would have been at one end of the broom. And for those who can’t grasp why it mattered to Walter, they’d have left it as it was.

To what extent can pride in a way of doing things be taught? Because that’s what’s at play here, I think.

And pride in one detail spills over into pride about other details, until it creates a mindset, a way of being. Or not---And in that way, sweeping teaches riding, tenuous as the connection might seem.

05/22/2026

True!

05/14/2026

Join us!

Registration is now open for our symposium being held on June 6 & 7th in Bixby, OK. You find detailed info on how to apply to ride or register to audit on our events page here: https://dressageoklahoma.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=291286&module_id=289917