Today’s post comes from Sin City, Las Vegas Nevada. Since I am here in the region of Southwest Western Dressage, I decided to write the blog as an interview with someone from the Las Vegas equestrian community who was doing Western Dressage. So I opened up the phone book to call a local barn. Every barn number but one was disconnected or no longer in service. The one that was working was a casino! So I called a feed store, thinking that at the feed store would be someone who knew someone one who might know someone that was practicing WD. “Western Dressage?” he said.  “Never heard of it. Try calling the other feed store.” So I did. She said “If you want to find something in the Las Vegas horse community go to allvegashorses.com. If its here, that is where you will find it.” So, OK. $13.95 later and I have internet access in the room at the Rio (why is this not free?) and I am on the website where I find lots of stuff, not Western Dressage. Humbling dose of reality:  Western Dressage is NOT everywhere yet!

So, ever diligent and now highly motivated to find what I am looking for, I started dialing. “No, this is a DRESSAGE barn.” “Oh, I think so-and-so has a friend who is doing that, but just on her own.” “I don’t think we have that here in Vegas.” “Western Dressage?” Finally I see an ad for a Centered Riding instructor. AH-HA! I know that if she is certified, she gets her CR newsletter and she will know that Eitan was the keynote speaker and clinician at the International Symposium in November so she will at least have heard of WD! I was thrilled when she answered “Western Dressage? Yes, I was just thinking of adding that to what I teach since I have so many western students.” Her name is Callie Klein of “A More Excellent Way, LLC” and she is a Level 1 Certified Centered Riding Instructor and a certified Level 2 Parelli Practitioner working on Level 4, a member of the Southern Nevada Horseshow Association, AND interested in bringing Western Dressage to Las Vegas.  Perfect! 

Callie Klein of Las Vegas Nevada (used with her permission)

Callie was wonderful and made the trip to the Rio to meet for coffee and to grant me an interview about the Las Vegas horse scene. She actually heard of WD from reading an article about it by a well known western trainer. She was surprised to hear him discuss the benefits of dressage training given her impression of him as a “cowboy” and vowed to drop her preconceived notions about western and dressage ever coming together and to explore WD. I asked Callie how she saw Centered Riding and Western Dressage working together. She responded “Good riding is good riding no matter what saddle you are in.” Centered Riding’s focus is on teaching riders to ride and is therefore applicable to all types of riding. 

Like other professionals who work in two or more realms, Callie notes that there is a “general misconception that western and English riding are so different, and at some level, there are differences. But once riders learn about relaxation, balance, rhythm, connection and so on, the differences seem to melt away.” Callie teaches at a barn where the western riders go around and around the rail. For her, dressage brings a whole new lesson plan for the day with training objectives and things to do that benefit the horse. In her eyes, dressage brings understanding about energy and movement to a whole new light. “In fact,” she says, “dressage shines the light on the underlying beauty and majesty of any horse’s movement.” Our western type horses deserve to wear that light too.

Many of us active in the development of WD are excited about the possibilities WD brings to the equine community. For Callie, it is about the possibility of “people coming together across the aisle, increasing understanding and improving riding all around, for everyone – then we will ultimately find out that the differences are small.” I believe she is right but it will take willingness on the part of people from all sides to do as Callie did and cast aside their preconceived notions about the worlds ‘across the aisle’. Then the challenge to accept, if not embrace, that good riding IS good riding, and that is good for ALL horses no matter what kind of saddle their riders sit in, is easy to take on.

Michelle Binder is the founder of the Relational Riding Academy. Relational Riding is a program that utilizes dressage as fundamental training for all horses performing in all disciplines. She has been an ARIA certified Instructor since 1989. She is currently working on her second book “Relational Riding: A Horsemanship Tutorial,” and has completed work on two professional video productions, “Any Horse, Any Rider: Relational Riding: A Universal Foundation” and "Understand Riding From the Ground Up."