My Experience at the 2006 Conrad Schumacher Clinic
By Micaela Mabragaña

My name is Micaela Mabragaña, I'm from Argentina and I'm one of Lendon Gray's working students. Thanks to a scholarship from Dressage4Kids, Inc. last April I had the opportunity to ride 2 days with tope German trainer Conrad Shumacher.

I rode Ballywhim Ardan Mor "Danny" a Connemara Stallion that I am currently schooling and will be showing in the FEI Young Rider classes.

The first day of the clinic we worked on simple changes, improving my timing for the flying changes, rein back, and canter pirouettes.
When we were working on the simple changes Mr. Shumacher told me to think of rein back to get the half halt. For the flying changes we worked on the preparation, he said to first make his neck straight, then to change my hip position and then ask with my leg. My problem was that I had been just using my leg for the change and surprising Danny. For the rein back first of all he wanted me to have his neck round and my hands connected to his mouth. Then I asked with my wrisks, with my upper body slightly foward and my lower legs back. By doing this I got a much more fluid rein back.

For the canter pirouettes he had me doing renver down the long side in
counter canter to get the bend for the pirouette. He also had me doing walk to canter pirouettes. This helped the quality of my canter pirouettes a lot.

On my second day the flying changes were good from the beginning, so we did some tempi changes.

Then we did a lot of canter to walk and walk to canter transitions with a
varying numbers of strides between each transition. This excercise helped
to get the collection necessary for the canter pirouettes, making Danny much more rideable and the pirouettes easier.

Next we started to work on the medium trot. Mr Shumacher had me doing half steps, while he was helping me with the whip from the ground. After this I asked for the mediums without letting Danny run. Then I would do a walk pirouette at the end of each medium. We also did some mediums across the diagonal, halting in the middle. These excercises made Danny's hind legs step under his body, lifting his shoulders up and getting a great feeling in my hand!!!

Those two days were great!! I learned a lot and it was an incredible
experience that I will never forget! Thank you Dressage4Kids for making it possible.