Welcome to the Dressage Maven Blog!

Howdy Folks - Welcome to the Dressage Maven Blog!

 My goal with this blog is to talk about all things dressage - riding, training, competing, attire, saddles, bits, boots, conformation, art - anything and everything. A little bit about myself - My name is Georges and I’ve been riding and showing for almost 30 years now (don’t even ask how old I am!). I started out riding western pleasure on Quarter Horses in Texas, then moved on to eventing on Percheron Crosses in Georgia,  then it was on to California where I started my love affair with dressage. Three years ago I moved to Sweden where I spent a year training intensively near Flyinge (Sweden’s State Stud) and am now settled in Northern California with my Westphalian gelding Sparky and my bonafide American Mustang gelding Dusty.  

By day I run Equestrian Entries a site that offers online horse show entries for dressage (and soon eventing!). Check it out at www.equestrianentries.com!   Not only does the system fill out your forms for you but it checks to make sure they are complete and correct too. You can submit your entries and pay your fees - all online! No more messy paperwork and missing cards! Check it out at www.EquestrianEntries.com. 

I also spend a lot of my weekends during the height of the show season volunteering at different dressage shows in my area.  I do pretty much everything: ring stewarding, running the show office,  calling tests, bit checking, volunteer manager, etc ect.  This behind the scenes work has taught me so much about dressage shows. I highly recommend volunteering at as many shows as possible if you want to really feel comfortable at shows and understand how they work all the way through. 

When I’m not working on Equestrian Entries, or volunteering at horse shows, you can usually find me at the stables with Sparky and Dusty.  I’m trying to get Sparky ready for Prix St. Georges in 2009.  I’ve only owned him 10 months now and while we’ve made a lot of progress, we still have a ways to go.  He came to me with some pretty serious issues (the previous owners told me all about them before I even came out to see him, so I knew what I was getting into).  We’ve worked through a lot of his issues (sore back, nerve issues at the girth, lack of confidence, fear of mounting blocks etc etc) but he is still very worried about objects on the outside of the arena and arena fencing in general.  Other than his fear of the actual dressage court itself, he’s incredibly talented, very classically trained and should make a great show horse.  Just need to get him over his fears - but he’s getting better daily and that’s all I can ask for!

While I’m certainly not a world-class expert, I hope people will find this blog helpful and interesting!  Drop me a line anytime if you have a question for me or a topic you’d like to see a post on! 

Happy Riding!
-Your Dressage Maven