G.P. Cottonwood Stables

Cowichan District Riding Club is holding a dressage schooling show on Sunday Aug 31 at Cowichan Exhibition grounds in Duncan. The judge is Melanie Houston.

Our small club can really use your support!

These shows are a great way to get your kiddos introduced to showing, gain miles on young horses, or run through some tests at a venue close to home!

Entry forms at cowichanhorses.ca

Pellizzari pumpkin patch is in full swing!!! (Actually no pumpkins this year….zucchini, squash, cucumbers, corn, beets, carrots and watermelon)….thanks ponies for the great fertilizer and my brother for inspiration over many years (he left it to me this year). No thanks to the deer and bunnies who take the occasional munch.

Heading into Summer Camp #3….summer days with the ponies at Cottonwood! ❤️🦄☀️

A very difficult past week at Cottonwood as we said goodbye to one of the very best ponies. Thank you Kuitan for teaching so many many kids how to ride, many coaches how to coach and blessing us with your sweet nature and wonderful temperament. Forever in our hearts and memory….❤️……

Online: CEDF Stable Foundations Lesson Series - Level 1 | CEDF Join CEDF's Stable Foundations – Level 1, an exciting online education series designed for young equestrian enthusiasts aged 6-10! Accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, this engaging program introduces the foundational skills outlined in Equestrian Canada’s Learn to Ride Level 1.

Christmas greetings to All from Thelwell

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.