HeartHorse Dressage

What does your horsey relationship need to glow up? Mentoring for the Horse Friendly Dressage rider

Canadian Paralympian Dressage rider/ coach/ mentor living in the UK. Training horses and riders based on the principles of the horse friendly Classical German system. With this approach I have trained my own horses to be FEI number 5 in the World rankings, two Paralympic Games, two World Games and numerous international wins. My riders have won internationally, competed at the Paralympics and been

03/09/2026

02/09/2026

There’s something I should probably explain… 🇨🇦🏒

My World Championship freestyle may have been *slightly* influenced by Heated Rivalry.

And by slightly, I mean we worked motifs from All the Things She Said and I'll Believe in Anything into the music and then I rode it down the centre line at a World Championships for Canada.

Because apparently the combination of Canadian + millennial + sports geek was always going to lead us here. 😂

If you know the references, you know.

If you spotted them while watching the freestyle, I’m particularly impressed. 👀

And if you had absolutely no idea what was going on… well, it still made rather excellent dressage music. Thanks .dressagemusic

I loved how this freestyle came together — a little bit unexpected, very much us, and with just enough hidden in the music for the people who knew where to look.

From the rink to the sandbox. 🇨🇦

And to the hockey/Heated Rivalry people who have somehow landed on a Para Dressage account…

👋Hi. Welcome. We’ve got Canadians, elite sport, complicated rules and a lot of opinions about judging. You’ll be fine here. 😂🏒🤝🐴

Nardando

31/08/2026

The quiet hours in the arena at home.

The training days.

The tiny improvements that probably wouldn’t look like much to anyone else, where I feel the progress before you can see it.

The days my body cooperates.
The days it does not.

Changing the plan. Finding another way. Riding the horse I'm sat on in that moment with the body I have that day.

There’s years of very unglamorous work behind a few minutes in a World Championship arena.

Which is perhaps worth remembering when a 30-second clip on IG makes elite Para Dressage look easy enough to critique hiding behind a keyboard. 😉

Because making it look easy is kinda the point.

And with Nardando it means a little more.

Because when I say "we built this" I really do mean "we".

Jolanda bred him. She owns him. She believed in "The Puppy". She believed I could be a good partner for him. And together we’ve developed him, learned from him, overcome challenges, enjoyed the baby wins and the FEI CPEDI3* ones, and kept moving forward, kept building.

So when I took Nardando down the World Championship centre line wearing the maple leaf 🇨🇦, it isn’t just a few minutes in an arena.

It’s years of quiet work — and a horse that's a privilege to nurture every day.

Quietly. Patiently. Differently.

We built that. ❤️🐴🇨🇦

29/08/2026

5 things I DON’T do as a Para rider who trains my own horses

1️⃣ I DON’T confuse tension with expression.

I love expressive horses. But bigger isn't automatically better.

I want expression that comes from confidence, balance and strength — not tension, not at the expense of harmony

2️⃣ I DON’T believe all training happens from the saddle.

Groundwork, voice aids, handling and everyday routines are all part of my training. And myself at the gym, not my natural territory.

Sometimes the best way to improve what happens on the horse is to train something off the horse.

3️⃣ I DON’T just train the horse physically.

I'm equally invested in their mental and emotional learning. They are not quad bikes with legs instead of wheels.

4️⃣ I DON’T stop searching for better ways to train.

Three Paralympics haven't given me all the answers. If anything, they've given me more questions.

Disability taught me a long time ago that there's rarely only one way to do something. And every horse brings new elements to the challenge.

5️⃣ I DON’T believe the end justifies the means.

I'm ambitious. I want the performance. I want the scores. I want the results.

But the way to get there is more important. It has to be sympathetic, fair, logically and build a beautiful partnership. The horse I have at the beginning, middle and end of the journey matters more than what we achieve in the sandpit.