Sam Osborn Dressage

Pony Club Area Dressage Test Riding & Training

🗓 24th June – after 4pm
🗓 27th June – after 2pm

📍 Goulds Farm, TA3 6HR

With Pony Club Area Dressage just around the corner, now is the perfect opportunity to fine-tune your test riding and make every mark count.

Come and ride through your test in a supportive training environment and discover where you can:

✔ Improve accuracy and presentation
✔ Maximise mark-scoring opportunities
✔ Refine transitions and movements
✔ Improve rider effectiveness for more harmony
✔ Build confidence ahead of competition day
✔️Design a good warm-up with lots of tips for parents

We’ll break down your test, look at the details that influence the marks, and work on practical exercises to help you produce the best possible performance for both you and your pony.

Often it’s not about riding harder, it’s about riding smarter.

⏰ 45-minute individual slots available, or share an hour with a friend.

📱 For more details or to book, WhatsApp 07980 006751

www.osborndressage.com
Think Well • Ride Well • Perform Well

Mumpsimus

A word for someone who holds onto a wrong belief even when it’s obviously untrue. The kind of belief that keeps everyone safely stuck exactly where they are!

We do it with our horses all the time, as well as in other areas of our lives.
How we do one thing is how we do everything…

The stories we tell. The language we use. The expectations we hold. Traditions passed down so many times they stopped being questioned and just become the way it is.

Meanwhile research moves on. Those clever researchers give us so much, if we’re willing and open-minded enough to update the traditions and create new, scientifically backed ones. Evolution keeps the wheel turning, ever improving our understanding and, more importantly, the horse’s experience.

Expect more. Question more. And don’t let the mumpsimuses keep you or your horse stuck in a tradition that doesn’t serve either of you.

FYI… Metanoia is the moment you finally stand up to what you thought you knew and realise you can rewrite it and change it!

Think Well · Ride Well · Perform Well
www.osborndressage.com

Everything is a win when the goal is experience.

As lovely as it is to come home with a rosette, there is so much more to a competition day than the final score.

Can you set the scoreboard aside for a moment and ask yourself:

• How has today added to my horse’s confidence and understanding?
• What did I learn about myself as a rider?
• What information can I take away and use to improve our training?
• What became clearer today than it was yesterday?

Being competitive is not a bad thing. Wanting to do well is part of sport. But the rosette, the score and the accolades are often short-lived moments of gratification.

The real value lies in the feedback.

When you look beyond the result and become curious about what the experience is teaching you, every outing becomes an opportunity to grow. Every test, every round and every competition adds another piece to the puzzle.

The riders who improve most consistently are rarely those chasing the result. They are the ones paying attention to the information.

When the goal is experience, learning and development, there is always something to take home and build on for next time.

What are you binging back to training this week after competing…?

Think Well | Ride Well | Perform Well
www.osborndressage.com

I’m looking for 2 riders working and competing at Medium/Advanced Medium level who would like work with me as a sponsored rider.
Please email me [email protected] for more details and full T&C’s.

www.osborndressage.com

The joy is in the process and looking back to see just how far you’ve come.

The best Horse(wo)men I’ve ever know aren’t always driven by outcomes they are endlessly fascinated by the process!

How’s your season going..?

I hope each competition is bringing you the next piece of the puzzle to slot in!

Have a great week with your ponies.

www.osborndressage.com

Think Well | Ride Well | Perfom Well

Upcoming Clinics – June 2026

My clinics are open to all-whether you’re a competitive rider keen to improve your dressage scores, develop your flat work for showjumping or you simply want to enjoy training your horse with no competitive agenda.

Each session is tailored to you and your horse, with the aim of progressing together with more confidence, clarity and most importantly, enjoyment! I combine technical training with mindset strategies to help bring out the very best in your partnership.

📍14th Pole Work Clinic TA3 6HR
📍20th Dressage Clinic TA3 6HR
📍 26th Dressage/Pole Work Surrey
📍27th Pole work TA3 6HR
📍28th Dressage/Pole Work Clinic Alston Manor Grange, Plymouth PL8 1HW

If you’d like to book a session, find out more, or discuss other lesson opportunities, send me a message and we can arrange a time to chat.

www.osborndressage.com
Think Well | Ride Well | Perform Well

What a brilliant weekend we had at The Pattern Between Us clinic at Goulds Farm.

It was wonderful to be sharing the coaching with Emma Steele-Perkins from ! The lightbulb moments came thick and fast, both in the off-horse sessions and in the saddle, as riders explored the connections between human/horse biomechanics, mindset, communication and performance.

One of the most rewarding parts was watching people begin to notice the patterns: the ones in themselves, the ones in their horses, and the way the two constantly influence each other. There were breakthroughs, thoughtful conversations, and plenty of homework to take away and explore further. I imagine Amazon has had a spike in wobble board sales today 😃

A huge thank you to everyone who came with such openness, curiosity and willingness to learn. Emma and I absolutely loved teaching it and yes we will absolutely be running more. Keep an eye on the website and our socials for dates.

If you’d like to organise a Pattern Between Us clinic at your yard or venue, we travel and would love to chat through your options.

Better conversations with our horses start with understanding the patterns we bring, physically and mentally to them and how they interpret them. As the wonderful Mary Wanless said “The rider is the cause-the horse the effect!”

www.osborndressage.com
Think Well | Ride Well | Perform Well

How much time do you dedicate to preparing your mindset for performance?
Where does your attention go when you’re under pressure?
Would you like the tools to reset and refocus so your competition experience brings you more than rosettes!

I offer 1:1 coaching to help you create the competition experience you actually want, one where you can thrive, grow and enjoy the process, rather than dread it, avoid it, overthink it and leave feeling emotionally exhausted and deflated.

Competition day doesn’t need to be feared, avoided or become an opportunity for pressure, self-criticism and proving your worth.

Competition can become a positive place for learning, growing confidence, improving connection and development again for both you and your horse.

Send me a message and we can have a chat about the kind of competition day you’d actually like to experience and how we can work towards making that a reality.

Ask the riders I work with, they’ll all tell you it’s a game changer!

www.osborndressage.com
Think Well | Ride Well | perform Well

What a weekend. Ros Canter’s third Badminton win and fifth five-star victory is, quite simply, exemplary and well deserved. The quiet methodical horsemanship, the attention to detail, the world-class basics she can build up and strip back depending on where Walter is mentally and physically on any given day is truly masterful. If you are a young rider watching and thinking “I want that” then study her. Study her closely.

One of the most remarkable achievements, in my opinion, is keeping Walter sound, enthusiastic and athletic at this level through six 5* events. That does not happen by accident.

It happens through a deeply methodical system shaped by expereince, attention to detail and a genuine partnership based on trust, variety in training and a commitment to world-class basics she can build on or strip back depending on where her horse is on any given day. All her horses ooze confidence!

After her dressage warm-up, Ros said something that really resonated with me about how she manages to produce such an incredibly harmonious test when there is so much happening and to consider at a five-star, her answer wasn’t about technique or scores…

“He is designed to gallop. That’s what he loves. And so to be in the balance he needs for the dressage, he can’t sustain that for long periods of time. So it’s all about getting his brain settled enough, and also honouring his physique, and only bringing him up for the peak time.”
— Ros Canter, Badminton 2026

“honouring his physique.”

Such a simple phrase, but it carries enormous depth.

True horsemanship is not just getting the best performance out of a horse. It is understanding what that horse can sustain, when to ask, when to wait, when to peak, and when to protect.

It’s that attention to detail that quietly builds trust and excellence.

Ros is not only winning history-making titles, she is showing us what thoughtful, intelligent, horse-first sport really looks like.

Perhaps we should talk less about the Classical V Modern and focus more on true thoughtful horsemanship, what it really is, means and looks like regardless of discipline or level?

Think Well | Ride Well | Perform Well
www.osborndressage.com