Trip to Germany

Something I've wanted to do since becoming involved in Dressage these past few years is work in a European training stable to watch, ride and learn as much as I can. At 37 years of age I realized that the clock was ticking on my days of hard work and so on June 7th 2007, I set off for 3 months in Germany.

I arrived at Osnabruck train station after 2 long days of travel and Maree Tomkinson picked me up. Maree & I go way back & when I saw her at CDI earlier in the year she had encouraged me to come over. Maree had been in Germany for the previous 2 years(!) starting out at PSI training with the Master of young horses, Dr Ulf Moller, and had since moved just across the road to Hof Beckerode, the training stable of Jurgen & Christoph Koschel where she had 3 horses in work. Maree had arranged for me to start work at PSI after a couple of lay days.

As I'm sure many of you know, PSI in Hagen is a huge training & breeding operation of Showjumpers & Dressage horses with around 150 in work & close to 40 staff. On the Dressage side there are about 8 full-time trainers & then lots of people like me willing to work in return for the experience & imparted knowledge. PSI look after the staff well, providing accommodation, breakfast, lunch & a small wage. I was assigned to Heida, a young horse trainer that had been with PSI for 15 years, who was lovely, and I was lucky enough to be able to ride from my first day. A typical day started at 7am when we fed-up & did stables, ½ hour break for breaky then prepared the horses for Heida to ride. She would let me ride a couple of her horses each day which meant riding in one of the 2 indoor or 3 outdoor arenas with at least 6 other horses coming at you from every angle & serious instruction being yelled at you constantly – very daunting at times but lots of fun. Just being part of it all was amazing and watching Ulf (Moller) ride day in/day out was fascinating. We would work around 6 in the morning, have an hour for lunch & then in the afternoon I would have a lesson on a lovely PSG schoolmaster which was fantastic. I remember the day I got 2 lines of 2x tempis without mistake was sooo exciting. For me to get that practice & experience was invaluable. The rest of the afternoon was busy preparing sale horses for clients/buyers – once they found out I could plait quite nicely I became very popular for the afternoon shift! We would feed & tidy up at 5pm & that was the day done. Big place, lots of horses & staff, not the friendliest place in the world but the longer you are there the better it becomes.

After a few weeks I was able to move over to Koschel's, a smaller barn with around 30 horses in work. Here I was able to observe more closely the training of more advanced horses and with Maree based there it was all a little more comfortable. Again in the morning I would help out with stable chores, help Maree to get her 3 saddled & worked and then I would have a lesson from Mr Koschel (Jurgen) on a GP horse – needless to say, this was awesome. Whilst at Koschels I was able to ride several lovely horses but was so excited the day Christoph told me he was going away for a few days so I could ride his black horse “Wallmeyer”. This almost had me skipping down the alleyway to tell Maree as he was the most impressive horse. I had spotted him when I was at PSI & Mr Koschel was working him around the racetrack. On that occasion he was being a little naughty so was rather spectacular & since then I would watch his training sessions, so to have him to myself for a few days, well, I could hardly wait. Christoph returned, rode his horse, declared that I had done a good job & put him back on my list. Yay.

Over the following weeks I got to go to amazing shows with Maree – Aachen, Lingen, Wicrath & Hagen. Unbelievable. Anky, Isabell, Hubertus, Andreas & company…WOW. Back at the barn between shows, I would watch in earnest, learning & absorbing as much as I could. Maree & I would go looking at young horses for sale on behalf of some of her clients. This was lots of fun & I got to sit on some amazing young horses, some of them truly spectacular. As time went by I was growing more & more attached to “Wallmeyer”. It was never my intention to buy a horse on this trip but phone calls back home to my wonderful parents & good friend Lisa made purchasing him a possibility. So, I took off for a few days to trainer Leonie Brammels barn near Hannover & had a few days with her riding another super school master. Leonie & her partner Volker were very nice, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them & should I go back to Germany will certainly return to Leonie. They sent me off & to trial a few horses for sale as I thought I should compare as many as possible to Wallmeyer. Once back in Hagen I looked at many more but came back to Wallmeyer last & was convinced he was the one for me.

What did I learn from my trip? Constant discipline for rider & horse, rider must be straight & even, horse must be forward & straight to enable bend & evenness on both reins. All the basics, over & over again until they are second nature. It's hard work but oh, so rewarding & anyone who is keen should absolutely go & experience “the German way”. As for me & Wallmeyer, to date it's been a blast. He has so much personality & both Lisa & I have just thoroughly enjoyed our time with him & all the opportunity's that have come our way since acquiring him. We look forward to continuing our training & enjoying our dressage.