Photocredit all photos @Benjamin Christensen
Cathrine Dufour took the audience into her own dressage universe during the clinic she gave Thursday evening in Herning.
The arena was fully packed - every single seat was sold out for this years clinic with Danish international top rider Cathrine Dufour.
“Do you really think people are interested coming to my clinic?” was Cathrines first comment when asking her to do the Thursday evening clinic in Herning. And for sure a lot of people were interested in listening to Cathrine Dufour, as we already know her top skills in the saddle.
First combination was 16 year old junior rider Kristian Würtz Green with 9 year old Bøgegårdens Santiago. Cathrine and Kristian never trained together before, so Wednesday evening they had a training session, where they obviously were trying to get to know each other, to be prepared for the clinic to show some of Cathrines basic training methods.
It was great to watch them from the sideline. The way Cathrine were interacting with Kristian all the time, not only one way communication, but dialogue about how she would try to solve a certain problem or challenge, all the way where you get the feeling that Cathrine will make sure that Kristian understands and get the correct feeling from the advices. During the clinic it was also about being able to change tempo for each exercise and also making the horse quicker in order to respond to the aides, and use of a strap in front of the saddle in order to control/support a certain exercise.
For the clinic Cathrine also brought her long time student Sanne Svendsen with her young Grand Prix mare Hannah Montana W. Together they were showing some of the more advanced stuff, and all the time building up from the basic, and at the same time telling about the challenges and difficulties reaching the most correct outcome.
Corners
For the second part of the clinic Dufour was in the saddle of her now 9 year old Bohemian. They’ve already had a successful first season at international Grand Prix level last year.
Here Cathrines focus was “corners”. She told the importance of being able to ride and use the corners for the training and of course in the competition situations. Every single horse she has under saddle going through the same warm up system wether they are 4 year old or 10 year old.
It was a very alive and honest Cathrine who shared a lot of interesting details with the audience, and after each rider she went to the spectators to answer a couple of questions.
A great evening where Cathrine in a very easy way was telling about her way of training her students and horses.
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