As you may be aware, Aaron England has been training a Nakota horse for the past year or so, and will be showing this horse at the Minnesota Horse Expo in April (Apr 24 -26).  Nakota horses are thought to be direct descendants of Sitting Bull's mounts, and have been ranging the North Dakota Badlands since the late 1800's.  These horses have an angular frame, are commonly blue roan in color, and often exhibit an ambling gait called the "Indian shuffle".
 
Amazingly, due to his spending the summers in Minnesota,  Jack Lieser also became interested in Nakota horses, and also had one in training!  This mutual interest resulted in their scheduling a Nakota Horse Clinic and Sale at Watts Way Arena in Chappell Hill from Thursday, March 11th thru Sunday, March 14th.  Aaron and Jack will provide participants with a young Nakota horse that has been transported directly from their winter pasture in North Dakota.
 
Participants will get a chance to work with these horses under Jack's and Aaron's guidance for four days, which should make a huge difference in these horses, and the student's ground skills!  And, remember that all horses in this clinic will be for sale, so this is a chance for you to own a piece of history!!!
 
For more details on this clinic, please contact Sarah Lieser at (979-203-9000) or Riva England at (325-948-3456), or visit Aaron's website at www.AaronEngland.com or Jack's website at www.JackLieser.com.  
 
And, remember auditors are very welcome, so come see these beautiful Indian ponies do their shuffle!!!

The weekend of February 27th and 28th at Beth Dutson's Deep Meadow Wellness Center in Tomball, Texas, we will have an opportunity to participate in a PNH Clinic by a new Parelli Instructor to our area!  Kelly Sigler, a 3-Star Parelli Professional, will be conducting both a Level 1/2 and a Level 3 Clinic at Beth's this weekend.  The Level 1/2 Clinic will be from 9:00am to 1:00pm each day, and the Level 3 Clinic will be from 2:00pm to 6:00pm each day. 
 
While new to our area, Kelly is originally from the Corpus Christi area.  She received her third star last February, and wanted to return to Texas, but ended up in South Carolina for family reasons.  We can only hope that Kelly's love for Texas will bring her back to our area time after time!
 
For additional information about this clinic you can view the Clinic Flyer, or contact Beth Dutson at 281-290-8884, and for more information about Kelly Sigler you can visit her website at www.KellySigler.com.
 
Also, please note that if there is enough interest the scheduled Level 3 Clinic could very easily be changed to a Level 2/3 Clinic...

If you recall, in last month's newsletter I indicated that I had finished through Level 3 of the new PNH Levels DVDs.  Well I have now finished the four Savvy DVDs for Level 4 in this series, and I was totally blown away with the fourth DVD on Level 4 Finesse!
 
I'm not sure I was ready for what I saw on this DVD, because there was Pat in a Dressage arena drawing lines in chalk down the center and at every quarter, and there were signs with letters, and in some cases numbers, on them all around the arena.  Then he starts to draw 20 meter and 10 meter circles between the lines, and I'm saying to myself "What the heck is this all about?"
 
Well, I guess the lessons Pat and Linda have been taking with Walter Zettl have really had an impact on Pat!  While he refers to this as "Precision Riding", it's really based on the principles of Dressage!  For a number of years, Karen Rohlf has been talking about "Dressage Naturally", but it now seems to be the basic premise of PNH Finesse riding!
 
For me, this all seemed a bit surreal...  I had just ordered a new Dressage saddle from Karen Rohlf, because one of my very best friends, Cindy Deaton, was on me to do more bareback riding, and Karen's Ansur Saddle seemed to be a marriage between riding bareback and riding with a saddle.  At the same time Cindy had been talking to me about a young Dressage trainer, Marta Renilla, who was giving lessons very close to my home.
 
Well, you probably guessed it...  I now have had two lessons with Marta Renilla, and while I'm still anxiously awaiting my new Ansur Saddle, she seems to have no problem with me riding in my bareback pad during our lessons!  I could probably go on and on about how cool some of the things Excel and I are doing, but my point is that Pat's new direction has really helped me take this next, and I hope very important, step in my riding relationship with my horse, Excel!!!
 
Again, I can't say enough good things about this new set of Levels DVDs, and if you are interested in them, they are available on the Parelli website at: