CDS Santa Cruz Chapter Activity – Ray Berta Clinic

On November 17th, 2007, Santa Cruz dressage hosted a one-day clinic with Ray Berta to help our local members learn more about horsemanship, on the ground and under-saddle, and developing harmony.  This clinic gave our local riders the opportunity to take some giant leaps towards harmony with their mounts, and to learn more about this elusive quality.

The clinic was a one-day session with 7 riders participating. The morning was spent working on ground basics, the afternoon was spent doing mounted work.  It was conducted at American Sporthorse in Watsonville, many thanks to Sandy Howard for making her facility and covered arena available to us!

A little more about Ray Berta:  Ray grew up on the Berta Ranch founded by his Grandfather in the 1800’s.  Tom Dorrance, who at the time was a foreman on a neighboring ranch, showed Ray how to work with horses from the inside out. Ray says of his mentor, "Tom helped me develop feel, timing and balance with horses, but most importantly, through Tom, I've learned to look toward the true 'spirit' of horsemanship. I usually get a little teary when I consider the depth of horsemanship Tom shared with me."
Ray has been conducting clinics and demonstrations for over 30 years and has worked with thousands of horses in a wide variety of disciplines. His mission is to help riders discover the precious harmony that is possible when the horse is soft in mind and body, balanced, and light on his feet.  
Ray started the day by giving the riders/auditors an overview of the seven keys to successful horsemanship:

Work on yourself first.
Work from where the horse is.
Prepare the horse for each transition.
Direct and support the horse as softly as possible.
Encourage the horse to respond and relax.
Allow the horse freedom to think and move.
Appreciate and reward the horse's efforts.

He then moved on to work with each participant individually, and took the time to explain to our auditors what the goals of the exercises were.

Here is what Anne Howard, one of the clinics participants had to say about her and her horse (Pacho’s) experience:

“Spending an entire day in close proximity to your horse isn't something I get to do often - often I have to dash to work or to the next horse or appointment so each horse gets his hour and that's it -- the day with Ray Berta gave me more time to read my horse and get to see what he's like when out for hours! Different issues came up and I think we'll have a better and more clear communication after this encounter!

I found the socialization exercises to be very valuable for settling my horse who gets nervous in crowded warm-up arenas - by day's end he was quite relaxed working in close proximity to even his most worrisome types: Friesians and white horses! It provided a nice low stress approach to accustomization - one I will be sure to use in group lessons and beginner quadrilles too!

Ray had a quiet but consistent emphasis on the rider's seat and knowing exactly what phase of the stride the horse was in so aids could be applied precisely and to best effect - I enjoyed learning new tricks from a different perspective and thank the chapter (and Kate Emmett-Wilder who did the organization) for making this clinic available.”

As we all know, harmony and softness is key to success in dressage training, and we thank Ray Berta, and our participants for making this clinic a success.  We look forward to hosting another one of these sessions in the Spring of 2008.

If you are interested in participating in a future Ray Berta Clinic - Please contact Kate Emmett-Wilder at dressagebird@yahoo.com.