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Clinics

 

***Please check out our events page for information on specific up-coming clinics***

 

 

FEC hosts many different kinds of clinics each year.

 

Our resident instructors offer clinics on topics (both mounted and un-mounted) which are too in-depth (ie: trailer loading) to be addressed in a one hour lesson situation.

Outside clinicians offering instruction in dressage, natural horsemanship, despooking (horse/rider confidence) and Centered Riding are also invited to FEC.

 

 

Information on Clinicians

 

ROBIN BRUECKMANN is an USEF "S" dressage and an USEF "R" combined training judge.  She has earned her Bronze, Silver, and Gold Rider Medals from the US Dressage Federation, proving her skills at all levels of dressage competition through Grand Prix. She is also a regular contributor to equine publications, and has published two books, DRESSAGE IN A SIDESADDLE, and WHEN TWO ARE ONE, chronicling her relationship with her very special horse, Bordeaux, with whom she performed exhibitions of a Grand Prix freestyle without a bridle.  Robin has been disabled with complications from reflex sympathetic dystrophy since 1994, and has been competing under FEI Paraequestrian rules since 1998.    Robin's horses have earned many Championships and Horse of the Year titles and she represented the United States at the World Dressage Championships in Denmark as a Grade IV rider, winning the preliminary competition, earning the Bronze Medal individually, and earning the Gold Medal in the World Championship Freestyle Dressage.   Robin was named to the USEF High Performance Para-Equestrian Elite list for 2008, for the ninth time, and she and Richmond are currently competing at Grand Prix in open competition.

 Robin has represented the United States at the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, and in 2008 Hong Kong and she also represented the US at the World Para Dressage Championships CPEDI**** in England and Belgium.

 Robin’s other interests include practicing and teaching yoga; she is a Registered Yoga Alliance Yoga Teacher. She spent two years apprenticing with Sally Swift, and is a Level IV Senior Centered Riding Instructor. She also enjoys tatting and gardening. She teaches Centered Riding clinics and Yoga for Equestrians workshops in the US, Europe and Australia. She is married and lives in Summerfield, NC.

 

 

SUSAN ROSE is a Graduate A rated rider with the United States Pony Clubs for Eventing, exceeding standards in Dressage and Show Jumping. She has been a Certified Instructor with the United States Pony Clubs since 1981. She has competed at USEA (formerly USCTA) and USDF recognized events since 1974, during which she participated in the Young Rider’s Team program, as well as, the OVCTA Adult Dressage Team.  

Over the last 30 years she has lived and competed in several states and in England, Switzerland and Singapore  which gave her exposure to many top trainers. She has trained with the following professional equestrians as either a summer working student, clinic participant or regular weekly student: (USA) Denny Emerson, Bruce Davidson, Phillip Dutton, Jimmy Wofford, Jeri Luchs O’Keefe, Suzie Palmer Gornall, Lauren Hart O’Brien, David O’Brien, Jan Conant, Sally Swift, Jessica Ranshausen, Sharon Greenlaw Best, Ann Guptil, Beth Brown, Michael Matz, George Morris, and Richard Lamb; (England) Rob Stevens (4 star Eventer in Europe), Pippa Funnell (Top British Olympic Event Team member and winner of Rolex, Badminton, WEG, and the European Championships), Tina Cook (2008 Olympic Bronze Medalist) Charolette Lassetter (British Dressage Team Member) and Kelly Marks (Monty Robert’s UK clinician, BBC equestrian program contributor and author of several Natural Horsemanship books); (Switzerland) Christina Stuekelberger (Olympic Gold Medalist and 5 time Olympic team member); Liz Peel (Badminton qualifier), Bettina Hoy (German Olympic Team member & regular clinician in CH) and Felix Graf (Show Jumper); (Singapore) Uwe Spenlen (German trainer and coach to Singapore Equestrian Federation members). 

“ I have brought their training techniques into the lessons I teach and the horses I train. I have taught riders age 6 through 60 in all aspects of English riding and horse care and I have enjoyed starting young horses for dressage, eventing and TB & QH racing.“

 Susan is certified as both a Human and Equine Bowen Technique Practitioner by the European College of Bowen Studies in England. Susan treated horses at the Singapore Turf Club, Singapore Polo Club and Bukit Timah Saddle Club. She was employed by the Osteopathic Treatment Center as a Human Bowen Practitioner and treated many riding students, as well. While working in Singapore she was featured on a national television program covering new complementary healthcare options. She now treats horses here in the US.

 “As a Bowen Practitioner, I now have a more advanced eye and understanding of the horse and rider’s body mechanics and how training and performance can be improved through this very special muscular skeletal  therapy and proper saddle fit. I am able to see and address the restrictions in the horse’s movement and the rider’s body effecting their athleticism, position and effective use of aids”

 

 
Mimi Pantelides -- Mimi has been a Centered Riding Instructor since 1998. She has studied and progressed through the levels and is now apprenticing at the highest possible level, Level IV. She has taught Centered Riding Clinics for three years, and taught Centered Riding privately before that. She has served on the Centered Riding, Inc. Board of Trustees and was president of the organization for two years (2002-2005). She is currently writing a biography of Sally Swift.

Mimi's experience has followed a winding path. She grew up in northern Illinois where Western riding and gymkhanas were popular. As a teenager she was introduced to Huntseat. As an adult, after she married her husband Sokrates, she competed in Hunter shows at the three foot level, rode in hunter paces, and when her children joined Pony Club, she studied and became a co-DC of the USPC Running Fox Pony Club in New York. After the family moved to Tennessee in 1994, she established Rowantree Farm, teaching lessons and boarding horses. She became interested in Dressage. Since moving to Tennessee, she taught lessons for all ages at her farm, taught dressage as a guest instructor for the Middle Tennessee Pony Club, lectured in Centered Riding, and conducted unmounted bodywork classes for riders.

Mimi graduated from the University of Illinois as a Modern Dance teacher and performer, and pursued graduate studies at Stanford where she also rode and took jumping lessons on the side. She has more than twenty years of experience teaching body awareness, dance exercise, modern dance, remedial body alignment. She also studied the teaching of riding at SUNY Pace University.

Mimi's dance training made Centered Riding a perfect fit for her. The anatomy and movement training for a dancer are based on the same principles described in Centered Riding. Sally Swift writes in her second book that a horse can only move as well as his rider, and the techniques for improving a person's body use work equally well for actors, dancers, singers and riders.

Some of Mimi's most influential riding teachers have been Sally Swift, Liz Hoskinson, Saundra Code, Francois LeMaire de Ruffieu, Jean Louis Guntz, Wendy Murdoch, Bill Gray, Jane Savoie, Lucy Bump, and the Balimo program's Ekart Meyners. She is currently enrolled in the Balimo Training Program. Mimi bases her teaching on the idea that the more we know about ourselves and our horses, the better riders we can become.

 

 
BILL RICHEY -- the founder and CEO of National Mounted Police Services, Inc. is a POST certified mounted police instructor. He was instrumental in creating the mounted units for the city of Duluth, also in Forsyth and Gilmer Counties (Georgia) and training their officers and horses. He worked with Atlanta Police Mounted Unit in preparation for the 1996 Olympics and is also involved in reorganizing the unit. He was the chief instructor for Mobile Mounted Police Mardi Gras School. Mr. Richey has participated in and won or placed in every national mounted police competition he has entered. He has over 30 years experience as a mounted police officer, and almost as many as a trainer/instructor. He has spent countless hours training officers and civilians from all over the United States, as well as their mounts, to perform safely and professionally, from the trail to the show ring to Mardi Gras. 

 

ROBBIE POTTER - Robbie was born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina.  Robbie notes:  "I learned to get along with anything I was put on." He raised his first filly from birth,
and at age 9 he saddled her, threw a leg over and launched his career as a trainer.  In college, Robbie started reading about Ray Hunt and Tom Dorrance, and recognized that they
were talking about some of the same things he had been doing for years.  At about this time,
Robbie began working as a farrier and trainer professionally.  In his "spare" time, he finished his degree in education and began a career teaching English.

Robbie and his family live at the foot of Roan Mountain, in Mitchell County, North Carolina.  
Horses that come to train with Robbie will typically spend an initial period of time working
in a round pen, and then a riding arena.  After that, they move to roaming the Potter Ranch,
and then on to trail riding in the rugged mountain terrain.  This training is invaluable in teaching the horse collection and balance, as well as putting a purpose to the training of
subtle cues.