THE HORSE GAZETTE By Ingrid Edisen a natural born teacher new equine group


Houston’s Solstice Farms loves to teach. She majored in it and taught school for quite a while but eventu- ally switched over to teach dressage full time. Others have recognized this gift in Marie. The USDF (US Dressage Foundation) Re- gion 9 awarded her their teaching excellence award in 2009 which was the first year the prize was ever offered.


that houses 35 horses on 20 acres conveniently located relatively close to down- town Houston. In the 25 years she has operated her place, “it has been a slow,


She runs a barn Marie Morgan of


step-by-step process, a very slow evolution to get the place going,” she explained. At first she started with the raw land. Then, she says, “a little bit at a time, the barn, the arena and finally the house were built.” The barn has 26 stalls and some of her board- ers make use of her pasture boarding arrangements. What fascinated


her about dressage in par- ticular is that “you never get bored with it,” she said. As a five-year-old child she would trundle out into her family’s backyard and use the trash can to mount up on a horse that her parents had bought for her. Because she had no tack, she simply pulled


the horse along by its mane so she could get on. “They couldn’t get me off of the horse,” she chuckled. She used a stick to tap the horse on the side of its neck to help guide it. Then high school days came and went. She was briefly horseless but once she attended the Uni- versity of Dallas, she bought herself a horse. Fortunately back then she had access to a free pasture where she could keep her horse and rode it bareback, pleasure style. At this time she still had no saddle although she want- ed to get an English sad- dle. Eventually, she bought an Argentinian saddle “like so many of us had in those


days,” she said. She started taking


lessons in combined train- ing and Jim Dimilte (now based in Washington state) introduced her to dres- sage. She married, moved to Houston, and continued to take lessons from very good instructors along the way. [Nowadays she reg- ularly hosts clinics for her past and present mentor Debbie Bowman.]


school and showing as an amateur and getting bet- ter at the showing,” she said. Then she started teaching riding at the barn she boarded at and moved into getting her own place. “It was a har-


“I was teaching


monious change,” Marie observed when talking about switching from teaching school to teach- ing riding. “I just love to teach. Some folks who ride are not necessarily in- terested in teaching. I was lucky as my background was teaching.”


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her USDF certified instruc- tor certificate. In 2006 she went on to become a USDF “L” (Learner) graduate which gives her the docu- mentation to judge dressage schooling shows. Already a recipient of the USDF bronze and silver awards for dressage riding scores,


In 1999 she earned


takes as this is a difficult sport. There is more in- formation readily available and people work hard at educating themselves and it shows. For instance, every week now you can find a clinic or three or four whereas that used to be rare. Same for sympo- siums. This is good. There is more information and education out there,” she observed.


On the question


erecting a sign at her barn that says, “there is no my fault, his fault.” “It is not about blame and guilt,” Marie said. “Look at the cause and effect. Allow yourself and the horse to make mistakes.” She rec-


use our body to say ‘yes, carry on .’ We shouldn’t drop or abandon the aids at that moment but instead cease to ask for anything new or more.” She has plans of


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she is currently working on earning her gold USDF medal. Currently she cam- paigns a rather interest- ing horse named “Mighty Mouse.” Unlike so many upper level dressage horses, Mighty Mouse is a grade horse, only 15 hands high and a chestnut with a big blaze. She acquired him and began teaching him bet- ter movement to the point that nowadays he earns scores like 63% at Inter- mediate II. “That’s almost Grand Prix,” Marie said. Marie said she


believes that owners and riders in dressage are get- ting “better and better. The quality of the riders has improved. Dressage is get- ting more professional. It has become more delineat- ed between amateurs and professionals than it once was. That may be reason folks may not know as much about basic horse care as many of them are busy professionals and have fam- ilies and then try to ride... so it may be as it should be with the horse care handled more by others (in the busi- ness).”


I’d say 90 percent, peo- ple may make honest mis-


Page 8 “Most of the time,


of supplements, she said, “Honestly, if a horse is trained correctly from be- ginning to end, then there is a pretty good chance the horse will be sound and not even need supplements. So many times people put so much time into bring- ing a horse up through the levels that they may do supplements as a form of insurance. However, inju- ries happen, or the horse gets sold or an amateur takes it on to learn on...and makes mistakes. There- fore supplements may be necessary. You may have a case of bad shoeing that can cause problems for a while and have to wait. I am not opposed to Adequan and Legend but those are naturally made in the ani- mals’ bodies anyway. I tell my students that the only thing they may hurt is your pocketbook. They do not mask anything. I am not so sure about some of the other feed throughs, though.” She added, “The


most important part of training is reward and the most intuitive way to re- ward a horse is using what I call ‘Yes strides.’ Once a horse responds positively to an aid or request, we must


ommends that a serious rider work their horse at least four times or more a week. Should a student of


hers come up against a rid- ing problem, and it is not a medical or pain issue for the horse, she ensures that each student has a full array of exercises in his/her personal arsenal that they can use to help the horse. “Look for the cause


first and have enough tools in your box of tricks to help with the cause,” she recommends. Say a horse is having difficulty picking up a particular canter lead and physical


been ruled out...in that case Marie cautions that the rider identify if the cause is a lack of straightness on the part of either the rider or the horse or maybe there is a lack of suppleness or some confu- sion over the aids. “There is a lot of


issues have


variety of exercises that the students need to be familiar with,” she noted. And as their coach, Marie is there to teach them what exercises might serve them best.


either call (713) 433-9817, equinesenior@gmail.com, or www.solstice-farms.com.


Visit us at: www.HorseGazette.com To contact Marie,


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