Dressage Instruction and Training
Create effective changes in your riding through Instruction and training with Michele Montgomery. She is a kind and compassionate trainer who is successful at bringing about the progress desired by her students. She accepts students and horses for training at any level of training. She starts young horses as well as adding polish to upper level mounts.
Benefits of Training with Michele:
Infuse your riding with positive energy, clear direction, motivation, and accountability.
Overcome any self-imposed limitations such as fear, lack of confidence, etc.
Create incredible changes in focus and progress.
Make measurable, tangible progress.
Properly support all aspects of performance.
Develop solutions for problem areas
Create a detailed program to follow.
Dressage Experience
Beginnings in Dressage
Michele Montgomery started riding dressage in 1980. She was a working student with Mella Van Bruggen in Salinas, CA in 1983 and rode in numerous clinics while attending Colorado State University from 1984 to 1988. Clinics during that time included sessions with Jessica Ransenhausen, Denis Callin, Inez Profe Credo, Major Lindgren, Baron Hans von Blixen Fineke, and Jeff Moore.
The summer of 1986 she started and trained young warmblood horses on a breeding farm in Del Mar, CA. Michele rode/trained two Second level horses, a Training level horse, and started twenty 3 year olds. She developed a reputation as a skilled rider and trainer as she successfully showed a mare with a reputation for being dangerous to ride with scores above 67%.
Working and Training with Dietrich Von Hopffgarten
Dietrich Von Hopffgarten provided oversight to the training of the young horses in San Diego through regular clinics. He was an accomplished trainer through Grand Prix and was very sought after and well respected nationally. Dietrich completed much of his training under Egon von Neindorff at the Reitinstitut in Karlsruhe and passed on this wonderful knowledge, philosophy and passion for the horse.
Seabreeze Farms
The summer of 1986 Michele started and trained young warmblood horses on a breeding farm in Del Mar, CA. Dietrich Von Hopffgarten provided oversight to the training of the young horses through regular clinics. Michele rode/trained two Second level horses, a Training level horse, and started twenty 3-year-olds. She developed a reputation as a skilled rider and trainer as she successfully showed a mare, with the reputation for being unsafe to ride, with scores above 67%.
Blackwood Farms
Michele was a working student for Dietrich Von Hopffgarten at Blackwood Farms in Seattle, WA for the summer of 1987 and from 1988- 1991. She continued with lessons and schooling horses for Dietrich through 1992. She typically was assigned 5 horses to ride per day as a part of her stable duties. From 1981-1989, Michele trained her percheron TB cross from a wild 2 year old to Third level. This gelding was successfully shown in Seattle with scores between 65% and 70% in 1989.
Most of the horses that Michele rode and trained under Dietrich’s supervision were First level to Fourth level, but Michele also had regular access to schoolmasters trained to Intermediare and Grand Prix levels. She received lessons from Dietrich daily many of which involved riding Parsi, Dietrich’s Grand Prix exhibition horse.
Current Experience
Locally, Michele had been riding at Old Town Farms in Albuquerque. Her primary mount was an older Westfalian gelding, Postillion, who was trained to Intermediate I and left out of work for years. Michele Successfully rehabbed him and brought him back to Intermediate level work.
Michele rides and trains throughout the Albuquerque area. She rides in various clinics to include Conrad Schumacher, Nicole Polligkeit, and Karen Lencyk. Michele teaches and trains at various levels throughout the Albuquerque area. She specializes in riders or horses with fear, or who have been failing to make progress.
