Making Dressage a Family Affaire

Thu, 01/10/2008 - 00:00
Eurodressage F.O.C.U.S.

Dressage is known to be a solitary sport with one rider at the epicenter and a team of supporters behind the horse and rider combination. The typical sight at shows are the daughter or son riding the horse with the parents helping as grooms, rooting for their child in their role of emotional and financial supporters.

But dressage can also be a family affaire and the Davis family proves this. They united themselves as a family by taking on dressage as their hobby. Many times a week, father Michael Davis drove his leading ladies, 10-year old daughter BeBe and wife Sara, to Cesar Parra's Performance Farm in Jupiter, FL, for lessons and training, but he was unable to convince Sara or Bebe to join him on family outings near the river or at sea to share in his own passion for fishing. That was a decisive moment for him to change the organization of his leisure time.

Michael decided he could bring his family together by learning to ride himself. He made a deal with Cesar to secretly take lessons at Performance Farm on days that Sara and BeBe were not riding. Michael bought himself the steady schoolmaster Haschar and as a Christmas present he surprised his wife and daughter by mounting his own horse and riding it in the indoor school in front of their eyes and shocked composure.

The Davis family is now united in their hobby at Performance Farm in the winter and at Rita Brown's equestrian centre in Massachussetts during the summer. BeBe rides her recently imported Dutch FEI dressage pony Bobo, wife Sara saddles Dancing Queen and Michael trains Haschar in private lessons.

"It is great to see an entire family having fun with horses. They not only share their passion for horses, but in the limited amount of spare time Michael has, he gets to see his family having fun doing sports," Olympic dressage rider Parra explained. "As their trainer, it gives me a great feeling of pleasure of joy."

Originally trained as a dentist, Dr. Parra has instead devoted his life to the pursuit of perfection in the saddle. Splitting his time between New Jersey and Florida, Dr. Parra has a thriving business of horses in training as well as a loyal following of young riders and amateurs. Cesar is one of only four dressage trainers residing in the United States to be recognized by the exclusive International Dressage Trainer's Club. Performance Farm was founded in 1999. Parra and his team provide full-service training based on the Classical German Training Methods. This entails a tailored program for the horse and rider, and a team which communicates with the owner and service providers to optimize the health of the horse.

Related Links
Official Website Performance Farm
A Walk on the Premises of Dr. Cesar Parra