by Carlie Ringland
I still can’t believe it! I had a once-in-a-lifetime dream come true! Six riders were selected to ride in the Anky van Grunsven Clinic at the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ Tournament (September 5-9) and I was one of those lucky people!
At the age of 13 this was a huge deal for me!! I was able to ride in her clinic two days, for 45 minutes each. Riding at Spruce Meadows during the ‘Masters’ was amazing, but getting lessons from Anky was even more awesome!
I luckily had the qualifications since they were the same as the Youth National Championships in the FEI Children’s Division that I had already qualified to attend.
I rode my 19-year-old American Warmblood Native Double (a.k.a. “Lefty”).
To explain how exciting this was for me to my friends that were not familiar with dressage, let alone horses, was hard. I compared Anky to Tiger Woods of the golfing world or David Beckham of the soccer world. After I told them that, they realized how big of a deal it was for me!
All in the end, I loved how Anky kept an open mind and I learned a lot of different ways to deal with different issues.
She was friendly, funny, and so down to earth. She was really someone you could have fun with. And in my lesson, I did!
Even though my mom said I looked a bit nervous, how could I not!! It’s “ANKY!!!”
