Welcomes Latest Clinician Addition Shannon Dueck
Sacramento, CA – May 8, 2012 – The Western States Horse Expo is pleased to announce that Canadian dressage rider and trainer Shannon Dueck will be a featured clinician during this year’s event. Dueck, who also has dual citizenship and resides in Loxahatchee, FL, has represented Canada at the highest levels of the sport on many occasions, and is currently aiming her top mount Ayscha towards the 2012 London Olympics. The Western States Horse Expo is scheduled for June 8-10, 2012 at the Cal Expo Fairgrounds in Sacramento, CA.
Her mother, Jacqueline Oldham, introduced Dueck to dressage at a very young age, and in 1994 she spent many months training in Holland as a working student for Bert Rutten. In 1995, Dueck rode in her first international competition and was long-listed for the Canadian Equestrian Team in 1996 with her first star mount, Korona. The pair eventually earned the Individual Silver Medal at the 1999 Pan American Games and competed at the 2003 World Cup Finals. Dueck’s current mount, Ayscha, began the Grand Prix in 2010 at just nine-years-old, and has competed internationally with the Canadian team. The pair have now set their sights on the 2012 London Olympics, where they hope to help bring home a medal for their home country.
This is the first year that Dueck, a member of the Vita Flex Victory Team, will be joining the Western States Horse Expo, and she is very excited about the trip. “The best thing about these types of events is that people get exposed to so many different aspects of good horsemanship,” she commented. “You can learn from every part of the industry. There’s good horses and horsemanship in all aspects of the industry.”
During the clinics, Dueck will be focusing on how to develop impulsion and power as riders advance through the levels. “It is important at the lower levels that you create a correct reaction forward from the leg, and from that a steady connection over the horses back. Then through transitions and lateral work, we take the forward reaction from the leg through more complex exercises.”
Dueck continued, “It’s about what good dressage, which means maintaining positive forward energy into a harmonious connection. That’s good dressage at training level and good dressage at grand prix. I am hoping that people will go away from the clinic realizing that the movements as we go up a level are not more important than maintaining that basic correct, connection through the horse’s back.”
Over the past 13 years, Horse Expo Events has established the Western States Horse Expo as the gold standard of equine events. The 2012 Western States Horse Expo takes center stage from June 8-10, 2012 at the Cal Expo Fairgrounds in Sacramento, CA. In addition to the Magnificent 7, the Project Cowboy – Cowgirls Only, and the Horse Expo Horse Sale during that weekend, there will be several clinicians at the Expo: Chris Cox, Bernie Traurig, Steve Rother, Larry Whitesell, Eitan Beth-Halachmy, David Bodin, Bonnie Davis, Dr. Sue Thompson, Christy Landwehr, Peggy Cummings, Robert M. Miller, DVM. There will also be breed demonstrations, Young Rider Park, Equine Dream Art Show and Book Corral.
For more information about Shannon Dueck, please visit http://www.dueckdressage.com/.
For more information on the Western States Horse Expo please visit www.horsexpo.com.
