Lots of news.  First, we have a new Masterson Method Certified Practitioner in Denton near Dallas, Texas. Vanessa Helvey just completed Phase III Course at Austin with flying colors. Congratulations Vanessa! More about her below.

The winter horse show season in Florida has wound down, and competitors from many disciplines have headed north. I'm home in Iowa for most of April. It was a fun season, with the best of the best US riders competing in a series of Olympic Jumping Trials in Wellington for positions on the 2012 US Olympic Jumping Team coming up this summer in England. The selection process continues. You can find the standings here. 

I had a chance to hook up with some of my friends on the US Singles Driving Team at the Black Prong Equestrian Center in north central Florida, where some of the best Driving competitors come to train and compete for the winter months. Robin Groves, Donna Crookston and Kim Stover have another shot at the US Singles Team competing in Portugal this summer.  

I was able to catch up with Pandor (from the 2011 Pan Am Endurance Championships in Chile) and Juniper (2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, KY) both owned and ridden by Deb Reich, and with the amazing Meg Sleeper's horses Cadie ( 2011 Pan Am Endurance Championships), Harmon (2010 WEG in Lexington) and Reveille (2008 World Endurance Championships in Malaysia). We are all hoping she will compete at the 2012 World Endurance Championships in England this coming (let me look at my calendar...) August!

It was exciting to meet Peter Atkins in Ocala this winter and work on his two horses Henny and Drake. Peter and Henny were on the Australian Eventing Team at the WEG in Lexington in 2010 (it seems like just last year) and are going for the 2012 Australian Olympic Eventing Team this summer. If you are on Facebook you can go his page, Run Henny Run, where you can follow his progress.  On You Tube, you can watch a helmet-camera view of Peter and Henny competing the cross-country event at the 2010 WEG. It's really amazing to watch what it's like to jump that impressive course!  I'm hoping to hook up with them in England this summer before the Olympics.

The big news is, in addition to Olympics and the World Endurance Championships, also going on this summer in England and Ireland are Masterson Method Seminars and Courses! (It was a little tricky, but we were able to schedule them so as not to draw too many spectators away from the Olympics.) If you're looking for an equestrian vacation our courses in Devon and Ireland are beautiful places to spend a week learning to work on horses. We're at a different barn (yard) every day, and we usually find ourselves at a different pub each day for lunch (no extra charge for the pub tour).

Finally, we're gearing up our efforts to promote Beyond Horse Massage, book and dvd and seminars by - among other things - doing more presentations at events like the Equine Affaire and regional horse fairs around the country.  

We'll let you know via this newsletter, but also keep up with our Facebook page. I'm being nudged to keep it updated. There you'll find some important things, and always fun things. If you find that we'll be at an equine event near you, come on down! If you'd like to help man the booth, answer questions, just talk to people about horses, feel free to contact us.

Until then, like me, Enjoy your horses!

It's alright to do massage on the horse before a light workout or lesson. Gentle movement after the massage is generally good. However, any big changes you make in the horse during massage could affect the way the horse moves, so it is not recommended to work on the horse for the first time just before an important class, for example.