It was a great month of activity for our Chapter that helped with the county’s Pre-Fair and Fair. It was the first year the County agreed to have Dressage classes in the Open Fair. Debbie put together all the test sheets, time cards, and score board for the Fair so that it ran smoothly for the first year. Thank you to all the members who helped make it a success and to those who were able to ride in the Open Show. The Columbia County Chapter is hosting a speaker on Friday 9/30 at 5:30. Rachel McCart, founder of Equine Legal Solutions,is licensed to practice in California, Oregon, Washing and New York. Rachel graduated from Duke University School of Law and actively shows her APHA horses. Rachel will be discussing various aspects of liability, the importance of good contracts and what to do when things go wrong. The meeting will be held at the Village Inn in St. Helens, Oregon and is open to all members and non-member of ODS. Cost is $5 per person (plus any food or beverage you may order). Contact Erica at (503) 410-0749 for more information. Our meeting for August will be at the end of the month, date is still to be announced since we are trying to have a Bowen Work representative at the meeting to explain the benefits of the treatments for people and horses. All are invited to attend any of our meetings since they are being organized to benefit our community.

Submitted by Debbie Spitzenpfeil, President CCD-ODS

July is Columbia County Fair and for the first time, our Chapter encouraged the County to include Dressage in the Open Horse Show!  We are able to see the Dressage Court that our Chapter built for the County Fairgrounds in full use!  What a great month to show locally in our own arena for only $7.00 a class!!  Our Dressage Pads were delivered with our Chapter Logo on them and will be passed out in our Monthly Meeting for July at Sunshine Pizza on the 8th!  Future Chapter Meetings are held on the last Friday evening of every month.  We are planning on having an attorney lecture on liability and liability releases in August.  Pratiti with Bowen Works, a form of body muscle and ligament aligning will lecture on its benefits for the horse and rider in Sept. Also, with every meeting, we cover discuss a topic or training method in dressage based on top Clinician’s advise.  Video tapes from Conrad Schumacher,  Kyra Kyrkland and Frank Grelo are next!  All are welcome to attend any of our Chapter Meetings!

Debbie Spitzenpfeil

Every member was very excited to receive their new Chapter Jackets. The logo turned out just beautiful. Our next Chapter Meeting will be a braiding class for dressage braids and will be held at Debbie’s on April 22nd at
6:00pm. We will also be discussing how we can help as a Chapter in volunteering for show jobs and ODS functions.

May’s Chapter meeting will include a guest speaker on May 27th. We are inviting a Chiropractor/Acupuncture Vet who will discuss the benefits of treatment.

Congratulations to our Chapter “Columbia County Commuters” members who won their division at the Adult Team Show in Salem! Way to go girls..and horses!

Please visit our Facebook for more details on meetings.

Thank you!

Debbie Spitzenpfeil

Our dinner at Tapitio was a blast!  Thank you all for coming!  We got a lot accomplished with the selection of our new Chapter Jackets with our Logo Embroidered on it.  Thank you to Erica for the research and time for that endeavor!  Also thank you to Jennifer for the discourse on Preparing for the Show Season!  Debbie also shared an interesting article on Green Horse and Green Rider.  It outlined that it takes so much longer for the horse to be trained, patience being the number one priority, and that it is a good idea using a trainer who will help support you in your “project”, not trying to go alone. But most of all, the positive side of the article was that it was a journey full of learning experiences and that to finally get to the “other side” was very rewarding. We are having a Video night with “pot luck” dinner at Debbie’s, 31870 Canaan Road, Deer Island, Or 503-366-9201 on Friday February 25th at 5:30pm. All members non-members or even slightly interested ones are invited to come.  Please RSVP!!

Thanks,

Debbie Spitzenpfeil, President

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Columbia County Chapter News:

Our meeting for November will be Monday, November 22nd at Deer Island Stables.  We will be having Dr. Pratiti there to share with us the Bowen Muscle alignment techniques on some demo horses.  Our chapter is also helping to organize volunteers for a benefit for the Bradley Therapeutic Riding Center.  This Ride-A-Test on December 30th will go to help with handicapped children to continue their riding lessons and provide for the horses at BEAT – 100% of the proceeds will be dedicated to BEAT.  This Ride-A-Test will be 20 minute sessions where you ride a test, get a completed test sheet with scores and comments from the Judge, as well as a school with your horse from the Judge to help improve various parts of your test.  The Judge is Debbie Spitzenpfeil, who was trained in Germany through Grand Prix.  She has trained over 220 horses in her career from Training to Grand Prix, with scores averaging 68% to 75%.  Contact Erica at 503-410-0749 or see the BEAT website (www.beatriding.org) to sign up for your time slot.

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We had a great meeting with new dressage members. Thank you all for coming and a big thanks to those who volunteered at the Show.  The Videos we watched from Germany were very instructional and helped us all put some goals in place!  We voted on putting together another Ride A Test for the end of December during Christmas vacation. And also to send a donation to our favorite Horse Rescue again.  We also encouraged members to help with organizing some events that can encourage the growth of Dressage in our county, beginning with some news clips in our local newspaper.  We are inviting Dr. Pratiti next Chapter meeting to help us understand the processes of massage to help our Dressage horses as well as ourselves so that we have more supple horses and riders! – Debbie Spitzenpfeil

We had a wonderful and supportive summer for our Chapter.  Thank you to all who volunteered to help and ride at the 4-H Dressage Seminar for Columbia County. Thank you to Kristi Larsen for scribing at the Columbia County Fair, to Jennifer Johnson and Christa Leuks for scoring and Debbie Spitzenpfeil for judging.  We had 16 4-H riders this year which means every year our Chapter organizes the Pre-Fair and Fair, we have had 100% increase each year we participate! Our monthly meetings will continue to be the last Monday of every month at 6:30 pm.  Please come and join us at Debbie’s house for snacks, dressage lectures and videos! This next meeting, everyone in lessons and clinics will be video taped and we will all watch together and analyze each other–remember, we all can improve and learn from each other!  For more information, please contact Debbie Spitzenpfeil [

Columbia County Dressage Chapter – ODS Report