Montie Eagle has studied dressage since 1984, working with Karl Mikolka (former Oberbereiter of the Spanish Riding School), Karen Ramsing-Bixler, Linnea Seaman and Pat Smeltzer. In addition she has taken clinics with Erik Herbermann and Olympic Team Rider Lendon Gray.
Pat Smeltzer was a protégée of Karl Mikolka’s, and was careful to teach as he had taught her. This was the technique Karl always called the Weyrother Method, originating with Max Ritter von Weyrother, former head rider of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. This gave Montie a classical background and a firm foundation on which to build as she continued to train and teach.
Her growing interest in ground work and round penning as integral to producing calm and obedient dressage horses led her to work with Jay Catherman. Montie subsequently took a three day clinic with noted Western horseman and judge Richard Shrake.
“I remember when I had first met Richard Shrake”, she says. I exclaimed how surprised I was to see he used dressage techniques in his work. “Richard laughed and answered, “The wheel is still round!” In other words, she had seen where the same skills that worked in the dressage arena were integral to the training of all good horses.
As a reflection of her enthusiasm with western riding, her regular teacher is Lori B. Morris, winner of two reserve world championships with Paint horses.
In June 2006 she rode in the five-day long professional trainers’ clinic given by John Lyons -- one of only two riders other than John Lyons certified trainers to be invited.
“Just as my work with Pat and Karl had tremendously influenced all my thinking, my work with John Lyons also completely changed my life. Since 1996, when I first saw him in person at Equine Affaire, I tried to audit every clinic and symposium I could get to where he taught. The week I spent at the Professional Trainer's Clinic in June 2006 allowed me to work one-on-one with John and share ideas with trainers from all around the East Coast, South and Midwest.”
John's way of stressing the simplest and easiest way to get results was different from what some teachers had shown me. His horses understood what he wanted and at whatever point in their training they were - they gave him this incredible softness and obedience. I saw that the simple approach is best. At the same time, John says as riders we need to be more specific in our requests to the horse because asking in a general way only gets a general response.
Montie and John Lyons, at his November 2008 clinic in Chesterfield VA
Late in 2006 Montie audited a clinic given by Jack Brainard , noted reining horse trainer and producer of 10 world champions. Jack’s training is completely dressage-based -- compatible with the same techniques she had learned from Karl Mikolka. She decided if she ever had an opportunity to work with him, that she would do so, and got to ride in his three day clinics in both 2007 and 2008.
When John Lyons returned to the eastern United States in November 2008, she was able to ride with him once again.
“This made me want to seek out the underlying principles of all the valid lines of thought I had experienced in decades of learning. What were the ideas and truths all these great horsemen trained by and taught? And more importantly, how could these ideas help my students understand their own horses better and continue to become better horse people.”
Montie was a guest clinician and popular speaker at the PA Horse World Expo in both 2005 and 2006. Topics that she taught included “Those Darn Diagonals,” “Preparing for your First Show,” “Concerns for the Older Rider,” and “How You Think and What You Say is How You Ride.”
During her career, she has brought former race horses from off the track to working third and fourth levels and some F.E.I. movements. Past and present students include dressage enthusiasts, hunter-jumper riders, eventers and western pleasure riders, reflecting her philosophy that “dressage is for everyone.”
“The things making a horse into a joyous ride and a lifelong companion – whatever riding discipline you choose – are the same. We all want our horses to be pleasurable and willing partners and we want our equine friends to stay sound and enjoy their work as well. Come see how dressage at Eagle-Glenn Farm can help you with your riding issues and problems and increase your understanding of how your horse thinks and works.”
To train horses through training their riders; to help riders learn how their position influences their horses; to show riders how to maximize their understanding of how to train by coordinating their cues to the horses’ footfalls in any given gait.
By doing so, riders greatly increase their understanding of their horses’ response and bring themselves and their horses into alignment with their Creator-given capabilities.
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