Riding Biograph
Lynne Sprinsky began riding at the age of two, on the longe at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) where her Army officer father was stationed. Upon her family’s return to the US, her riding education continued at Jane Dillon’s Full Cry Farm in Vienna, VA, site of the “School for Young Riders,” where she was introduced to the Hunt Seat and learned to jump.  Subsequent tours in Germany resulted in Lynne’s becoming a member of a Reitverein in Stuttgart, and during the summers of her freshman and sophomore years at Sweet Briar College, riding at the world-renowned Reitinstitut Egon von Neindorff in Karlsruhe.  While at Sweet Briar, she was a Hunt Seat student of Paul Cronin, a devoté of Vladimir Littauer. 

After college, there was a brief vacation from riding while Lynne launched her first career as a photojournalist, eventually ending up in California and taking up Western Pleasure and Halter showmanship with Appaloosa and Morgan Horses.  After a short stay on the West Coast, she returned east with two horses in tow – the first she had ever owned. For a few years, she found a niche in English Pleasure and Hunter classes on the Appaloosa circuit, winning a Medallion with her homebred “Prince’s Thunder” as the top-placing Green and Working Hunter in the nation in 1984.  Shortly thereafter, a career move to Texas revealed that no Appaloosa Hunter classes were offered in the entire state, so she returned to her dressage roots and has been cultivating them ever since.

The intellectual rigor of dressage theory attracted Lynne, and after going down several “garden paths” in her search for instruction well-grounded in classical European dressage theory, she was lucky enough to discover Susan Terrall, a clinician now based in the Tryon, NC area.  With Terrall, Lynne spent five years re-making her seat before beginning to clinic frequently with Susan Terrall’s mentor, Erik Herbermann, himself a student of the Reitinstitut von Neindorff, and with Walter Zettl, a Czech now living in Canada and formerly an Olympic-caliber rider both in dressage and jumping.  Herbermann is the author of Dressage Formula and Zettl of Dressage in Harmony, both considered essential works for serious dressage students. With their encouragement, she returned to the Reitinsitut von Neindorff in early 2003, and for three full months worked daily at improving her seat, on both the longe and in the riding hall. In the process she was convinced anew of the crucial role longe work plays in the development of a rider’s seat.

Shortly after returning from Germany, Lynne found out about the BALIMO™ program and immediately recognized it as the missing link in her long quest for a Good Seat. Eckart’s work in helping riders overcome physical blockages that impede the development of their seats, combined with Jill Hassler’s integrated approach to teaching and learning, form an unsurpassed methodology for the teaching of good riding. A born teacher, now with the BALIMO™ credentials to her credit, Lynne is in growing demand as a clinician from coast to coast.

Lynne believes wholeheartedly in an approach that seeks to build a relationship of trust between horse and rider.  Because the horse, historically a prey animal, instinctively becomes frightened when his ability to flee a threat is compromised, the rider must develop skills that permit him/her to avoid causing the horse a loss of balance.  This in turn requires an independent seat, characterized by a stable torso, a well-turned, draped leg, and soft, elastic, receiving hands, all connected through the elbow to the pelvis, which must rest on its triangular base.  Such a seat can then be adapted to any riding discipline.  Eckart Meyners’ methodology of Six Point analysis (head/neck, sternum, shoulders, pelvis, sacroiliac joint, legs) is very helpful in pinpointing areas where specific exercises can assist the rider in gaining increased flexibility and control.

In Lynne’s philosophy, the horse is a reflection of its rider.  Any tension or imbalance in the rider is mirrored in the horse. The use of gadgets or shortcuts designed to modify the horse’s behavior or carriage only masks the real source of the problem.  These practices are at best temporary “band-aids” and at worst, can create real problems of their own, some of which can be very difficult and time-consuming to correct.

A working knowledge of equine anatomy and biomechanics is also an essential ingredient of good horsemanship, in Lynne’s philosophy, so she often travels with diagrams, charts, and a dry-erase board to help students understand specific concepts about how their riding affects their horses’ bodies.  When the clinic format allows, she likes to include a lecture. Having all students ‘on the same page’ allows mounted lesson time to be utilized more efficiently. When clinics are two days long or longer, the first day can be spent specifically in analyzing the student’s body to discover where the horse’s motion is being blocked, finding exercises to address the blockage, and then seeing the “instant” results in a freer moving horse who can more easily respond to the more refined aids. The second day then builds on this preparation for a more conventional ‘lesson.’

Lynne’s teaching methods are eclectic, a blend of the Herbermann¹ and Zettl² approaches with a touch of Mikolka³ and a whole big scoop of Meyners⁴ and Hassler-Scoop⁵. When time allows, she likes to have clinic applicants complete some questionnaires in advance of the clinic; the questionnaires ask about each student’s personality type and preferred learning style, their motivation and goals, as well as how various external factors such as work and family influence their riding.  When possible, a lecture/exercise session is held prior to the clinic.  Sharing all this information allows her to adapt her integrated approach to teaching and learning to the individual student.

¹Erik Herbermann addresses first and foremost the rider’s seat, permitting a rider to advance to more demanding work only when the seat is correct and stable, and the aids can be given independently, in proper dosage and at the right moment.

²Walter Zettl focuses on the improving the horse through gymnasticizing movements, using the classical schooling figures and transitions between and within gaits to supple and energize the horse.  His approach assumes a reasonably correct seat has already been achieved.

³Karl Mikolka is renowned for teaching specialized exercises to gymnasticize the horse, removing blockages wherever they occur in the horse’s body, and make it lively to soft aids. He is considered one of the greatest living teachers of classical dressage, if not the greatest.

⁴Eckart Meyners is primarily a kinesthesiologist, rather than a horseman, although he has worked with riders for over 20 years. He focuses on the rider’s use of his/her body atop the horse’s, isolates portions that are blocking the flow of the movement of the horse’s body through the rider, and prescribes exercises to address the responsible body part. The rider then returns to the horse to see whether the presenting problem has been improved or eliminated, and if not, then the process is repeated until improvement is shown.

⁵Jill Hassler-Scoop is the author of a number of books for riders and their teachers, and the developer of the Integrated Approach to Teaching and Learning. Sadly, Jill passed away in 2006, but the organization she founded, Equestrian Education Systems, Inc., lives on and is responsible for bringing Meyners’ work to the US.  EES offers the demanding BALIMO™ Program.