Training Horses the Ingrid Klimke Way An Olympic Medalist's Winning Methods for a Joyful Riding Partnership

Olympic gold-medal-winner Ingrid Klimke was born under a bright star when it came to fulfilling dreams of equestrian greatness. Her father, the renowned Dr. Reiner Klimke, was an Olympic rider himself, and he instilled his principles of training and riding with the good of the horse in mind in his daughter at a young age. Ingrid has furthered her father’s esteemed legacy, modernizing two of the classic works by her father—the bestselling The New Basic Training of the Young Horse and Cavalletti—and tirelessly championing a balanced, fair, and caring system of training the horse that ensures his physical and mental well-being even while preparing him for the very top levels of international competition.

And now Ingrid has written a book of her own, detailing her personal system of bringing a horse along through the stages of progressive development, and providing readers guidelines and exercises to ensure success without stress at each milestone. The result is surely a joyful partnership between rider and horse that will go the distance.

Ingrid Klimke is an international trainer of dressage, show jumping, and event horses, and currently competes for Germany as an event rider. She had always been able to call on her father Reiner Klimke’s experience but has also been greatly influenced by Fritz Ligges, Ian Miller, and Anne Kursinski. She’s appeared at five Olympics, from 2000 to 2016. With her horse Abraxxas, she won two gold medals in team eventing, at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. She won a team silver medal with Hale Bob at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. She placed seventh at the 2002 Dressage World Cup Final with the horse Nector van het Carelshof.

In January 2012, she was promoted to a “Reitmeister” (Riding Master, a special title of the German Equestrian Federation). Klimke is the second woman ever to be promoted as “Reitmeister”.