The Art of Dressage is a complete harmony of horse and rider. It is the basic schooling of EVERY kind of horse and rider and should welcome horses of any size, shape, breed, and age.
Dressage by definition is a noun. It is the training of a horse to carry out a series of precise controlled movements in response to minimum signals from the rider. It is an event where the horse and rider are judged on the elegance, precision, and discipline of the horses movements. Its basic fundamental purpose is to develop, through progressive training methods, a horses natural athletic ability and willingness to perform.
To the untrained eye dressage resembles dancing, especially when performed by a highly trained horse and rider. The rider communicates through subtle motions and shifts of weight which should be almost imperceptible to the observer. It is with these subtle motions that the horse should float across the arena in a harmony all of their own.
Dressage is not meant to be exclusive to the warmbloods and Europeans of the world. It is meant to be used as a systematic training process for ALL equine disciplines; from gymkana, and barrel racing, all the way up to the top show jumping horses. The basic frame of the horse always being the same with the poll at the highest point and the horses face approaching vertical with most of the horses weight on the haunches allowing elevation of the forehand.
So why my rant you ask? I get tired of people saying Event horses and riders don't know how to do dressage. In this day in age, since the changes made to eventing (no more long format at the upper levels and shorter more technical cross country courses) you have to have a horse who is good at dressage. If your horse is the one cantering sideways down the center line (if they ever even made it TO the centerline) or is snorting at every letter, or is the one seen doing pirouettes and trotting backwards in a Novice level test, then you will not be in the top of the pack when it comes to scoring. At the lower levels a good score in dressage means EVERYTHING. People don't pull rails at Novice (and most of the time either they get around cross country or they don't- theres nothing in-between) so a well schooled dressage horse does better. At the upper levels the same is ringing more and more true, and if you want to make that three-stride-corner-to-corner-bending-line-through-the-trees-down-the-hill-o-death you had best teach your horse some colleciton and elevation or your not going to be one of the pairs on that coveted short list for the Olympics.
So what you ask IS the difference..
Scoring.
Wow, you say? That's it?
Yes.
And not scoring in the way Weltensternmeisternostro (the Intermediare Dressage horse) got an 8 on his piaffe while Bottle Rocket (Advanced Level Event horse) got a 6 on his 10 meter trot circle.
Its simply in the way the scores are calculated. In Dressage competitions its a percentage, while in Eventing its a penalty. In Dressage you want the percentage to be higher, while in Eventing you want the penalty to be lower. The result both want to have HIGH scores on the test, but the calculations at the END are different.
That's it.
Or well that's the way it should be.
Ok, happy cold February week everyone. I don't know about you but I can't wait for spring
Signing off
~Mandy
