Dressage?!

by Sylvie
(USA)

I've been working on jumping a lot, and my horse has good endurance. I'm definitely going to enter show jumping and cross country, but what about dressage? I've no clue how it works, but I want to do be able to compete in Eventing a lot.. any tips or ideas?

Comments for Dressage?!

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Re: Dressage?
by: Lynn

[Please read this right away] I actually take lessons in dressage and it is so fun! It requires a lot of effort to learn but it is worth it when you and the horse move in fancy ways as a team.
sylvie
by: Anonymous

Jumping is by far the best to do but if your horse is old I would go for dressage! My horse is not old but we still do dressage cause she loves it so much!

I hope I have given u some good advice!
Dressage training for cross country
by: Sydney from Horsecrazygirls.com

I didn't start dressage until recently when I joined a 4-H club that did 3-day eventing. I think it would really be best to have an instructor who can teach you as it's quite different. But it wasn't terribly hard to get started. (I am not at a high level or anything.) I still like hunters best but I'm told dressage is an important foundation so it's well worth trying to learn.
Hi Sylvie
by: Unicorn

Good for you! You've gotta have some guts to want to do eventing. That's a serious test of horse and rider.
Never having competed in dressage, I can't speak from experience, but as far as I understand it dressage is basically flat work. A dressage test - different tests for different levels (beginners don't do anything harder than trot in a circle, but advanced dressage riders do crazy hard stuff like flying changes of lead in canter, canter pirouettes, half-passes, piaffe [trot on the spot] and Spanish walk) - is ridden in an arena in front of a panel of judges. Judges award points for each movement, then add them up somehow to get the total score for the test.
The aim is to show how well-trained and well-ridden your horse is, and to have him be obedient, supple, responsive, rhythmic, collected, straight and half a dozen other things all at the same time. It's hard, but like most hard things, pretty worth it.

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