If you go to any pony club on a typical rally day, you’ll be sure to hear the moans & groans from many of the young riders when they’re told they have to do a dressage session first up. Actually, I’m being a bit tough on the youngsters there…it’s not just them that whine, many of the adults do too!
Many people find dressage boring, after all, who could possibly enjoy going round and round in circles when there’s other activities like show jumping or cross country that are so much more exciting. Some people do, but they tend to be in the minority a lot of the time.
So what on earth is the point of doing dressage?
If you know your French, the word dressage should give you a clue straight up. Dressage is a French word for training. So it simply means you’re training your horse.
The better trained your horse is, the easier it will be to ride. He/she will:
- Stop exactly when asked so you don’t go galloping out of control onto the main road & into the path of cars.
- Turn on a dime when you ask in the show jumping jump off you want to win, instead of trying to drag you out of the arena gate and back to the horse trailer.
- Move sideways off your legs when out hacking on the road, so your leg doesn’t get ripped off by the barbed wire fence next to you.
- Listen to you more when they have an attack of pre-event nerves. Work them through with a bit of dressage and they’ll soon settle down – they’ll be so busy listening to you they won’t be able to focus so much on what was upsetting them!
The list of benefits from dressage is endless. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to enjoy it, but it’s definitely worth doing. The benefits for you and your horse or pony are well worth it.
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