Dressage all to be understood

Those who love it, those who find it boring, those who can’t do without it and those who stand in the rectangle as if they were going to the gallows, dressage is, to date, perhaps the most debated and targeted equestrian discipline, and yet everyone should do a bit of it.

Hints of history

The name, clearly of French origin, means ‘to dress’, i.e. to train, to coach and is defined as the highest form of horsemanship. The origin of this sport is lost in the mists of time and, like almost all disciplines related to horse riding, it originated from the requirements of war.

Elastic, agile and ready horses were needed to be able to fight, this was already written by Xenophon, philosopher, warrior and, above all, student of Socrates, in his work ‘On Horsemanship’. Centuries have passed since then, everything has changed in the man-horse relationship, but the roots of this splendid sport are not lost. A good dressage horse is round, supple, agile and snappy.

Why it is so beautiful

Dressage is a very special sport, there is a rectangle with letters around it, to the untrained eye placed in no particular order, there is a horse with a braided mane that makes movements at the three gaits with all their variations, if you go up a level, and a rider dressed as a penguin who, if he is very good, seems to do nothing.

So why is it magnetic? Well, because it is much more than that. The pair, which is a real pair, the kind that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins, dances inside the rectangle, executing the required figures with millimetric precision, step by step, without ever losing sight of the objective, riding, as Laura Conz, the flag-bearer of Italian dressage, always says, ‘One time at a time’.

Yes, this is what dressage is all about: elegance, order, discipline, attention to detail, in an almost maniacal manner, even more so than in other sports. Seeing a well-mounted shot soothes the soul and makes us realise how much man and horse can be in tune, that harmony that has represented us for centuries and centuries, ever since our collaboration began.

Why it is so difficult

Dressage, however, is difficult. To do, to watch, to understand. And it is so difficult because it is pure technique. If, even for a layman, it is easy to get passionate about a show jumping competition, where the pair must reach the end without falling or dropping barriers, to greatly simplify a discipline that is much more than that, a dressage competition is complicated to understand.

It can be spectacular even for those who are not fans, to admire a grand prix level kur, because it is a choreography, a ballet, but the technique behind it all is impossible to grasp for those who are not experts in the subject and this difficulty is, at the same time, the charm and the sword of Damocles of this sport.

The horses are round, the movements taken to their maximum spectacularity and this may seem, to the uninitiated, to be a stretch, but it is not so, it is instead the sublimation of the man/horse union. That is why it is easy to criticise this speciality made up of technique and detail.

Of course, as, unfortunately, in every field, there are uglinesses, it would be foolish to say otherwise, but it is not the discipline that should be demonised, but rather those who do not respect the well-being of their four-legged companion. 

Because everyone should do it… at least a little bit

All young riders approaching this splendid and varied world should practice a little dressage. It is needed and a lot, and not only on horseback. Thanks to dressage one understands how important technique is, not that it is not needed in other disciplines, quite the contrary!

Precisely because it is important, acquiring the basics of dressage is preparatory, whatever discipline you wish to focus on. Attention to detail is the basis of dressage, every centimetre of rectangle is important, you can never lose concentration, every step is the engagement of the next one, the next figure depends on each one and, if you lose even one centimetre, you compromise the success of the entire round.

Dressage teaches you to concentrate, to leave nothing to chance, to take care of every detail, every little detail because every single element is important for the whole. Preparing a pair for a shoot means putting them in front of their limits and trying to overcome them, without any barriers.

Elena Pecora

© Rights Reserved.