Dressage is a sport that is extremely fascinating, particularly to those who know the degree of talent and technique involved in training and riding a horse, particularly at Grand Prix level. However, for those who love us, but don't understand why we spend day in day out, rain, hail or shine, trying to dance on a four legged animal, it is a little less visually stimulating. We have all arrived home to be met with "did you win the race?"
And while dressage lovers can feel butterflies at the completion of the perfect Kur, our less knowledgeable friends liken it to watching grass grow!
So what is dressage? Is it the training of the horse, the relationship between horse and rider? Is it the ability to perform as one, to produce brilliance on horseback, to dance and connect with your horse? Or is it all of this?
I wonder looking back over dressage history, that perhaps we sometimes lose our grasp on what lies at the heart of dressage and get caught up in the world of modern day sport. As one of a select group of sports that allow men and woman to compete as equals, our sport is built on fairness and so too that condition should extent to the care and compassion we give to our partner.
As a girl I grew up watching videos of the great Dr Reiner Klimke and Nuno Oliveira, who somehow managed to achieve all that brilliance and spectacle and yet the horses seemed completely at peace. Sure, the horses today have more power and the quality amongst those at the top is exceptional, but when did we lose sight of dressage's ultimate goal. Not to win, to show off, to produce sheer power.
What lies at the heart of dressage is a partnership. A partnership that should be respected, cared for, shown compassion, given time to mature or room to go back, understanding that we each face limitations, and the kindness to never punish our partner in our pursuit of knowledge and athleticism.
While our friends at school ask us if we won the race, or those non horsey relations faint when we tell them how much we spend each year on horses, those involved in dressage know they are part of something special.
"Is a beautiful sport that is unique to all others as it combines power, strength, artistry, discipline, and partnerships," sai Australian Hayley Beresford.
"Dressage is the satisfaction you feel everyday, creating this special feeling with your horse. That feeling that your horse is really playing with you, because there is such a huge connection between the two of you. That satisfaction is really incredible... I don't think that you can have this feeling with other sports," Italian Silvia Rizzo explained.
"It is a passion and an art," said French rider Catherine Henriquet.
"Dressage to me is a source of self knowledge, self reflection and perfection, an eternal goal that is never meant to be met," said Australian Tristan Tucker.
"For me dressage is the perfect development of the horse's body into a gymnastic athlete, growing together with an elastic rider, to form a unity that can show all the natural movements they can show in liberty and with the greatest harmony possible," Jan Bemelmans explained.
Catherine Dufour explained that "Top level dressage is when horse and rider join together to create art...It is the soft, invisible, and sensitive connection between horse and rider, a connection so deep that the two entities 'melt' into one".
Oldest dressage olympian, Hiroshi Hoketsu, said, "dressage is a partnership between the rider and the horse. It is to communicate and understand, and then build a collaboration with the horse. It is dressage that inspires my desire to live young."
"It's the gymnastic and progressive training of the horse," Richard Davidson stated.
"Dressage, when well prepared, is the best, most seamless connection, that can possibly exist between horse and rider, a connection that unites the pair in all directions. It is a discipline where the rigour and control has to be at the maximum between both parties. It is the greatest symbiosis that can exist between horse and rider, which will only reach the highest level if the symbiosis exists not only physically, but in the emotions of both entities," according to Portuguese Olympian Goncalo Carvalho.
For a different perspective, the Portuguese champion also asked his young son, "what it is that daddy does?". His reply, "dressage is my father doing piaffe."
If the sport of dressage is all these things and much more, competition is an arena to express all this beauty, to show off the hard work, the relationship, the effort. However, should a rider compromise their moral conscience, and love for the horse, to take home the first place? Or should the win be in the everyday, in the making a change for the first time, or the whinny you hear from your horse as you enter the stable?
Those who love animals and know little about dressage can still appreciate our sport, but will question where the line is when you can push your horse beyond friendship, just to win.
I tell people I dance with my horse, sometimes he takes over, and sometimes he lets me lead him, but the real test is in maintaining our partnership, through the ups and downs, that we share together. If the non-dressage family ask if I won the race, I simply tell them I win it every time I enter my stable, and see my friend peering out of his stable door.
Isn't that what our sport is really all about?
by Sarah Warne for Eurodressage
Photos © Astrid Appels
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