Dressage is a sport that thrives on feeling, on inspiration, on partnership, and well, a touch of magic even! When we watch the best combinations perform we feel inspired to do better, not just in the arena, but in our lives. It’s about thinking about Grand Prix and then reaching it. It’s about day in and day out training in pursuit of a target. It’s about two steps forward, one step back, and it’s about the drive and passion to keep on trying.
I started to think about who inspires me, both as a rider and as a person, and a few major names came to mind.
My mum was my mentor from the beginning and while lots of kids have to find their own way down the horsey path, my path was pretty well mapped out before I had mastered the ability to put one foot in front of the other. However, mum believes that I would have been involved in some sort of horse sport even if I wasn’t the daughter of a Nuno follower, because I just loved being around them.
My horses have also inspired me throughout my life in many ways and not just in terms of their spirit and work ethic during training, but also because of the curiosity and bravery they reveal if you watch them closely. My first ever pony Green Valley Royal Albert, or Bobby, was long time best mates with my sister's horse, Cygnet. Two grey geldings who could spend hours playing “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”. I remember when Cygnet died very suddenly from the grey horse disease (melanoma). Bobby knew and he searched for Cygnet and mourned for his friend, and I was inspired by the depth of their friendship, and the emotion that my little white pony could express.
Batialo inspires me to laugh at myself and at the world and at everybody else. Sometimes I feel like the two of us are in a very secret club that no-one else is privy to. Just at the moment when I’m about to pack up and go home to Australia, he will give me that bit more, or another time let out a huge sigh in the middle of our canter pirouette beginnings, as if to say “Man this is hard work, but I’m really going to try my best to do it for you Sarah;” or try to squat that annoying blow fly with his front foot!
Nuno Oliviera inspired my mother and his books have become my bed time, morning time, lunch time, and any other time, reading manuals, to which I turn to not only for inspiration, but also guidance.
So what is it that inspires you to follow, or take part in, the sport of dressage?
For German Olympian Ingrid Klimke inspiration came from her father, the great Reiner Klimke, whose talent in the arena inspired the dressage world in many ways. Ingrid firmly believes that to win at the top level, you must be a pair that has that extra something, the ability to make people watching think 'I wish I could be like that'.
“For sure you need to be an inspiring pair (horse and rider) to win at the top level, as you need to be so special,” Ingrid told me.
Granted the opportunity to watch great dressage riders like Joseph Neckermann, Ivan Kalita, Ivan Kisimov, Lisellotte Linsenhof, and Harry Boldt, among many others, O-judge Maribel Alonso feels that these inspiring riders changed the chip inside her head and after watching them she found Dressage to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“At the same time I met a great lady Margit Beckmann, Swedish origin married to a German businessman living in Mexico who loved horses and dressage and introduced me to it," Alonso remisced. "This lady, together with an eventing rider from the army that she used to sponsor, took me under their tutelage and introduced me to a real dressage horse for the first time. Later on I met Coronel Nyblaeus, George Theodorescu and Dr Uwe Schulten Baumer and had a chance to take clinics with them. More exposure to watching great riders, and bigger names like Reiner Klimke, Johann Hinemann, Herbert Rehbein, Margit Otto Crepin, Kyra Kyrklund, among others and I became addicted."
Maribel believes that there are some riders and horses that are so inspiring when you see them going they just make your day.
“They fill your heart and soul with the beauty and harmony they are able to present," she said. "They merge with their horses in such a way that when their performance is over, you wish they could keep on going for a little longer.”
Unable to list all the combinations that have made her feel something truly special, Maribel says that incredibly special horses and outstanding combinations have brought tears to her eyes while they are in the arena. “In those moments when I have given a ten and have thought it was not enough!”
Added that the younger generation, the future of our sport, are also a great source of inspiration, our pony, junior and young riders are both motivated and extremely talented, and Maribel is impressed by their commitment to dressage from an early age.
We may at times also meet people who immediately inspire us, not just because of their talent on the horse, but for their genuinely nice way of being. Invited to the dressage convention in the UK, I felt a bit like a small fish who’d swam into the Atlantic, but was delighted to find that the hosts and the guest lecturers, were some of the most down to earth and fun people I have ever met.
Our horse world is also filled with those who try to inspire, but fail to do so because they lack the understanding or appreciation of what is truly worth merit in our sport. Is a medal worth anything if you lose the respect of your audience or the trust of your horse in your pursuit to get it?
Indeed, our world is changing and success is now being granted to those who inspire for the right reasons, inspire for the journey, and not for the short cut road and uninspiring or even unkind methods. Our dressage sport goes hand in hand with the word “inspire,” because without a little inspiration, you can achieve accuracy for an 8, but will never achieve the wow factor for a 9 or 10!
The true partnerships in dressage inspire us to be better riders and better horsemen in the hope that we can one day also inspire others to take up our dancing sport, and execute our tests, whether it be a prelim at the local show, or a Grand Prix for sheep stations, with just that little bit of extra something.
That bit of spark that makes people think, I wish I could do that!
by Sarah Warne for Eurodressage
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