Why I Ride Dressage

I have done most English disciplines with my horse, Echo, including eventing up to the Novice level, hunter/jumpers to 3 foot, and pleasure classes. Now we are schooling 3^rd Level dressage and hopefully making our 3^rd Level debut in August! A lot of my friends are still eventers and I suspect they think I am insane for making the switch to straight dressage. I have gotten the question: when are you going to start jumping again? from several people and my answer is always that I have not stopped jumping, I have stopped competing in jumping. We still jump at home occasionally for fun and to cross train.

Achieving a Bronze Medal on a Thoroughbred you are training yourself (with lots of help from experienced trainers) is no small feat. When I first decided to make this my goal, I had shown mostly Training Level and had done one First Level test where I got my first First Level score towards my Bronze Medal. I thought it would be a fun thing to take a year or so and do (yes, I was ignorant). It took me three shows to get my second First Level score and that is about the time that I realized this dressage thing may be harder than it seems…

I can get so focused on goals that it borderlines on obsession and when I made the decision to stop competing in jumping disciplines, it was freeing. I now had no pressure to do anything except put pressure on myself to do better in dressage! I have also discovered how incredibly fun dressage is. It is not endless circles and straight lines… learning how to manipulate the horse’s body parts individually and as whole is quite frankly, amazing. I love that I can get on a horse now and feel the crookedness, or if they are pushing their ribs one way or the other. It was not so long ago that I did not understand what my coach meant when she told me to move my horse’s shoulders.  This ability to move my horse’s body parts around has really led me to have a greater sense of empathy for him when the work gets hard and has also helped create a deeper relationship between us.

I do miss cross country, but that is about the only aspect of showing over fences that I miss. There is nothing stopping me from taking Echo schooling and I’m hoping to get out to a local course sooner rather than later. However I have discovered a different kind of adrenaline rush in dressage. It is not just those moments where everything falls into place and it is perfect, although those golden moments give me just enough of a taste of what it COULD be that I chase after them constantly! It is also feeling the power coil under you that is such a rush. At this point, I can get Echo’s canter so “bouncy” and collected that it actually intimidates me! The power feels like it could just explode at any moment and it is definitely not a boring feeling.

Dressage is also absolutely not for the faint of heart, as I’ve discovered. I am in the process of confirming Echo’s lead changes and while his have been less exciting than some other horses I know of, we definitely had some leaping around while he was trying to figure out what the heck I am asking for. Being brave enough to push through those times when you feel like you are sitting on a livewire is intense. It also requires a lot of bravery to go out and practice things that are challenging. This is not a sport for cowards.