What is dressage?
Dressage is a discipline where a horse and rider perform a set sequence of precise movements, judged on accuracy and harmony rather than speed.
Dressage tests a horse and rider through a prescribed sequence of movements: transitions, circles, lateral work, and more advanced steps at higher levels: ridden from memory in an arena. Judges score each movement, and the horse and rider who show the most accuracy, rhythm, and apparent ease together come out on top.
Unlike showjumping or eventing, there are no obstacles and no clock; the discipline is often described as a conversation between horse and rider made visible, and it rewards the training put in over months and years rather than a single day's performance. It sits alongside showjumping as one of the two disciplines most UK riders will recognise. For the rider working towards it, see our gifts for horse riders. The horses at the top of it come from the warmblood studbooks, which grade young horses on movement long before they compete. The World Breeding Federation for Sport Horses ranks those studbooks on "the points of the Top 6 performing horses of each studbook", and the KWPN heads its dressage table, with the Hanoverian among the German studbooks behind it.
Written by Craig Fearn, Stable & Hoof. Last updated .
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