Dressage

The Jockey Club has ended its agreement to run Blenheim Horse Trials two years before their five-year contract expires.    The Blenheim horse trials were run by British Eventing (BE) before The Jockey Club. However, in August 2020, BE announced that the event (which had already been cancelled due to Covid that year) would no longer be organised by them, with the reasoning being the need to reassess the organisational structure of the event, and the decision was made that BE wou...

Going to a dressage competition can be stressful, especially if you’ve never been to one before or haven’t competed for a long period of time, but there’s plenty you can do in advance to ensure you’re as well prepared as possible. The first is to familiarise yourself with the rules. Most unaffiliated dressage competitions use the British Dressage rule book - here’s our quick guide to tack, equipment and wardrobe for you and your horse (the full rule book can be...

So here's a little mini tutorial on tempi changes, or just single flying changes. This is Bella; she is not secure in any way, shape or form with her changes and has only really just started them in the last couple of months. I like to start with a horse that is in a balanced canter; the horse can go trot, canter, canter, trot, canter, from one leg to the other quite easily, in a nice, balanced, easy way to the contact. So everything that’s been on my Yonder Farm Friends And Connect Eque...

Learning to sit correctly takes a long time and even advanced riders need to work on improving their position all the time. In my last article, I wrote about The Scales Of Training - For The Horse. But before we get to train a horse, we need to learn to sit correctly ourselves. We have to be able to allow the horse to move without obstructing it in any way. And at the same time, we have to be able to give small, nearly invisible aids.

The Scales of Training are a system of six points – or building blocks – that are used by trainers and riders in the schooling of a horse. In this article, I would like to explain in more detail what the Scales of Training are and why it is important to follow them. I often feel that riders lack a long-term plan of how to school their horse. Pupils might have a lesson because they want to work on their position, or learn how to get their horse in a better outline or simply master exercise...

The more supple I can get my horse – so that it is willing and able to bend/turn/move-off and has improved balance – the more likely it is that I will have a nice and safe ride. Endless circling in the school is boring for anybody, but we can make schooling a lot more fun. In my previous article, I wrote about riding circles and related exercises. Today, I would like to look at loops and serpentines. You can find both exercises in various forms in dressage tests. They are fantastic for im...