Dressage as a riding endeavor is rewarding and addicting in so many ways —
Molding and teaching a horse to utilize its body gymnastically, teaching a conversation where both horse and rider have a voice and are tuned in to the nuanced changes in one another, and where, wheee! – you feel yourself dancing with your horse – well, what could be more addicting?
For we introspective types, to become so focused and lost in each footfall, each quiet chew on the softly carried bit, what happens when you close the ring finger on one hand or shift a seat bone a fraction of an inch toward the horse’s spine and the resulting exhale of the horse or shift in the horse’s ribcage, well, what better way to lose ourselves in truly being one with our horse?
For me, however, I could draw a firm line between dressage schooling, which I did and do love, and dressage test riding and showing, which I’ve hated forever (even when I participated) and aspire to never again do.
Why? Let’s start with the white breeches, stock tie, black coat and the braiding. Enough said. Let’s move on to the pressure of precision of test riding — a test to be sure! — where movements and transitions take place at a dressage marker, and not when the horse necessarily feels ripe for the request.
It is not, let me be clear, that these are not skills or formality which I do not appreciate in others. Heavens, I find my breath caught in my throat while watching an accurate and harmonious test ridden by a beautifully attired rider on a finely turned-out horse.
It’s just not for me, that’s all. I never quite felt I’d found my niche.
But in retrospect, many of the draws that keep me coming back to dressage schooling are those that find real fruition in endurance riding for me.
The sense of partnership, oneness, with the horse.
The value of evaluating and re-evaluating one’s posture, straightness, balance and sense of purpose channeled to and then reflected back by the horse.
The request of “a little more” which becomes “how much but never too much” where, as Walter Zettl has said, is the sweet spot of training — how do we go to the edge, but never over?
The attention to detail that marks success in schooling or conditioning transferring seamlessly to all that goes in to a successful day on a 50 or 100 mile trail.
The self control to realize that if this moment is not the right moment, that one can step back, re-assess and try again, whether that be moment by moment during schooling or hour after hour on a long trail. It is the mindfulness of it all that is such a gift.
The realization that the horse that you ride is the one who showed up today, and that like you, it is a living breathing creature with good days and bad days, and that tomorrow’s school is another day, just like there is always another endurance ride; there is no shame in going back to something simple, transitioning to a long reined stretching walk, giving the horse a pat and saying to oneself, there is always tomorrow. Or coming in to a vet hold, shaking your head and saying you opt to call it a day, pampering your horse and saving it for another ride.
The notion that it is not this ride or top tenning or the speed with which you finish, or some unofficial pressure to move up a level each year (training to first to second and onward) that defines success for so many of us, but rather the years of successive riding, the longevity, the transformation of a green horse to a schoolmaster or veteran and eventually a sound retiree having earned a comfortable place on the farm forevermore.
It is not the discipline that we choose that defines us. It is the contemplation in each, with a focus to what works for the horse, for us, for the partnership and the dance and the ability to go on and on and on over the miles, that is the draw.