Dressage Tips For Beginners

If you are new to the discipline of dressage, welcome!

This is an exciting time as you work in what is fondly referred to as the artistry of horse riding. However, there are a few tips I wish I had known before my very first competition - read on below:

Know your arena geometry

I can’t even begin to tell you how important this is. And how long it took me to realise it was important!!

I didn’t actually learn how to break down the arena movements and understand the geometry until I was training to become instructor. That’s 15 years of competing not knowing what a 20m circle was supposed to look like!

Of course, I was always going home with the comments “circle not round”, “circle too big” or “circle too small”. Once it was actually broken down for me it made soooo much sense why I kept missing the crucial marks here and there.

Don’t sacrifice your movement for your frame.

To begin with, you will be endlessly frustrated that you don’t have a frame. Once you get the frame though, it’s easy!

But if you’re constantly getting comments like lacking forward or lacking impulsion, then you’ve restricted the horses movement in asking it to come into a frame instead of enhanced it.

Don’t take competing so seriously

Just go to the competition for the outing and the experience for at least the first year. Anything else is a bonus!

Competitions are stressful, and not only do we put the stress of a new chaotic environment on our horse, butwe also ride them differently because we are trying to show their best potential and nail our accuracy. You are also competing against seasoned competitors who know the drill and professional trainers.

Just focus on you and your horses getting confident, relaxed and knowing what is expected of you.

Stay on the horse, stay in the arena. And if you don’t that’s fine too.

When you first go out, your first goal is to just stay on your horse and stay in the arena.

After you have gained more confidence with this (and yes, you might be able to do it at home, but the competition arena is a different kettle of fish), only at that point can you up the challenge and work next on relaxation and accuracy, then rhythm and tempo, then quality of bend and lastly frame.

Practise your test at home so you know it upside down, inside out and back to front.

This will help you know how much preparation your horse needs for each ask, helping with your accuracy.

It will help both you and your horses confidence to know what is expected of you.

It will definitely help you when you go to the competition and have to know your test.

Make sure you give yourself enough time in the warm up to be able to watch the test before you and read through the test as a refresher before you go into the ring.