What is Dressage?

You’ve heard of horseback riding, jumping, rodeos, trail riding, maybe you’ve even heard of courbette—that jumping thing knights did with their horse in the middle of battle. None of those things would be possible without a skill called dressage. To explain what dressage is, put simply is training. A horse and rider train to respond to one another’s most finite motions to perform simple and complex movements while riding.

You can think of dressage more like a graceful ballet performed by you and your horse to show how flexible, strong, and athletic you both are. You perform this before a panel of judges in competition, from local to the Olympics. Hey I'm Hana and I've been learning dressage about as long as I've been able to walk. I've taken the time to break down what I've learned so you can understand too. So let me be your guide on this journey, where you learn what dressage truly means.

It’s always best to start at the beginning. Let’s give you a brief history of dressage.

History of Dressage Riding

You’ll find a lot of blogs telling you that the translation of dressage comes from a French word that means training. They’re absolutely right, but France wasn’t the origin of dressage. It started with horse training back in 400 BC when a soldier and historian of the time Xenophon completed his ‘On Horsemanship’ manual. It wasn’t until much, much later that it became an art and eventually a sport.

As most things were back then, dressage was brought about by the necessity to have flexible, obedient, and athletic horses during times of war. In the military your steed needed the ability to read your finite aids/motions to keep both of you safe on the battlefield.

Fast forward to the late 1800s and you’ve now entered the first few years of dressage competitions in Pressberg, Austria and Paris, France. Once we hit 1912, dressage itself becomes an official Olympic sport, unlike standard horsemanship back in Ancient Greece. A short 71 years later and the United States Dressage Federation (USDF) was born. This opened the doors to everything we do today in the sport of dressage, from simply training to Olympic level competitions.

So what do you do in dressage? Let’s go over some movements you and your horse learn.

The Movements of Dressage

There’s a lot of terminology coming down the pipe. No need to be intimidated since you’re first starting out. There won’t be a quiz. Each of these movements are your foundation and grow with you, developing over time with you and your horse. What we’ve done here is simplified the explanations since you’re just getting into horseback riding.

🏇 10, 15, 20 meter circles: You and your horse at a walk or trot make a 10, 15, or 20 meter circle around the arena.

🏇 Halt: In lower levels, you perform this at a walk, but the higher you go, the higher speed you get to perform it.

🏇 Serpentine: This is an alternating line of 3 20 meter half circles done in a line.

🏇 Extensions: Your horse extends its stride while in motion.

🏇 Half Pass: This is you and your horse moving forward and sideways while bending towards the direction you’re going at a trot or canter.

🏇 Leg-Yield: This is like the Half Pass but instead of leaning into the motion, you lean away from it.

🏇 Passage: This is where you and your horse look like you’re dancing across the arena. At a trot, each step gives the illusion of being held a little longer in the air than normal.

🏇 Volte: This is much like the circles but at 8 meters around instead of 10, 15 or 20.

🏇 Piaffe: This is trotting in place with an even rhythm and pace while using opposite front and back legs.

🏇 Pirouette: This is just like it sounds. You and your horse make a 180–360 degree turn in place at a walk or at higher levels a canter.

🏇 Shoulder In: This is an angled sideways movement that involves having the horse’s shoulder lead the motion.

🏇 Tempi Change: This is visually stunning as the horse skips across the arena at a canter.

These motions take years of practice to master, but they all have a root in learning, trusting, and growing with your horse as a rider. The skills above are what separate your average trail riding from what we know as the sport of dressage today. And what’s listed above are only some of the movements you can master.

But I hear you ask, can just anyone learn dressage? Let’s talk about that a bit.

Who can learn dressage?

Yes. Everyone can benefit from learning just the basics of dressage as horse handling skills. Things like balance and control play heavily into the basics, and those are some of the first things everyone learns when coming into horseback riding in general.

Here’s the trick: to be able to succeed in dressage, you must be dedicated to learning it. There is a level of self-discipline that comes with learning the skills to dance around the arena with your horse. If you’re willing to learn and passionate about horses, you can do anything you put you and your horse’s mind to.

Practice versus Competitions.

You’re wondering, of course, about the competition side of things. The best part about dressage is that you don’t have to compete. Learning the ins and outs of the dressage motions makes you a better rider in any situation. That’s the beauty of these skills. Dressage came about, so both horse and rider performed better in every way while working together.

But since this section is about competitions, we’ll go over the different levels and arena sizes you can go through during your dressage career. Let’s start with arena sizing first.

There are two different sized arenas that are used depending on the level of competition. Small arenas are usually a 20-meter wide by 40-meter-long rectangle for you to show off your skills within. A large arena adds an extra 20 meters to the length of the rectangle, making it a 20x60 meter space to work in.

When it comes to levels of dressage competitions hosted by USDF, there are 10 levels you can compete in and each has their own requirements of both horse and rider. We’ve listed the levels below.

🏇 Introductory Level: This is where those balance and rhythm skills come into play. You get to ride in 20-meter circles and perform halts from walking.

🏇 Training Level: This is where you up your game a little by adding unique skills you've learned. You get to ride in a serpentine which is three of those circles in alternating directions.

🏇 First–Fourth Level: These are all increasingly difficult as they add more fine tuning of both horse and rider throughout more than just the basic movements. This is where you incorporate some of what you learned about the above.

🏇 Prix St. George: This is where you leave national levels behind and start riding through the international levels in competition. You show your skills from basic to fourth level while using what’s known as a double bridle which you can start using by choice at third level.

🏇 Intermediate I & II: These incorporate multiples of higher-level movements in a row with precision.

🏇 Grand Prix: This is the highest ranking you can achieve beyond going to the Olympics. To succeed here, you and your horse need to strive for the one thing that is relatively impossible. Perfection while performing a series of repetitious movements selected from the list above.

So now you know a bit about competitions, some of the movements, and what dressage is. What now?

What to do and where to go.

Now where do you go and what do you do after all that information? That’s a pretty simple answer to me. You go out and start learning! At Moonlight Equestrian Center, dressage is what we live, breathe, and teach to all our students. From the most basic of learning all the way up the USDF pyramid, all are welcome with us to learn and have fun.

If you’re ready to learn, fill out the form below to get started. If you’re more interested in learning about horses and the different skills there are, sign up for notifications on when our next blog post is published!