What is Working Equitation?

WE was developed in Europe in the mid-1990s as a fun pastime as well as a means of preserving the equestrian traditions in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France, where Iberian horses and other breeds served as hardy, nimble, brave mounts to work cattle. The horses’ ability to collect also made them natural choices for classical dressage.

“I describe [WE] as dressage with obstacles, or a trail course with dressage,” says Taylor Lindsten, of Taylor Made Sport Horses in Scottsdale, Ariz. Primarily a dressage trainer, Lindsten is a newer WE enthusiast—and her success proves that some horses can excel in both sports: A current mount, the Georgian Grande stallion Wallace G, not only notches wins in WE, but also competes at the FEI levels in dressage, earning the Intermediate I Open championship title at the 2023 U.S. Dressage Finals.

As Lindsten explains, WE consists of three “trials”: dressage, ease of handling, and speed, typically ridden all in one day. An optional fourth element, the cattle trial, is mandatory in more advanced competition, and entails working with other horse/rider combinations as a team to cut a designated cow from the herd and move it to a holding pen.

The Three Trials

Dressage

Modeled after the U.S. Equestrian/U.S. Dressage Federation’s tests and competition structure, WE dressage is ridden in a small dressage arena measuring 20×40 meters, the size often used for dressage tests in lower-level eventing (regulation size for dressage and upper-level eventing dressage tests is 20×60 meters).

The seven tests range in difficulty from Introductory (walk, trot, halt, and rein-back) to Masters (a test executed to music that includes canter work, pirouettes, extended gaits, and flying lead changes—all ridden one-handed!). Tests are judged using the established 0-10 scale of marks.

Ease of Handling

Horse and rider navigate an obstacle course that combines elements of several disciplines, including crossing a bridge, opening and closing a gate, hopping over a small jump, sidepassing over a pole, bending around poles or barrels, reining back through an “L,” and others.

Elements and required gaits increase in number and difficulty through the levels, and judges want to see competitors negotiate the obstacles “in a stylish and organized way,” Lindsten says.

Speed

The clock is the only thing that matters on this final obstacle course. Like jumping faults, riders are penalized for such errors as going off course, refusals, or even switching the hand used to handle an obstacle. In a nod to the sport’s origins, WE obstacle courses require riders to spear a ring with a long pole—shades of the garrocha that vaqueros use to maneuver cattle.

The Ideal Horse for Working Equitation

Dressage basics underlie WE, but the sport “develops a horse that is extremely versatile,” says USA Working Equitation (USAWE) Professional Instructor, technical delegate, and “L” judge Emily Kemp, who operates Kemp Horsemanship in Newton, Wisc.

A “smaller, handier” mount may have an advantage given the speed and agility requirements—Kemp successfully showed a 14.2-hand Haflinger, which she calls “an ideal size”—but all breeds are welcome. Even gaited horses may participate, substituting their gait for the trot. But a dressage background remains a competitive advantage because “balance is huge,” she says.

The reverse may also hold true: As Lindsten discovered, WE can actually be a boon to dressage training. While teaching Wallace G the flying changes a few years ago, she found that “he had a lot more interest in his work when we were working with the obstacles.”

She rode turns around barrels and poles to help teach him to bend and yield to her leg aids, and the obstacles provided “a purpose in what I was asking him to do, and a purpose for the lead changes.”

Who Can Ride It?

In WE, rider backgrounds are similarly varied. Kemp’s wheelhouses are natural horsemanship, cutting, and reining.

Competitors may show in any discipline’s tack and apparel: Kemp goes western, while Lindsten enters at A in full dressage garb. (Just don’t mix and match, Lindsten says; ride in the apparel that your tack denotes.)

Riders with physical disabilities may apply for dispensations to compete using adaptive equipment or allowances, as well.

Kemp says that most U.S. WE enthusiasts are adults, but USAWE is “trying to grow youth participation” by reaching out to Pony Club members and other youth-oriented groups. Currently “especially popular” in California and the Pacific Northwest, the sport is working to expand nationwide, she says.

Ambitious competitors may strive to reach the sport’s international levels. The World Association of Working Equitation, the sport’s international federation, holds a World Championships every four years. The U.S. hopes to send a team in 2026—and Lindsten, for one, hopes to be on it.

Ready to Try Working Equitation?

Want to learn more about WE? Both Lindsten and Kemp recommend starting out by watching shows or clinics in your area. Find a calendar of events, rules, dressage tests, and a directory of instructors and officials on the USAWE’s website.

Kemp enthuses about the “great show environment” at WE competitions. Besides the friendly people, WE “has a way of leveling the playing field. You just keep competing until it’s done.”

The variety of skills required “takes out that super-competitive edge” found in some singular disciplines, Kemp adds, and the WE arena is one in which all breeds can compete as equals.

This article about working equitation appeared in the July 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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When the native Floridian competed for the title of Ms. Wheelchair Florida, her platform was her passion: “Equine therapy and how it helps people with disabilities.”

Although the competition sports some of the traditional sash-and-tiara pageant trappings, “It’s not your standard beauty competition,” says Tanase, 26, of Palm Harbor, Fla. “It’s all about who is going to be the best advocate [and being] the best representative you can for the disability community in your own way.”

Finding a Passion for Horses

Tanase, who was born with cerebral palsy, was crowned Ms. Wheelchair Florida 2022, advancing to that year’s Ms. Wheelchair America competition last August. She didn’t win, but as the only equine enthusiast in the field, relished the opportunity to share her message with a national audience.

Her platform speech hit home for at least one person.

“The competitor from Georgia actually messaged me a couple of days ago and showed me a picture of her riding,” says Tanase. “She told me that she wanted to do it ever since she heard me talk about it. I was like, this is the whole reason I talk about it. So many people don’t even know about equine therapy.”

Tanase learned about horses from the ground up. The second-born of triplets, Tanase didn’t grow up in a horsey family.

Her first exposure to horses came during a preschool field trip to a farm, where she was “fascinated” by a palomino pony. She began learning all she could about horses, but in-person encounters were limited mostly to seeing horses and taking pony rides during occasional family outings to a zoo in nearby Tampa.

Bitten hard by the horse bug, Tanase continued to research and read, which is how she discovered therapeutic riding. When she was a high school senior, her parents gave her four lessons at Quantum Leap Farm, a therapeutic riding center in Odessa, Fla.

“That was how I started formally learning how to ride,” says Tanase. “I soaked it up as much as I could, and I still ride there now.”

Para Dressage Dreams

Long before Tanase took her first riding lesson, a competitive streak led her to wonder whether equestrians with disabilities ever attained success in the show ring. Her internet sleuthing turned up videos of well-known para dressage riders like current U.S. star Roxanne Trunnell.

“I watched and was like, yup, I wanna do this,” she says.

Realizing that entering the para dressage ranks required more skill than she possessed, Tanase bided her time.

“[In 2019] I let the staff [at Quantum Leap] know that I was interested in doing more than just recreational riding,” she recalls. That spring, she sat in a dressage saddle for the first time.

Tanase had learned that para dressage athletes must be “classified”—evaluated by trained experts who determine riders’ eligibility to compete—and at which level, or “grade.” The grades and the para dressage tests are based on degree of impairment, from I (most impaired) to V (least impaired).

“I wasn’t sure how to get started,” says Tanase. “[But] I kept trying to reach out to people who could help me.”

One of her emails landed in the inbox of the United States Equestrian Federation’s (USEF) para dressage discipline manager, who informed Tanase that a classification event would be held in Wellington, Fla., in early 2020. Shortly before the coronavirus pandemic took hold, Tanase got classified as a Grade I para dressage athlete.

“I’ve been trying to climb the ladder since then,” she says.

Obstacles Along the Way

It hasn’t been a smooth climb. For starters, a para dressage rider needs a horse, and Tanase doesn’t own one. They also need to compete, and that’s hard to do without sufficient resources.

During the pandemic’s horse show shutdowns, she took advantage of virtual para dressage shows offered by the USEF as an alternative, and submitted video of herself riding a Grade I test. Her score didn’t quite meet the USEF benchmark, and then unfortunately her regular mount, Shane, had to be retired and later passed away.

Finding training opportunities has been another challenge. Quantum Leap’s therapeutic riding instructors have taken crash courses in dressage and do what they can to help Tanase, but the discipline is not their strong suit.

Area dressage trainers are supportive, but obstacles frequently arise, from barns that aren’t wheelchair accessible to horses that aren’t safe enough for a para equestrian. For the moment, Tanase is riding Quantum Leap’s Morgan gelding Courtscroft Diamond Blaze (aka “Khan”), and regrouping to try again.

She hopes to get video of a test with Khan before the end of 2023, and to earn a score that will move her one step closer to making USEF’s list of “emerging” para dressage athletes, which, in addition to opening up training opportunities, would make her eligible for a borrowed-horse program.

Education and Career

Like the majority of adult amateur equestrians, Tanase juggles career obligations with horses. In 2021, she earned a master’s degree in health care administration, and after a couple of years working part-time, she started her first full-time job this fall as an Rx data entry clerk for health insurance companies. She aims to work her way up to a supervisory or management role in health care administration.

Besides the Ms. Wheelchair campaigns and the online pavement-pounding, Tanase has written articles about her para dressage quest and snagged some local TV news coverage. Some of it’s for personal gain, of course—her ultimate equestrian goal is to make the U.S. Paralympic team—but it’s also to continue spreading the message of her pageant platform.

“Being able to ride gives me the opportunity to do things that I wouldn’t [otherwise] be able to do,” she says. “If it weren’t for riding, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you today or to educate others in the equestrian community about what it’s like being a rider with a disability.”

Physically, emotionally, and psychologically, Tanase believes horses are the best therapy. That’s a platform we can all get behind.

Follow Tanase on Instagram @bt.paradressage.

This article about Bryanna Tanase appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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There are places in every dressage test where even the humblest mount can score just as well as—or better than—the fanciest horse. They are the “non-brilliant movements,” of dressage so called because the gaits play little to no role in how they are ridden and judged. Frequently overlooked in daily schooling, these elements offer the clever rider the opportunity to gain a competitive edge—and they’re also good basic training, whether you choose to show or not. So let’s learn how to polish up these non-brilliant gems until they sparkle.

The Non-Brilliant Dressage Movements

At First Level and below, the non-brilliant movement is the halt. Second Level introduces two more: the rein-back and the turn on the haunches (the latter of which becomes a walk pirouette at Fourth Level and above). In this article, we’ll focus primarily on the halt and rein-back.

Halts, rein-backs, and turns on the haunches are called non-brilliant because “there is no impulsion in any of these movements,” says Eliza Sydnor Romm, an FEI-level trainer/competitor and U.S. Dressage Federation-certified instructor through Fourth Level from Chapel Hill, N.C.

“Impulsion is what pushes the horse up off the ground and then gives him ‘air time’ in suspension in a beautiful trot or a big, bounding canter. But what the judge is judging in a halt is the straightness, the squareness, the connection, and the line of travel. There are not more points awarded for a fancy-moving horse halting than an average-moving horse halting.”

The same goes for the rein-back. The judge wants to see the horse halt square (with his weight distributed evenly over all four legs), then take the prescribed number of steps backward with diagonal pairs of legs, deliberately and in balance, then moving off promptly. These elements and movements may not be thrilling to watch, but they are great tests of your dressage training.

“If you can have it be really reliable, then by definition the horse is truly on your aids,” Romm says of the rein-back. “That’s an impressive thing to a judge, even if it’s not a fancy-moving horse.”

Romm has a lot of experience using the non-brilliant movements of dressage to her advantage.

“I grew up riding and showing this little Quarter Horse that we bought from my farrier for $1,000,” she says. “He was endlessly patient and had a wonderful disposition, but he was a really bad mover! I showed him all the way through Third Level, and he was never going to get more than a 5 or maybe a 6 for his medium trot. But we could halt for a 10 every time, and we could rein back for a 10, and we could do the turns on the haunches for a 10. And with that, at Training and First Level, we could score in the mid to high 60s. We’d often get 9s for our halts. I’d almost always get 8s on our turns on the haunches. So I’m very familiar with trying to do this.”

Romm shares strategies for honing the halt and rein-back to make these dressage movements reliable staples that you can confidently nail every time.

Improving the Halt

From the ground or in the saddle, establish an active walk and then ask your horse to halt. A helper on the ground can tell you whether your horse is square (over time you’ll learn to feel it), or you can use a mirror, your horse’s shadow, or even that old standby, leaning over and looking.

Give a nudge with your leg or a gentle tap with the whip on the side of the errant hind leg to ask your horse to square up. Never settle for a crooked, sloppy halt, and halting square will eventually become automatic.

Be picky about straightness when it comes to this dressage movement, too.

“That will probably dictate whether the horse will halt square,” says Romm. “It will definitely not be square if he is very crooked.”

Focus on maintaining balance into the halt (“land like a snowflake,” as some put it—you shouldn’t need to haul on the reins), keeping in mind that at both Introductory and Training Levels, you may execute the trot-halt transition through a few steps of walk.

In the dressage ring, especially if your horse is antsy, riding the established, familiar sequence of aids will help to settle him in the halt, Romm says. You should know by now which hind leg he tends to leave out behind, “so you can specifically half-halt that hind leg to try to bring it under.”

That said, a balanced, immobile halt—at least three seconds when performed with a salute—trumps all else, so don’t fiddle too much if your horse doesn’t halt square. Show immobility prior to the salute.

Romm gives one big inhale-exhale before she takes a hand off the reins, and she incorporates the use of her breath in the daily training so that her horses associate it with a moment to relax and stand quietly at attention.

“It’s usually easier to ride a balanced halt if you sit the last few steps of the trot into the halt,” Romm advises Intro and Training Level riders. “However, if you can’t keep your seat balanced in sitting trot, then do it from posting trot and walk two to three steps, then halt.”

Improving the Rein-Back

If your horse doesn’t know how to rein back, Romm recommends teaching him from the ground so you’re not pulling on the reins. From a balanced, square halt, place one hand on your horse’s chest and apply pressure (or gently tap his chest with the butt end of a whip) as you repeat the vocal cue “back.”

The word will serve as a bridge when you introduce the rein-back from the saddle, lightening your seat and sliding your legs back a bit as you give little squeezes first with one rein and then the other—don’t pull back with both reins simultaneously, and never pull back hard. Overuse of the reins also causes the horse to invert his neck, which creates a hollow back and loss of the correct diagonal pairs of footfalls.

The rules don’t require the horse to remain immobile for three seconds before reining back, but the halt must be “established” prior to the rein-back, Romm points out, so no boomeranging backward.

Accurate Riding in Your Dressage Movements

Every aspect of a dressage test contains a non-brilliant element, according to Romm: the accuracy of your figures and the accuracy of your transitions. Even if your horse’s gaits aren’t spectacular, you’ll raise your scores if you show spot-on geometry and balanced, at-the-letter transitions.

“At Intro and Training Levels, the judges are thrilled to see an accurate 20-meter circle,” she says. Other elements that can get a boost from super-accurate riding are the Training and First Level trot “stretching circle” and the free walk, both of which have a coefficient of 2 (meaning the score is double relative to all the other movements in the dressage test).

“Work on the center lines and halts, the accuracy of the transitions, the stretchy circle, and the free walk,” Romm says of coaching a competitor with an average-moving horse. “Mathematically, you’ll come out ahead if you can hope to get at least a 7 for your free walk and your stretchy circle, and then you can really nail your halts and hopefully get an 8 or a 9.”

This article about improving your dressage movements appeared in the September 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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You trot down center line, ride the pattern of your dressage test, and soon receive your score. Your placing in the class depends on how that score stacks up against those of your competitors, but there’s a lot more to the dressage judging process than the score alone.

The more you know about how dressage is judged, the more you can do to improve your own test scores and placings—and to make your horse a happier and more willing partner. Here’s an overview of the process.

The Basic Math

Each numbered movement (element) on the dressage test sheet receives a score from zero to 10. Here is the scale of marks and what they mean:

0 Not executed
1 Very bad
2 Bad
3 Fairly bad
4 Insufficient
5 Marginal
6 Satisfactory
7 Fairly good
8 Good
9 Very good
10 Excellent

Judges can also award half-points. A mark of 6.5 would indicate that the movement was a little better than “satisfactory,” but not quite good enough to be “fairly good.”

Certain movements in the tests are considered so important that they have coefficients of 2, meaning that the points for those movements are doubled.

Most dressage final scores are expressed as percentages of the total possible points that a competitor would garner if every movement earned a 10. Therefore if most of your marks are in the 6 range, you’ll wind up with a score of around 60 percent.

How the Judges Judge

Prospective judges undergo rigorous training in order to become licensed to officiate at dressage competitions. Much of that training focuses on instilling a process for evaluating a dressage test so that judges everywhere apply the same standard.

“The first thing I look at is the quality of the gaits,” says U.S. Equestrian “R” dressage judge Anne Moss of Coatesville, Pa. In dressage, the walk, trot, and canter are the underpinning of all training. Quality begins with purity of gaits: a clear, rhythmic four-beat walk, two-beat trot, and three-beat canter.

Some horses are blessed with more natural balance and freedom of movement than others, but training and riding affect the gait assessment for each movement.

“It’s not as if I decide that a horse is an 8 mover for every movement,” Moss explains. “The horse might be an 8 mover for one movement, but for the next movement it turns into a 6, and the next movement it could turn into a 7.”

Additionally, all three gaits are not necessarily of equal inherent quality, and how well the horse executes the individual movements will also move the needle up or down, she says.

You may have heard dressage enthusiasts voice concerns that only big-moving warmbloods can do well in the sport. Moss concedes that a horse purpose-bred for dressage may find it easier biomechanically to meet the demands of the sport. “[However,] I have gotten 7s on gaits on my Quarter Horse, my Thoroughbred, and my warmblood. A lot of it is the quality of training and how you’re presenting the gaits,” Moss says. In fact, the quality of the training is the second most important factor in the judge’s evaluation process.

The question becomes, “Is the training going in the right direction?” Moss is referring to the basics of dressage training, which are the fundamentals of correct gymnastic development (rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness, and collection). For each movement in the test, the judge looks for a demonstration of the basics appropriate to the level being shown (see diagram).

“[Then the judge considers] how well the horse did or didn’t perform the movement, or the transition, or the figure,” Moss says. How the element is executed is known as the essence of the movement.

Finally, modifiers can cause the judge to raise or lower the mark for a movement. If your horse stiffens and becomes momentarily inattentive, that lapse will negatively affect the score, and you may lose half a point or so. On the flip side, things like spot-on accuracy can give the mark for a movement a little boost.

Comments and Collective Marks

Next to each score box on the test sheet is a comments box. A judge will dictate comments to a scribe in real-time while watching a test, often noting the main issue that depressed the mark for that movement. Savvy competitors use the marks and comments to help guide their future training, formulating a plan to address weak points.

Every dressage test sheet concludes with a set of marks and comments written personally by the judge, known as the collective marks. Moss dubs this portion “the overall scorecard.”

The five collective marks—for gaits, impulsion, submission, rider’s position and seat, and rider’s correct and effective use of the aids—serve as a snapshot of the entire test. The fundamentals behind each collective mark are spelled out on every U.S. Equestrian dressage test sheet, which you can find at usef.org.

“[The collectives] tell you whether the training is going in the right direction and give a really concise assessment of how the training was on that day, for that test, in that ring,” Moss says. The judge’s intention is to guide you with a few directions for improving your training.

More Than a Pattern

“Most people just study the pattern of the test,” Moss says. “They don’t think about what the judge is trying to evaluate. I think that’s where the biggest disconnect is between riders and judges. Just riding the pattern is not dressage. Unless the horse is working correctly through his body, it’s not going to be a successful dressage test.”

Fortunately, the test sheets also contain cheat sheets! When you print off your test to begin memorizing it, carefully examine every movement for a list of “directives”—what the judge is looking for.

Example: in a 20-meter trot circle at Training Level, the judge wants to see “regularity and quality of trot; shape and size of circle; bend; balance.”

“Most times, the judge is commenting on things that are in the directive box,” Moss says. The other thing that’s printed on every test sheet is a purpose statement. The purpose of Training Level, for instance, is “to confirm that the horse demonstrates correct basics, is supple and moves freely forward in a clear rhythm with a steady tempo, accepting contact with the bit.”

“At the beginning and the end of the test, the judge is thinking about the purpose,” Moss says. “How well did the rider meet the purpose of the level?”

She encourages riders to use the dressage tests as valuable training tools.

“Judges try really hard to give helpful comments that are understandable,” says Moss. “The goal of all judging is to improve the quality of riding and training so that the horse can have a better life, and hopefully progress up the training scale.”

This article about how to improve your dressage score appeared in the June 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Maybe you’ve seen dressage in person or in photos and video. Perhaps you’ve even dabbled in it yourself with some lessons or a bit of experimentation guided by an online tutorial or a magazine article. Either way, you’re drawn to the grace and beauty of a horse and rider dancing together in harmony, and you wonder how they got there, and if you and your own horse could ever achieve something similar. And it’s quite possible that you can, but there are some must-haves—and you might be surprised to learn that they don’t include an expensive imported warmblood or the latest blinged-out bridle. Read on and let’s see if you and your horse have what it takes to advance in the discipline of dressage!

1. Three good—or at least decent—gaits. Note that I’m talking about traditional dressage here, not gaited or Western dressage or other offshoots, which are a subject for another day. The judging of dressage starts with—above all else—a correct walk, trot, and canter.What does that mean? The gaits are pure and in a clear rhythm: four-beat walk, two-beat trot, three-beat canter. There are umpteen reasons that a gait may lose its purity, ranging from lameness to tension to incorrect riding. A horse with a persistent hitch in its gitalong is going to struggle in dressage, and possibly not advance, unless that issue is successfully addressed.
2. Core strength and body control. These incorporate the concept of “independent seat and hands,” and refer to a rider whose balance is good enough not to rely on the reins to stay in the saddle. The sitting trot, which comes into every dressage rider’s life at some point, does not require sheer, brute strength. What it requires is enough tone in the core—the part of your body from waist to knees—to “stay with” the horse’s motion, and enough overall strength and suppleness to do things like allow your hips to move in time with your horse’s hind legs, or to simultaneously apply the touch of a calf, close a thigh, and give a squeeze with one rein while relaxing the opposite wrist. Yeah, it’s kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Body control. Core strength. Alignment. Flexibility. Symmetry. A tall order! No wonder these are things most dressage riders work on, pretty much forever.
3. A tolerance for repetition. I had an event horse—an off-the-track Thoroughbred—who really didn’t like dressage. He actually had talent for it, but he got bored with ring work and could easily have become sour. He needed the variety of jumping and hacking to make the dressage work palatable. My current mount is a mouse in a horse’s body. He is fearful, hates change, and gets security from knowing exactly what is expected of him. The clarity and repetition of dressage are right up his psychological alley. This is not to say that only insecure horses like dressage, but one that’s prone to becoming ring-sour may not enjoy the career. A good dressage horse also has to cede control to the rider, which is difficult for some independent-minded equine personalities to do.zLikewise, riders who are diehard adrenaline junkies may prefer jumping or some other type of “faster/higher/stronger” sport. Equestrian disciplines are called disciplines for a reason, in that they require patience, practice, and attention to detail in order to improve. A rider whose main objective in riding dressage is to perform “tricks,” like flying changes, isn’t really in it for the right reasons, which brings us to our next point.
4. A desire to deepen your relationship with your horse. Sound corny? Maybe it is, but when I was a teenager riding hunters and jumpers, I was getting tired of the same old “flatting” and schooling. Riding seemed sort of mechanical, and the horse didn’t feel much like a partner.Then I took my first dressage lesson. My instructor taught me how to feel the movements of my horse’s four legs and how to use my body to influence his movements. Eventually, I began to feel my horse’s entire body change in response to my aids. To feel him make a smooth transition from nothing more than a shift of my weight, or to glide into a floaty, big-strided lengthened trot—those were sensations I’d never felt on the back of a horse.

Those amazing dressage moments are intoxicating and addictive—and sometimes maddeningly elusive! But most dressage enthusiasts will tell you that even a glimmer of that kind of harmony is so exciting that they’ll happily keep at it, diligently practicing their 20-meter circles and their canter transitions, searching for the next moment when they feel themselves and their horse feeling and moving as one, and that dedication will also help one advance in the sport of dressage.

Find more Horse Illustrated articles on Dressage

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Many equestrian disciplines require the horse to go on a loose rein, at least part of the time. But in dressage, there is a constant connection between the horse’s mouth and the rider’s hand, called contact.

Developing and maintaining correct contact can be one of the most difficult skills for dressage riders to learn. For a crash course, read on.

What Contact Isn’t

There are several common misconceptions about contact. Understanding what contact isn’t is almost as important as learning what it is. Contact is not:
◆ Pulling back or hanging on the reins, especially in an attempt to force a horse’s head and neck into a “frame.”
◆ Weightlessness in the hand. Although the horse is not supposed to lean on the rider’s hand as if it were a fifth leg, an empty rein is not the goal either. A dressage horse is supposed to become less dependent on the rein as he progresses through the levels, but contact is still present. “Lightness” is not necessarily correct!
◆ Manufactured by the rider. Yes, your reins have to be short enough for contact to happen, but it happens as a result of the horse’s forward energy. In other words, contact starts with the horse.

What Contact Is

So what is contact, then? Here’s the United States Dressage Federation (USDF) definition: The energy generated in the hindquarters by the driving aids must flow through the whole body of the horse and is received in the rider’s hands. The contact to the bit must be elastic and adjustable, creating fluent interaction between horse and rider with appropriate changes in the horse’s outline.

Contact is an element of the pyramid of dressage training, which depicts the classical dressage-training progression. The pyramid further explains that contact encompasses connection and acceptance of the bit through acceptance of the aids.

There is an old saying in dressage: Ride your horse “back to front” (from his hindquarters to the bit, or from your leg and seat into your hand), not “front to back.” That’s what the USDF definition and the pyramid language are getting at.

Balance and Rebalance

There is no single training exercise that—presto!—will produce correct contact. But if I had to pick one thing to do (besides longe lessons, which teach the rider how to sit the horse’s gaits without using the reins for balance), it would be transitions, which develop your horse’s balance and his correct response to your forward-driving aids (your leg and seat).

Transitions between or within gaits teach your horse how to compress and lengthen his stride—to use himself like an accordion or to become adjustable. Walk-halt-walk. Walk-trot-walk. Trot-canter-trot. Walk-canter-walk. Or bigger trot-smaller trot-bigger trot. Smaller canter-bigger canter-smaller canter.

It’s easier to keep your horse balanced on curved lines, so practice transitions on a 20-meter circle before you try them on a straight line. Eventually, you’ll rebalance your horse by riding frequent micro-transitions—split-second, nearly invisible sequences in which you close your hand/give with the hand/use your leg to refresh the energy—known as half-halts.

What You Feel

As you progress in dressage, you’ll become more aware of your horse’s balance—which corresponds to how he feels in your hand. Is there dead weight in the reins pulling down and leaning on the bit? Try riding a transition that will shift weight off his forehand, followed by more energy from behind.

Do you have “empty reins” and you can’t see the bridle crownpiece when you glance down? Your horse may have curled his neck and is “hiding” behind the bit instead of reaching into the contact. This can be a tough habit to correct and may require a milder bit, help from an experienced trainer, or both.

A horse that snatches at the reins, pokes his nose up and out (goes “above the bit”), opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out of his mouth or over the bit, or exhibits other unwanted behaviors when asked to step forward into an elastic contact may be telling you that something hurts, that he feels trapped by your hand, or that he hasn’t been trained to accept the aids. A physical exam by your veterinarian is always a good first move, followed by a check of how well the tack fits, especially when it comes to the bit and bridle.

Once physical problems or discomfort have been ruled out, prepare for a slow, patient retraining process if you suspect that contact issues are the result of previous bad riding that caused pain in the mouth or general distrust of the rider’s hands.

When the Reins “Come Alive”

Correct contact is described as elastic because the reins actually feel as if they’ve turned into nice big bungee cords, singing with energy and with an ideal amount of tension—neither taut nor slack.

Some people liken the feel to that of a firm-but-friendly handshake. Another analogy is the “alive” feeling of having a medium-sized fish on a line—which would feel different than a teensy goldfish that weighs next to nothing or a monster that’s threatening to pull you out of the boat.

Dressage is a conversation between horse and rider. When you start to sense that “alive” feeling in the reins, you’ll take your communication to a whole new level. n HI

This article about developing contact with your horse appeared in the August 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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The most common mistake dressage riders make is to try to “put the horse together” by pulling on the reins instead of riding forward from the legs and seat into an elastic rein contact. This is also known as riding from “front to back” instead of “back to front.” As part of their effort to correct this bad habit, the experts who write the U.S. national dressage tests decided to include a movement called the stretching circle at Training and First Levels.

The stretching circle is a 20-meter circle ridden in rising (posting) trot while “allowing the horse to stretch forward and downward while maintaining contact.” You allow the reins to lengthen while your horse stretches, then smoothly shorten the reins and return to the ordinary working trot at the conclusion of the circle. The horse can’t stretch if you are hanging on the reins!

Stretching is Fundamental

Asking your horse to stretch his topline out and down and then gathering him back up again, all while maintaining an even tempo and contact, is an excellent test of his rhythm, suppleness, and acceptance of contact. The exercise reveals whether your horse is moving freely and willingly forward from your leg and seeking an elastic contact with the bit. If he is, then when you give the reins, the stretch happens naturally.

Even if you have no interest in showing, you should add the stretching circle to your training sessions. Here’s how.

Your Guide to Stretching

The U.S. Equestrian dressage test sheets spell out the “directive ideas” for the stretch circle dressage stretching circle. Listed in order of importance, they are:

◆ Forward and downward stretch over then back into a light contact, maintaining balancevand quality of trot;
◆ Bend;
◆ Shape and size of circle;
◆ Willing, clear transitions.

Notice that forward stretch is listed before downward stretch. If the horse reaches his neck down but not out, he’ll end up unbalanced and on his forehand instead of stretching over his entire topline and maintaining balance and engagement of his hindquarters.

A dressage horse stretching forward and downward is very different from, say, a western pleasure horse, who carries his neck low but without rein contact or lightness of the forehand. In addition, the dressage rules specify that the horse’s mouth should be about the height of the point of his shoulder—no lower—when he stretches. Imagine an invisible horizontal line between the shoulder and the mouth.

How do you get your horse to stretch correctly? Try this:

Start on a 20-meter circle in working trot rising. Find the tempo—you may have to experiment a little—in which your horse feels balanced, with his back swinging underneath your seat, neither poking along nor “running” and flattening onto his forehand.

Now, keeping the tempo of your posting the same, smoothly push both hands toward his mouth a few inches. As you give the rein, does your horse follow the contact with his head and neck? (He should.) That’s the beginning of a correct forward-downward stretch.

To go all the way into a stretching circle, simply allow the reins to lengthen gradually as your horse follows the contact out and down. Maintain that stretched outline until you’re a few strides away from completing the circle.

Gradually take up the reins while your legs and posting tempo maintain the forward energy and desired trot rhythm. By the time you’re back where you started, your horse should have returned to his normal working-trot outline, with your reins shortened to their usual length.

A Training Self-Test

You can use the stretch circle dressage stretching circle to help evaluate the correctness of your basic training.

Try these troubleshooting tips if your horse does any of the following.

◆ Raises His Neck and Head and Hollows His Back: He was not truly on the bit and accepting the contact; you were using too much hand to hold him in a “frame;” or both. Or, he possibly has pain in his mouth, teeth, or head.

Fix It: If he hasn’t had a dental checkup recently, get his mouth and teeth (and bridle and bit fit) evaluated and any issues corrected. Then go back to basics: lots of transitions between and within gaits; correct longeing with side reins to teach him to go forward into an elastic contact (get a pro’s help if you don’t know proper longeing and safety techniques); and take lessons doing equitation work to learn to ride without relying on the reins for balance.

◆ Dives Down in Front but Doesn’t Stretch Forward: The rein contact may be restricting his ability to reach out with his neck and head. Suddenly dropping the contact can cause a loss of balance. Insufficient energy may also result in a stretch that goes down but not out.

Fix It: Make sure you lengthen the reins sufficiently to allow your horse to stretch forward and downward. Maintain an elastic contact instead of “throwing the reins at him.” Ensure that you establish and maintain a nicely forward working trot with good push from behind. A “dinky trot” doesn’t have enough energy to produce good stretch.

◆ Stretches Out and Down, Then Curls Behind the Vertical: The rein contact may be too strong or restrictive. Or he may be avoiding the contact altogether. Or, as with the horse that flips his head or goes above the bit, he may have pain in his mouth or elsewhere.

Fix It: Check for and correct any dental or equipment-related issues. Next, lighten your hands and lengthen the reins if needed.

If he’s curling and there’s no weight in the reins at all, this is a tougher fix, especially if he habitually ducks behind the vertical. The horse that “hides” behind the bit and won’t reach into the contact requires slow, patient re-education with sensitive hands, well-timed aids and half-halts, and sometimes a milder bit. Help from a reputable dressage trainer might be in order here

◆ Speeds Up Instead of Stretching When You Give the Reins: You’ve probably been using your hands, instead of your legs and seat, to regulate his tempo.

Fix It: Post in the tempo you want your horse to follow, instead of adjusting your tempo according to the speed he offers.

The horse that wants to quicken has to learn that the rider sets the tempo—a lesson imparted through a zillion turns, circles, changes of direction, and transitions between and within gaits. Bending lines are better than straight lines for slowing and balancing the horse and for giving the rider control.

Incorporate Into Daily Work

Many horses benefit from correct stretching during warmup. Or after a more demanding exercise, a short stretch will relax your horse’s muscles. Ending your training sessions with a few stretching-trot circles will also loosen his muscles as you begin the cooling-out process.

Photos reprinted from The USDF Guide to Dressage, available from Storey Publishing, storey.com

This article about stretch circle dressage appeared in the May 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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The equine world is saddened to hear that dressage clinician, competitor, and prolific author Jane Savoie died January 4, 2021, at the age of 72. She had battled major health issues for five years, including the blood cancer multiple myeloma.

Aboard the 1981 Dutch-bred gelding Zapatero, Savoie was the reserve rider for the 1992 U.S. Olympic dressage team. She went on to attain numerous Grand Prix-level honors and national rankings with a succession of mounts, including Eastwood, Genaldon, and Jolicoeur.

Savoie counted Herbert Rehbein, Robert Dover, and Cindy Sydnor among her most important dressage teachers. As an instructor herself, she was the dressage coach for the 1996 and 2004 Canadian Olympic eventing teams, and she coached her friend Susan Blinks to a team bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Another well-known student is Savoie’s close friend, the dressage professional Ruth Hogan-Poulsen.

A gifted motivational speaker, writer, and teacher, Savoie endeared herself to legions of riders, especially adult amateurs, with her unflagging encouragement and cheerful enthusiasm. She recognized and appreciated adult amateurs’ dedication and struggles to master the sitting trot, deal with spooky horses and show nerves, and other dressage dilemmas. She never condescended to adult amateurs and they loved her for it, flocking to her clinics, buying her books, and subscribing to her online Dressage Mentor program, where they felt they had found a friend in Savoie and her tales of life with her Friesian, Moshi, and her dog, Indy.

Savoie was one of the first to bring the science of sport psychology to the equestrian world. Her first and best-known book, That Winning Feeling! Program Your Mind for Peak Performance, was published in 1992 and is now in its eighth edition. She also championed dressage as useful training for every horse, as evidenced by such books as Cross-Train Your Horse and her final nonfiction work, Dressage Between the Jumps: The Secret to Improving Your Horse’s Performance, published in 2020.

Always up for a challenge, Savoie took up several new endeavors later in life. She began ballroom dancing at the age of 63. Her first attempt at writing fiction, the romance novel Second Chances, set in the world of dressage, was published less than one month before her death.

For her many contributions to American dressage, Jane Savoie was inducted into the Roemer Foundation/USDF Hall of Fame in 2019.

Reprinted with permission of Jennifer O. Bryant/U.S. Dressage Federation

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The beautifully trained dressage horse is so attuned to his rider that his response to the lightest leg aid is perfect, appearing to dance of his own accord. But some mounts fall elsewhere on the spectrum—somewhere between a balky Thelwell pony and a speed racer that Just. Won’t. Slow. Down.

The tortoise and the hare actually share the same problem. In dressage terms, they are not in front of the leg.

Horses are not born knowing that the rider’s leg means “go.” The horse that fails to respond to a light calf squeeze either hasn’t been educated properly or he’s tuned out the rider as a defense mechanism, says Sherry Guess, a U.S. Dressage Federation-certified instructor in Porter, Okla.

“Light, responsive horses are made that way by their riders,” she says. “Unfortunately, so are dull horses. Many riders send contradictory messages: Their legs say ‘go forward,’ but then they pull on the reins to say ‘put your head down.”

A tolerant mount eventually ignores the leg aids, she says; a reactive one may express his frustration in a more athletic manner.

Then there’s the horse that zooms forward at the slightest touch of the rider’s leg. This type hasn’t been taught to accept the leg passively draped around his sides, and his overreactions effectively train the rider to keep the leg off.

“The horse should move forward from a light leg aid and decrease his speed or gait from a light rein aid,” says Guess. “The horse that moves forward but can’t be controlled isn’t in front of your leg; he’s just fleeing.”

Introduce the Leg

Begin to teach the desired response to your leg aid by giving a light calf squeeze along with a voice cue. Don’t wear spurs in this elementary training stage. Through repetition, your horse will associate the leg aid with the voice command.

“Eventually, you’ll be able to subtract your voice and he will respond to the leg aid,” says Guess.

If your horse doesn’t move off smartly from a light leg aid, consider his temperament before you give a kick or tap with the whip, Guess cautions. Sensitive types may kick out or buck if they feel surprised or “shouted at” by stronger aids.

A lazy or dull horse, on the other hand, may require a bit of convincing. The rule here is “as light as possible, but as strong as necessary” to create the desired response.

Don’t omit the important final step in this process of training to get a better response to the leg aid: retesting the response to the light aid. If you have to kick or use the whip to get your horse to go forward and you don’t retry the light aid, you’ve taught him that it’s OK to ignore you until you shout.

Find Your Tempo

Left to their own devices, many horses will gradually slow down, even if they were nicely forward at first. Some riders don’t notice the change in tempo until it’s dramatically slower or the horse breaks gait, Guess says. Then the startled rider gives a kick, and the horse surges forward.

“You must stay aware of the tempo the horse is able to maintain and make sure he does,” Guess says.

At first, be happy with a circle or two at a steady pace. Build up gradually. Need help finding that steady tempo? Ride to a song with the right beats per minute.

Independent Aids

Guess points out that some riders kick or pull without meaning to because of poor balance or body control. When you’re trying to get a horse to respond to your leg, the last thing you want is to inadvertently punish him for obeying.

“Once he moves forward, don’t immediately try to control his head,” says Guess.

If you ask him to trot and he canters instead, allow the canter for a few strides and make a mental note to dial down your leg aid next time. Calmly shorten your reins if needed, quiet your seat, and give small squeezes with the rein until he comes back to the gait you want.

The Too-Quick Horse

“[A rushing horse] is either in flight or out of balance,” says Guess. “Pulling will only make him tumble forward with more determination.

Riding in straight lines tends to make the problem worse. Circles, turns, and changes of direction are your friend while trying to get a better response to the leg aid.

Make increasingly smaller circles until it becomes difficult for your horse to continue his rushing pace, Guess advises. Use your voice to praise him when he moves into the gait and speed you want. Then give him a walk break before repeating the exercise.

“[You can also] allow the circle to enlarge as long as he keeps the correct tempo,” she adds. “Decrease the circle as soon as you feel him lose balance and start to speed up again.”

Willing and Responsive

A well-known saying in dressage is: The lazy horse needs to learn to go with the leg off; the hot horse needs to learn to go with the leg on.

“Insist on getting an appropriate response; then praise,” says Guess.

In front of the leg isn’t about getting the horse in a frame.

“It’s about having the horse available to you whenever you use your leg.”

This article on how to train a better response to the leg aid originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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The leg-yield is the building block of most lateral work in dressage. In a leg-yield, the horse travels forward and sideways, moving away from one of the rider’s legs while remaining straight through his body. There is a tiny bit of flexion in the horse’s poll away from the direction of movement.

Leg-yield can be ridden in the walk and trot and sometimes in the canter. In competition, it’s shown in the trot at First Level.

“Leg-yield teaches the horse two things,” says instructor and trainer Angelia Bean, a U.S. Dressage Federation bronze, silver, and gold medalist who operates Straight Forward Dressage in Glenmoore, Pa. “It teaches the horse to follow the rider’s weight in a sideways way, and to step with his inside hind leg diagonally underneath himself in a forward way.”

Getting Started

Here’s how Bean introduces the leg-yield concept. Start in the walk along
the long side of the arena, a few meters away from the rail. Shift your
weight slightly to the outside (the side nearest the rail). Most horses will
naturally take a step or two of leg-yield toward the rail because they want
to be balanced under the rider’s weight.

Remember the turn on the forehand (see “Turn on the Forehand” in Horse Illustrated July 2019), which taught your horse to move his haunches away from your inside leg?

Now, you’re going to incorporate that inside-leg aid so that you’re asking him to step both sideways and forward while your outside aids say, “Don’t go sideways too fast; keep traveling forward and maintain your alignment.”

But as Bean explains, when some riders are learning to use a unilateral (single) leg aid, they lean toward that side, which contradicts the leg aid. That’s why she usually starts by teaching the weight aid and adds the leg aid later.

Eventually the sequence becomes “bump with the inside leg; shift your weight; bump with the inside leg; shift your weight,” she says. After horse and rider get the hang of traveling forward and sideways, then the sequence becomes bump with leg; weight shift; and slight “containing” squeeze with the outside rein to prevent the horse’s shoulders from falling sideways and losing the alignment of his body, she says.

Used correctly, the outside rein actually encourages the crossing of the horse’s hind legs because it limits how much the inside hind leg can step straight forward, she explains.

Try It at the Trot

After you and your horse feel confident leg-yielding a few steps in the walk in both directions, try it in the trot, either rising or sitting. You may actually find the movement easier in the trot because you’ll naturally be inclined to use your inside leg during the moment of suspension in the gait, says Bean.

Use the arena letter markers to help you ride an accurate diagonal line. In First Level Test 2, the movement is ridden from the center line to the rail—a width of only 10 meters—over 36 meters, so the angle is quite shallow.

There’s no “wow” feeling to a correctly ridden leg-yield, says Bean. If your horse glides smoothly along the desired line while maintaining the alignment and the trot tempo, you’re doing it right.

If you find yourself drawing your inside leg back because he isn’t moving away from it, or you’re pulling on the inside rein to stop that falling-sideways feeling, you either need to reinforce the obedience to your inside leg or correct the alignment. Let the geometry help you to assess the correctness of your riding and training.

This article on how to leg yield originally appeared in the July 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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