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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Introduced in First Level dressage, the leg-yield is an important prerequisite for the horse and rider before starting more advanced lateral work. But it’s also a useful warm-up move for horses of any level to loosen the muscles before moving on to other work.

When you first work on the leg-yield, your expectations should coincide with your horse’s level of experience. Initially, I look for the horse to grasp the concept that I am asking him to move sideways in a steady rhythm. The elements of more leg crossing, connection, and straightness will all become more refined with time.

Troubleshooting Leg Yield Errors

Here are four common errors you will face with your horse if you’re just beginning to work on the leg-yield, and how to fix them.

Error No. 1: The horse rushes off when you squeeze your inside leg. An exercise that is helpful for this problem is to begin the leg-yield, and the moment your horse begins to rush, start a circle in the opposite direction of the movement. Return back to the line you left from and proceed on with the leg-yield.

For example, if you are leg-yielding left from the centerline (away from your right leg) and your horse begins to rush near the quarterline, turn right onto a 15-meter circle to help rebalance him and then return back to quarterline and proceed straight with the leg-yield again.

Error No. 2: Your horse won’t move sideways. I like to teach as much from the ground as I can so that it translates easily to the horse under saddle. One in-hand exercise I use to teach the leg-yield is the turn on the forehand while keeping the horse straight through his body.

If your horse is still struggling under saddle when first being asked to leg-yield, providing him with an opening outside rein and slightly shifting your weight in the direction of the movement will guide him over. As your horse begins to connect the push of your inside leg with moving over, you can begin to stay more neutral in your stirrups and keep the outside rein toward your horse’s shoulder to build the leg-yield straighter and straighter.

Error No. 3: Your horse comes off the bit. This is commonly due to a loss of balance. When a horse is first learning to leg-yield, I don’t get flustered if the connection doesn’t stay consistent the entire time.

The leg-yield is used to improve connection from inside leg to outside rein, creating a more rounded connection over your horse’s back. As he gets stronger and improves in the exercise, the connection will also improve.

One thing you need to be sure of is that you don’t automatically begin pulling back on the reins to “wrestle” your horse’s head back down. This leads to tension in his back and loss of control of his hind end.

Instead, be sure to offer a rebalancing half-halt on the outside rein, keeping a slight flexion away from the direction of the leg-yield, and trust that the issue of the connection in the front will be fixed by your horse coming more underneath you with his inside hind.

Always be sure to soften the rein pressure as your horse begins to relax down into the bit as a reward and reassurance to him that he is doing what you’ve asked.

Error No. 4: Your horse will not cross his legs. For this, I use the “head to the wall” leg-yield exercise. Beginning in the walk, travel straight through the short side and cut the second corner on a diagonal toward the wall. I tell my students to pretend they are going to ride out of the arena on a diagonal line.

As your horse’s head comes to the wall, keep his neck straight and send him away from what was your outside leg. For example, if you are tracking right, you would be sending your horse sideways from your left leg. Be sure to keep his body on that same diagonal line, around a 30- to 35-degree angle, and not swinging straight back to the wall or perpendicular to it. This is also a useful exercise for the horse who has a tendency to rush through the leg-yield.

When ridden correctly, the leg-yield establishes a better connection from inside leg to outside rein and helps to supple the horse through his hips, croup, lower back and shoulders. Ultimately, it will improve overall balance, which is important for keeping you and your horse working in harmony.

This article about how to fix leg yield errors appeared in the June 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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The U.S. Equestrian (USEF) Dressage Rule Book describes the leg-yield as follows:

The horse is kept almost straight, except for slight flexion of the poll away from the direction in which he moves, and the inside legs pass and cross in front of the outside legs with the forehand slightly in advance of the quarters.

You can use the leg-yield in many types of exercises to establish a better connection from inside leg to outside rein. Lateral work improves connection, balance, and suppleness. It also gives you more insight on where your horse may be struggling with tension in his body. The leg-yield is typically ridden at the walk or trot.

This movement is introduced in First Level dressage and is an important prerequisite for both the horse and rider before moving on to advanced lateral work.

How To Ride the Leg-Yield

When performing the leg-yield under saddle, I prefer to start in the trot since the exercise has the tendency to compress the horse, so the forward impulsion helps keep him moving sideways more steadily. With a more forward and sensitive horse, it may be better to start in the walk.

Sitting slightly more on your inside seat bone, keep your shoulders level and pointed in the direction of your horse’s shoulders with your hands parallel to each other. Your eyes should be looking straight ahead with the destination of the leg-yield in your peripheral vision.

Beginning on a straight line—either the quarterline or centerline—first ride straight and forward before beginning this move. Keeping your horse straight through the neck on the outside rein with a little inside flexion, press with your inside leg slightly behind the girth in the rhythm of the trot.

Be sure to keep your outside rein contact steady, as you may need to half-halt if your horse begins to rush or his shoulders drift too far over. Your outside leg does not come off, but stays on softly as what I call a “forward guiding leg” to prevent your horse from falling abruptly sideways. The inside flexion encourages your horse to stay soft in his jaw and poll throughout the movement.

When you are first learning to leg-yield, give yourself plenty of time to reach the wall. Moving on too steep of an angle may cause your horse to lose straightness and balance.
I recommend beginning the leg-yield about a quarter of the way down the line you start on and finishing on the wall before the next corner. For example, starting the leg-yield between D and L, and finishing at H or M.

When you arrive at the wall, your outside leg closes and your outside hand comes into the neck to ask your horse to travel straight and then prepare for the bend in the next corner. You may feel that the corner becomes easier to ride as the leg-yield pushes the inside hind under your horse’s center of gravity, creating a greater degree of bend.

Troubleshooting Rider Errors

Here are three common errors when riding the leg-yield and how to fix them.

1. Incorrect riding position: During the leg-yield, it is important that you remain balanced in the center of the horse’s back. Commonly I see a rider swinging or rocking her hips or dipping one shoulder. The leg-yield is a relatively straight movement; you must continue to think of traveling a straight line with your body to help the horse maintain balance.

Often the reason for the position issues is that your horse is not responding to the leg you are trying to yield away from. In this instance, I would recommend carrying a whip or wearing a small spur to assist and reinforce the aid, if needed.

A good visual is to picture that you are leg-yielding to multiple lines close together; travel on one line straight and just move a few feet over to the next line, and the next, until you have finished at the wall.

2. The horse’s neck is crooked or pulled in the opposite direction of the leg-yield: In this case, the horse does not leg-yield, but rather pushes through the opposite shoulder and falls sideways.

You must remember to keep your hands parallel to control your horse’s neck position and to keep his shoulders from drifting. I often tell my students to glance at their hands and use the front of the saddle pad as a reference to keep their hands parallel.

It’s an easy visual for you to see from the saddle if one hand or the other wants to drift forward or back. By keeping your hands in this position, the contact of the outside rein prevents your horse’s neck from overbending and gives him a steady connection to push his inside hind leg into.

3. The horse turns on a diagonal line rather than moving sideways: For this issue, I like to set up pairs of poles or cones parallel to the side of the arena. You should only need about three pairs when leg-yielding from centerline.

Depending on the length of the arena, place the first pair about a quarter to a third of the way down the arena somewhere between centerline and quarterline. Set them a comfortable width apart to trot your horse in between them, maybe 4 to 5 feet.

Set the next pair another third of the way down the arena the same distance apart, and the last pair on the track at the far end of the long side before the corner.

To ride this exercise, begin your leg-yield from centerline to the first pair of poles. Close your outside leg and send your horse straight through the poles. Leg-yield again to the second set and proceed straight through the poles again. Finish the leg-yield between the last set of poles at the track.

By breaking up the leg-yield, you’ll understand how to use your outside leg to guide your horse straight in the leg-yield to prevent him from turning to a diagonal line.

Take your leg yield to the next level with Part Two of this series.

This article about the how to improve your horse’s leg yield appeared in the June 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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During Medieval times, a horse’s main job was to carry men into battle during wartime and to pull carriages during times of peace. If you had good horses, you had everything you needed, during both war and peace.

In the mid-1500s, Austrian Archduke Charles II, ruler of Inner Austria, sought to create a special breed of horse. He imported Andalusian horses, Berbers and Barbs from Spain and crossed them with a now-extinct breed called the Karst, a rugged, high-stepping, light gray horse native to Austria. Charles’ brother, Maximilian II, the Holy Roman Emperor, also founded a stud at Kladrub in Austria (which is now part of the Czech Republic) with the same goal, and used Spanish breeds crossed with local horses. The elegant and powerful horses that resulted—eventually called Lipizzans—became heavy carriage horses at the Kladruby stud, and riding and light carriage horses at the Lipizza Stud of the Hapsburg monarchy.

The brothers exchanged breeding stock at times, crossing the lines to create aristocratic animals that were more than just war and work horses; they were partners in what had become the highly revered art of classical riding, which combined maneuvers used in battle with exercises that emphasized the horse’s athletic ability and obedience to the rider.

Charles and Maximilian were members of the Hapsburg family, rulers of the most influential monarchy in European history. Connoisseurs of fine horses, the brothers created the Lipizzan breed for their own use. In response to the growing admiration for classical riding during the Renaissance among the aristocracy, the Hapsburg family established the Spanish Riding School in Vienna to teach horses and riders these fine skills. Over the next two centuries, more Spanish and Arabian blood was infused into the breed to help strengthen the Lipizzan’s foundation breeding.

Six of the stallions used during the 18th and 19th century established the family lines still seen in the Lipizzan today. These stallions—Conversano, Favory, Maestoso, Neopolitano, Pluto and Siglavy—all came from lines that originated outside of Austria. To this day, Lipizzans are marked with an ancestral brand representing their family line.

Modern Breed

Many people think of Lipizzans as an exotic horse of the past, famous for its performances at the Spanish Riding School. The truth is that purebred Lipizzans are alive and well in today’s horse world, with more than 900 registered in the United States. These horses are competing in a variety of sports. In Eastern Europe, they are considered the premier driving horse.

It’s rare to see a Lipizzan in the U.S. because their numbers are small, so to help raise awareness of the breed, the United States Lipizzan Foundation (USLF) is working hard by using a comprehensive social media and advertising campaign meant to get the word out. The organization hopes to show that these horses, while they have a rich and fascinating history, have a place in modern competition.

“We feel these horses have a lot of abilities beyond the noncompetitive classical dressage you see in the Spanish Riding School,” says Sam Martinson, vice president of the USLF. “They have always been very successful in dressage competition. Many amateurs are now looking for an athletic horse of smaller stature who can compete at the top levels of the sport, which Lipizzans can do because the collection is so easy for them.”

She notes in 2020 alone, U.S. Lipizzan riders were at the top of their sports in dressage, driving, working equitation, mounted archery and western dressage.

“This is really something if you consider our population numbers and how few horses we have competing,” says Martinson.

Don’t be surprised if you see a Lipizzan the next time you attend a local dressage, driving or working equitation event.

“In recent years, there’s been a great deal of interest in both breeding these horses and buyers looking to purchase them for sport,” says Martinson. “We are excited to see people recognize the incredible athletic ability, temperament and trainability of a breed that has 500 years of careful breeding behind it.”

This article about the Lipizzan horses appeared in the June 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Trying a new riding discipline (dressage) takes an experienced equestrian back to square one.

Like many kids, I spent my youth in Hunter Land: fluffy white pads, braided reins, last-minute slathers of hoof polish. But in law school, the closest stable trained in dressage. I’d known a handful of dressage ladies growing up, but I’d assumed these middle-aged women were simply afraid of oxers (goals beyond “jump high” did not compute). I’d lessoned with visiting dressage pros but took it about as seriously as I would have taken a jousting lesson—fun, but not especially relevant. So this would be new.

Rider Transitions

I approached my dressage transition exactly as I’d approached law school: It’s only three years! It’ll make you better! Well-rounded! You’ll learn a new language! It’s an adventure! I figured I would eat my flatwork broccoli and return, miraculously improved, to my brown jumps.

I strutted into the new barn assuming my fancy hunter headwear would do the talking for me. (The announcement, presumably, “As you can tell from my helmet, I am very snobby.”) I lengthened my stirrups before my first lesson. My feet were a mere breeze from freedom. Maybe I overdid it? My new trainer assured me I did not. She dropped them lower. Now a faraway sneeze could dislodge me.

This was a true riding school, and my lesson included mainly the 14-and-under crowd. But any swagger I already had evaporated when it became clear that I was the absolute worst in the class.

I quickly discovered I’d been relying on jamming my heels down to quiet my leg.

Dressage Reality Check

“Renvers!” my trainer shouted. (For the non-dressage riders out there, my trainer was asking for a haunches-out movement in which the horse travels parallel to the long side of the arena with his body curved away from the center of the ring.)

OH NO, I realized. I AM AN ADULT BEGINNER. I glanced around to see what everyone else was doing. Ahead of me was the clueless 10-year-old whose backward polos I’d fixed before the lesson. I tried to make my horse look like hers.

We picked up a sitting trot, which would have been easier bareback than in my dangling stirrups. OK, we will hold it together for today, then get in a hot bath until sometime next quarter.

I bobbled hopelessly without my stirrup crutches. The irregular rhythm mocked me. You. Bounce. Are. Flounce. So. Plop. Bad. Flop.

Time to Question

My stirrups were too short. My reins were too long. My upper body tipped. My legs swung. My hips did not swing enough. There’s really nothing quite like thinking you’re good at a thing and then having your pride sadly handed back to you, like a pair of beautiful reins your horse has chewed to pieces. But in this humiliation, a new door opened in my brain.

I had always been too intimidated to ask questions. What if my trainer thinks I’m stupid? What if I AM stupid? Or worse, what if the other KIDS think I’m stupid? Good hunters, of course, approach their sport with the same curiosity and precision as dressage riders do. But I had stopped learning, stopped thinking, stopped (never started!) questioning.

Now I was forced to don my big-girl breeches and just ask what a travers was and how to halt squarely. Maybe it was law school, maybe it was a new trainer who saw me as an adult, or maybe it was just that I was terrible and desperate, but I asked lots of questions. (FYI: travers is “haunches in.”)

I was amazed to find thorough explanations for everything we did. I no longer dumbly bullied my way through a problem. I took a walk break and thought my way through it. My horse is dragging me. Maybe we rebalance with trot-halts instead of kicking forward into nothing?

A Re-Education on Education

I hear you thinking, Of course you can think your way through a riding issue. What is wrong with her? How did she get into law school? Where does she live so I can avoid her forever?

But for me, switching disciplines was a breakthrough. My three years of dressage was a forced, humbling recalibration—the equivalent of someone saying, “You think you’re OK at writing? Have you tried it in German?”

I was no Charlotte Dujardin by the end of my dressage stint, but I’d learned a new language. And I’d relearned how to learn—how to ask questions, process answers, try new movements, feel results, and adjust.

I never returned to hunter land, but as a jumper, a little dressage is my secret weapon. And on a hot day, I’ll spend 40 minutes on lateral movements at the walk (I could definitely hang with those middle-aged women now). Dressage taught me skills I still love to flash, but more importantly, it taught me how to be a beginner again.

Today, I ask my trainers more questions than anyone they teach. Because my dressage years taught me if I ask, I’ll understand why. And if I understand why, the “how” might make sense. And once the “how” makes sense, there’s a chance even I can produce a renvers.

This Your Horse Life column, about being patient, humble, and open to learning while acquiring a new riding discipline, appeared in the April 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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By Rose Caslar

Rose Caslar, an experienced rider and trainer, arrives for her year-long internship at American classical dressage master Paul Belasik’s Pennsylvania Riding Academy to find she must put aside everything she knows about riding, from her position to dressage theory. Rose is courageous, honest and remarkably open, sweeping readers along in the daily work, her adventures, and her private thoughts. The tremendous workload of a first-class training facility is not for the faint of heart; neither are weekly lessons with sometimes mysterious Belasik who encourages Rose to ask the right questions, giving nothing away.

Forget Everything You Thought You Knew

I have now been at Lost Hollow Farm, home of the Pennsylvania Riding Academy, working with Paul and Andrea, for one month. I have not written until now because frankly, I have been A) exhausted, B) occasionally confused, and C) rather unsure just how to describe the experience. Lest that all sound terribly negative and discouraging, let me explain.

My artist stepfather conducts woodcarving classes in which students carve an entire full-size carousel animal in four to five days. Or rather, he lets them chip away at it for a while and then periodically steps in to create a hurricane of woodchips, lending the student some progress. In the first part of the workshop, he says it is totally imperative to create, as he calls it, “atmospheric distortion.” This means to confuse, enlighten, befuddle, and simply bowl over a student’s normal way of looking at art and their own abilities in order to create a new mental and physical space for learning.

In a way, this is what the interns’ workload at the Academy does. Like an artist opening your mind or a boot camp breaking you down to build you up, you must learn do more than you thought you could and to do it differently. My bodyworker Laurel Sanders says wisely, “Your old ways aren’t working anymore.”

This year, those interns are the excellent Ryan Hopkins and me. At the barn we start early, we end late, and there isn’t any stopping in between. Unlike my other working student and intern experiences at smaller barns with fewer horses, the work-to-riding ratio is about 10:1. Keeping around 28 horses, including horses in training, young horses from weanlings to 2-year-olds, broodmares, and a stallion, with a very high standard of care, attention, and grooming is simply a great deal of work!

A pleasant side effect to this is learning more about successful barn management than I have ever known before. Riding one hour per day out of 11 means that not a minute in the saddle can be wasted. It means that no matter how tired I am, I owe it to myself and the loving man I left in Oregon to make every minute count. Thus, various titles I have thought of for this entry are as follows: Dressage Boot Camp, 30 Days to Ripped (my biceps are looking nice, thank you!), and Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Forget Everything You Thought You Knew.

Just Another Day

To give you a sense of a typical day at the barn, here is a quick overview of our day as interns at the Academy. Ryan and I arrive at 7 a.m., check the turnout and training schedule, feed the horses in the barn, then begin bringing in and feeding the horses from the paddocks and turning out the horses in the barn.

We start cleaning and bedding the 15 stalls and scrubbing and refilling water buckets, pausing near 8 a.m. to get the first set of horses ready to be ridden. This may include full baths for those horses that love to get themselves as dirty as possible overnight. The standard of grooming, according to my training by previous intern Coral and overseen by Andrea, is: “Every horse that walks out of this barn needs to be show ready.”

After Paul and Andrea take their first set of horses down to the arena to school, Ryan and I continue to clean the barn, pausing about every 45 minutes to get another set of horses ready, meanwhile switching the horses in turnout, starting the day’s many loads of saddle pads and polo wraps laundry, and trying to clean a few bridles as we go. Around 11 a.m., however the schedule is written, either Ryan or I will go down to the arena with our own horse to school.

Then we continue taking in hot horses that have just been worked and making sure the next set to train is ready. At some point, whichever intern didn’t ride in the morning takes his or her horse down to school in the afternoon. If a client is coming for a lesson, we have the school horse prepared.

We make up the afternoon feed buckets and then begin afternoon chores, picking stalls, refilling waters, putting horses out, bringing horses in, cleaning tack, making up the morning feed, picking the outside paddocks, doing any outside chores such as scrubbing and refilling water tanks or hay huts, then finish the laundry, sweep the barn, and mop the tack room.

On Thursdays, we dust the entire barn. If it is a slower day, for instance because Paul is away teaching a clinic, we may try catch up on other more intermittent chores, like fixing fences, clipping horses, pulling manes, or raking up the hay loft. Altogether, it is a very well-run barn, to which the shining health of the horses is a testament.

And that is why for the first two weeks, it was all I could do to stay up until 8 p.m. I experimented with triple insoles in my boots to soothe my aching feet. I discovered that Epsom salts in a hot bath really do work to relieve muscle soreness, and that I really must pack three times the amount of food I would typically eat in my lunch bag because the hard work makes me ravenous.

After a month, I have found myself caring even more and more about the work … paying attention to detail and seeing that excellence starts with high standards in the lowliest tasks.

But after a month, I have found myself caring even more and more about the work … paying attention to detail and seeing that excellence starts with high standards in the lowliest tasks. Paul says, rightly, that improving in dressage is about Showing Up and Doing the Work. Neither horse nor rider will improve if effort is not made. Pretty simple, right?

But it so easy for riding and training to slip or be nudged aside. In my own life this past year, my riding and fitness took a back seat to full-time computer work and household responsibilities. Working at the barn can feel like a daily marathon of tasks, but it is a daily practice in showing up and doing the work. How many years did the Zen students spend sweeping the floor and hauling water? No one really knows, but it was a lot.

Trust the Teacher

This brings us to another important aspect of the internship experience and another thing Zen students had to do; trust the teacher. In his book Complete Training of the Horse and Rider, Alois Podhajsky outlines the basic requirements for a student entering a manège, urging the student to trust the teacher and trust the system to provide what is needed and lead where one must be led. It goes without saying then that it is necessary to leave one’s ego at the farm gate each morning.

Paul teaches classical dressage that can be most closely compared to the Austro-Hungarian method of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The historical SRS has its roots deep in classical dressage with a lineage dating to Giovanni Battista Pignatelli’s 16th century riding school in Italy, where European noblemen went to study during the Renaissance. These men created a diaspora of dressage, some of which changed over time as countries such as France, Germany and Spain added their own national colors.

To Paul, national tendencies aside, if dressage isn’t about the goal of shifting weight and carrying capacity to the hind end to ultimately achieve the highest collection (such as levade), it isn’t classical dressage. And now, dear reader, here is where my own atmospheric distortion comes in; it seems I am hearing a new language. Paul uses phrases I have never heard before, such as “weaving the neck into the back,” and “connecting the rein to the hock.”

All artists and writers try to go on a sabbatical, a time away from all the usual household and relationship responsibilities to devote purely to their practice.

My family loves to tease me about how I have quit a good job, left my long-suffering sweetheart and all things beloved to clean more stalls than we have in our entire county in rural Oregon and wade knee deep through horse laundry, all of which is white. My family has been relentless in their joshing, but in a recent phone call my mother took a slightly different tack.

She said, “You know, honey, this is a really special opportunity for you. All artists and writers try to go on a sabbatical, a time away from all the usual household and relationship responsibilities to devote purely to their practice.”

I could hardly believe my ears. This generous remark came from the woman whom I know has been struggling not to roll her eyes for the entire year leading up to me putting my horses in my 1970 Trail Magic horse trailer and driving alone across the country to some place I didn’t know a whole lot about. But I liked my mother’s idea. So, Paul may call it an internship, but for me this is a sabbatical … the gift of an entire year to study dressage with a master classical rider and trainer with the good wishes (mostly) of my loved ones.

We begin at the beginning, with the rider’s position.

Text excerpted with permission from Dressage Sabbatical: A Year of Classical Riding at Lost Hollow Farm. To read the captivating tale of a rider’s challenge of a lifetime in its entirety, order your copy at www.kipmistral.com/shop.

This article originally about Rose’s dressage sabbatical appeared in the April 2018 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Q: I receive comments on my dressage tests indicating that my horse is too rushed. How do I fix his tempo?

A: Rhythm denotes the timing and sequence of the footfalls for each gait, while tempo refers to the rate of those footfalls. At the walk, the rhythm is four-beat, at the trot two-beat, and at the canter three-beat. Think clarity of footfalls within the gait. Tempo, on the other hand, is how quickly those footfalls occur: the number of beats per minute.

While distinguishing between tempo and rhythm may be confusing, these are often issues that go hand in hand. Imagine a sluggish horse cantering slowly with little impulsion: tempo is characterized by the slowness of the footfalls, which will most likely also impact rhythm, as the lack of energy degrades the canter from a three-beat to a four-beat gait.

“Judges really want to see consistency and steadiness,” says Grand Prix dressage competitor and popular clinician Jeremy Steinberg. He notes that the gait should reflect a metronome-type quality. In fact, some riders make use of a metronome app on a smartphone attached to their belt to gain greater awareness of tempo while riding.

Exercises for Horses That Rush

Horses that tend to rush are often braced over their toplines and into the contact, explains Steinberg. To overcome this tightness, he recommends suppling work in your schooling; your repertoire should include serpentines, changes of direction, circles, and figure 8s. “With lateral changes of the bend, you make it harder for your horse to brace and be stiff through his topline,” he says. Think small increases and decreases over four or five strides, asking the horse to go forward and come back.

Unfortunately, the lower-level dressage tests may be a challenge with horses that charge ahead, notes Steinberg, as the tests are comprised of open lines on long sides and diagonals interspersed with big circles. This is when your homework will help you; work on suppling and transitions at home and in the warm up so that your horse is not inclined to brace and take over.

Exercises for Lazy Horses

If your horse has the opposite problem and is behind the leg, Steinberg addresses these lazy horses with “question and answer” transitions. “I use my leg and see what kind of response I get,” he says. “If I don’t get enough of a response, I correct with a little kick or a touch from the whip to make the horse jump a little forward, and then instantly repeat the transition again. Squeezing and driving a lazy horse is like giving a person a bear hug: the more you squeeze, the more they hold their breath and hold their ribs against you. As you squeeze and drive, the horse tightens down and gets lazier. Transitions are key; constantly being challenged to give you a transition at any moment keeps the horse sharper.

“Trot-canter transitions in particular are a really good challenge to see how quick, crisp, and sharp you can get the horse to respond, hopefully off a smaller and smaller aid.”

This article originally appeared in the July 2015 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Q: I am new to riding dressage, but am wondering how to adjust the noseband. Should it be tight or loose?

A: It’s important to know the rules of competition in any discipline so you can apply them at home in your training as well. National shows held under United States Dressage Federation (USDF) rules require that your horse be ridden in a leather or leather-like bridle with a cavesson noseband. There are four types of cavesson nosebands to choose from: plain, dropped, flash or figure-eight. The last three types buckle under the bit to keep the horse from opening his mouth in an attempt to evade proper contact.

In lower-level dressage, the horse must wear some type of smooth snaffle bit. If your horse is green and gapes his mouth or tries to get his tongue over the bit, a flash or figure-eight noseband will help discourage these types of evasive behaviors. If he doesn’t show this behavior, use a plain noseband.

As far as tightness goes, the official USDF rule states that it “may never be so tightly fixed that it causes severe irritation to the skin, and must be adjusted to allow at least two fingers under the noseband on the side of the face under the cheekbone.”

During bit check at a show, they may indeed check nosebands that look too tight to test the two-finger rule. Though this doesn’t apply to your flash strap, making it so tight that it digs in above your horse’s nostrils and restricts his breathing certainly doesn’t help his athletic performance. Also, a relaxed dressage horse should chew the bit softly, so strapping his mouth shut too tightly to allow for some chewing is counter-productive.

This article originally appeared in the November 2014 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Riding outside most often proves to be one of the surest accelerants of dressage training. First, there is no better test of your dressage mastery than to take it on the trail. Asking for your horse’s responsiveness and skills in what I call the “real world” requires an arguably more solid level of mastery. Second, most horses achieve the much-needed skills of straightness, balance, and coordination easier on trails. Varying terrain and surfaces make their progress faster than working only in an arena.

Obviously, though, what you gain from trail training depends on how you tackle it. Notice first of all that I refer to it as trail training as opposed to trail riding. A lot of riders approach trails as a chance to meander along and enjoy the scenery. Others see it as a nerve-wracking experience filled with unwanted challenges. Neither of these approaches fosters the complement that trails can have on dressage and vice versa.

My first tip is exactly this: treat the trails as training, not a passive stroll through the countryside. Ride with the same attentiveness and expectations you have in the arena. Are your half-halts working? Can you ride several smooth transitions during a given stretch of trail? Is your horse stretching his neck nicely forwards and downwards? Ride with constant feeling and adjustments to rhythm, rein contact, and horse’s line of travel. Riding along with loose reins and a sloppy body position might seem relaxing but it counter-productive to the rest of your horse’s training. While tempting, do NOT become a passive rider during trail rides. Doing so risks missing the real value of these training settings. Below are my other top tips for improving your dressage by using trails.

Walk Wisely

When you are on a section of trail that necessitates walking, shift between three different gears—slow, medium, and fast. Rather than plodding along in an un-changing gait, ask your horse to change frequently between these three different gears. This way, you will not only keep him listening better to you but also help him use his hind legs more fluidly.

Wavy Lines

Make it a habit to bend your horse consistently left and right, even on narrow sections of trail. When horses follow their noses straight down the trail for too long, they get stiff through the bodies which then leads to traveling heavily on the forehand. Instead, ask your horse to ride mini-serpentine lines as you ride down straight section of trails or roads. Ask him to bend as precisely and fluidly as you would in the arena, allowing the width of the trail to dictate the size of your serpentine lines. Also learn to take advantage of any place you see a field or area where you can leave the trail to ride circles around a tree or other marker.

Learn Shoulder-In and Use it

Dressage riders sometimes tout shoulder-in as being the alpha and omega of gymnastic training. Its merits are vast for improving the horse’s balance and use of his hindquarters. Get in the habit of riding a few strides of shoulder-in on trails any time the footing is soft enough to allow the horse’s hoof to rotate slightly laterally. As with your serpentines above, shoulder-in will help you derive a much better gymnastic outcome than just following the horse’s nose straight down the trail.

Ride the Jog

Teach your horse to move in a slow trot with shorter, rhythmic steps at about 5-6 miles per hour. This will allow him to move efficiently and in balance over undulating terrain, uneven surfaces, and for sustained distances. Some riders get eager to move at full speed in trot, which often causes the horse to tighten his back and over-use his neck and front end muscles to pull himself down the trail. By jogging along slowly, he will better coordinate his body around turns, down hills, and through terrain changes without having to come down to a walk. This enables him to stay softer and swinging in his back, allowing his hind legs to flex more and carry weight.

Ride Downhill like a Balance Beam

When traveling downhill, the horse relies on eccentric muscle contractions (lengthening of the fibers while simultaneously tensioning), which are the same type needed for collected movements in dressage. The conditioning payoffs from riding down hills are irreplaceable. The caveat, however, is that your horse MUST travel straight with his hips and shoulders aligned. Most horses, favoring a weaker hind leg, will try to walk down hills by shifting their hips over to one side and getting crooked. Be vigilant keeping the horse straight like a ruler between your legs. By doing so, you will help him become more symmetrical and stronger while increasing the flexion of his hind limbs rather than confirming a crookedness or stiffness.

Any time your arena riding and your trail outings seem like very separate and distinct endeavors, take time to think how you can make their goals and outcomes more alike. In a complete training program, they should complement one another.

JEC ARISTOTLE BALLOU is the author of 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse & Rider.

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Q: I do dressage with my very lazy, thick-skinned Friesian. He doesn’t respect my leg or whip. What can I do to get a better response?

A: There are classical training methods to address the situation you have with your lazy horse. These involve tuning the horse to the aids, which is a humane system involving groundwork with a whip, voice cues, praise, and enough repetition until he clearly understands you and wants to comply.

Tack up your horse in a snaffle bridle and a saddle with the stirrups run up. You need a whip that is a bit longer than a regulation-length dressage whip; more like a buggy whip, but without the extra little lash that is usually about 8 to 10 inches long. If you have a buggy whip with such a lash, tape the lash to the stock, or cut it off and put tape around the end so it won’t unravel.

Have treats on hand. Stand by your horse’s left side and stroke him slowly and gently with the whip, reassuring him with your voice that you are not going to hurt him and that he is a good boy. Stroke him first on the shoulder with the grip of the whip (not raising the long stock into the air). If he isn’t frightened, then slowly raise the whip and gently stroke him over his rump and down his left hind leg, reassuring him with your voice. If he tolerates this well, give him a treat.

Now, holding the left rein near the bit with your left hand (reins around his neck) and the whip in your right hand, stroke your horse gently over his rump and down to his hamstring area and tap lightly, asking him to step sideways away from you with his hindquarters. If he does this correctly, he will lift his left hind leg and cross it in front of his right hind leg in a leg-yielding fashion, similar to a few steps of a turn on the forehand. If he does this well, praise him. Repeat it after a few seconds, followed by verbal praise and a treat. Repeat on the other side of his body, working to get him to cross his right hind leg over his left hind leg. Remember to praise him when he’s successful.

Next, mount up, and after walking for a minute or two, go back to the spot where you did the groundwork and ask for a few steps of a turn on the forehand, carrying the whip on the side of your active leg. Be sure to praise your horse for any effort. This can be in the form of your voice and a pat. Then, ask him to go straight forward at a brisk walk, closing your lower legs simultaneously and then releasing them a bit, and touch him lightly with the whip. Carry the whip in your inside hand (when riding to the left, this would be your left hand).

Apply the same principle to asking for the trot. When your horse feels lazy or is very slow to react, tap him behind your leg (not on his haunches) with multiple quick taps and say, “Trr-ot!” Use this technique for the trot-canter transitions as well.

My additional advice is to consider the horse’s potential to be an enjoyable dressage mount. If after trying the method I described there is very little improvement in his responsiveness, think about having an even more experienced rider than yourself ride and evaluate him. It may be that his temperament is so gentle that getting him to respond quickly to the forward and forward-sideways aids is not going to be possible beyond a certain point.

Liked this article? Here’s more advice for horse training troubleshooting:
7 Under-Saddle Problems and How to Fix Them
Charging Up the Lazy Horse

CINDY SYDNOR has been long-listed for the U.S. Equestrian Team and is a dressage trainer and “R” judge based in North Carolina.

This article originally appeared in the October 2014 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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