mee too! I managed to event to PT with my wonderful coaches Ex-Prelim eventer, but when I got my own horse, and lost my coach to moving to the States, I struggled, the horse I eventually bought wasn’t up for anything much, and its taken me 13 years to get back to competition, and only in Dressage - I love to jump (weeny logs etc.) at home, and will often take my boy hacking through our fields, and play with ditches, logs, banks, whatever we can create, but our strong suit, (hell mine!) is dressage - I always loved it on the prelim. eventer - and we managed to scrape my nerves through XC and his nerves through stadium, but I was never as comfortable as I am in the ring in dressage - took my TB a long time to become willing, and we’re still working towards supple!! but we love it. Do whatever it is that makes you feel happy.
Don’t be sad! I evented seriously when I was younger, took some time off during college then when I started riding again after a few years, I leased a 4th level dressage horse by virtue of that’s what I could find and ended up loving it. Every now and then I miss the fun of a gallop through a water complex but I’m too much of a chicken in my wise old age to actually go for it, and I know that about myself so I’m ok with it.
But you know what’s the best part? Cross training is phenomenal, no matter the discipline! Dressage horses have fun jumping every now and then too. So don’t despair, you don’t have to be all or nothing. And if you give dressage a whirl but find that you miss jumping, then jump! It’s not going anywhere. 
I’ve decided to event one horse and pursue dressage but with no pressure on another, playing to each horse’s best abilities.
Well a couple of months later and I have scheduled a dressage lesson with a local trainer I hadn’t heard about before and who will actually give lessons instead of just clinics; or who only wants your horse in training, but not necessarily you. Finding good dressage instruction in my area has been a bit of a challenge for someone with a day job.
In the meantime I continued taking instruction from the eventer I had found and who I adore. She’s older which I appreciated and has really helped me and my horse’s confidence level and improved my riding and thus his way of going. And I was able to take those lessons home and apply them to good effect to my other two horses.
After weeks of flat work we finally jumped again this weekend and… it was HARD!!! Both of my horses were great and very game, but I just didn’t love it. That and after riding two horses in back to back lessons and not even jumping anything particularly high or that difficult, I was just exhausted. Of course, I basically started out that way, exhausted I mean.
I think I’ve come to the conclusion that working all week coupled with getting up really early, driving a ridiculous number of miles and then riding after work doing multiple disciplines, is just nuts and exhausting. While I’m not afraid to jump, I am afraid that being tired and stressed may lead me and potentially my horse to disaster when I am not riding my best.
At one point we were doing grid work and after the last fence my horse jumped out long and hit the placing pole, stumbled and almost went down. He recovered fine, but I thought to myself, that was almost really ugly.
That and my new eventing instructor is so busy with her own competition schedule, I don’t know where she would build in time for me to go and school cross country sufficient for me to then go and compete, given my work schedule. I think I’m holding myself and my horses up to an unrealistic standard with trying to be competent at eventing. I can’t say I’ve missed the jumping all that much. So here’s hoping me and this new instructor click and I can happily move on to the next stage and also hopefully less stress.
Good to get an update after all that time. Hope things go well for you and stay safe…and interesting, too!
Briefly, I rode hunters, exposed to dressage in high school, loved it, but didn’t own a horse. DECADES later, I can now focus on dressage, which I just LOVE. I’m not type A, but get lost in the feelings of it, the biofeedback when I do things right, etc.
Two thoughts from FatCat’s post above - fitness and competing.
As a person who works out a lot, even having done figure competitions, weight lifting is a lot more efficient than cardio. I ride 3-4 days a week, and can get a horse fit for dressage in that time more effectively than I can get them fit for eventing, and even jumping. And the thing is, while a horse needs fitness for any job we ask, it’s a lot less scary to try to do dressage on an unfit horse than it is to jump courses!
And another plug for dressage - RIDE TIMES! I know eventing has that, but I do NOT miss hunter shows at all. And with eventing, the days are longer. I’m so lazy now, I literally only enter one test at schooling shows. My horse isn’t nervous, so I just go, warm-up, ride, pack up, see how we did, and go home! I love that!
This. I generally ride 4 days a week; sometimes five; sometimes two and three horses a day; 3 in one day is usually only on the weekends though. I also have a small farm and other animals to take care of. I am by no means unfit. I am however quite often sleep deprived. And as a Type A personality, before a competition, I don’t sleep well. Heck I often don’t sleep well, period. My mom and I joke that we do our best thinking at night. So not helpful when it comes to athletic pursuits.
Maybe it’s just an age thing too, but since getting away from a toxic trainer last fall and mostly concentrating on dressage work since then, I have definitely found the riding less stressful if less invigorating. I’ve been something of an adrenaline junkie, so letting go of that has been hard. A concession to age that while arguably intelligent, is galling. I’ve seen some real improvement with our dressage work though and that is very motivating.
I stopped eventing simply because my new horse (this was circa 1993) made it clear that while he was obedient and willing to jump, he preferred 8 nice jumps in an arena. Then he got injured, and I figured he’d last longer/stay sounder if we did just dressage. By the time I retired him, around 2008, I was in my 60s. I bought a new horse, definitely a good mover for dressage, but he was 2-1/2. When he was about 4-1/2 i worked him over ground poles and small x-es, but he was, shall we say, too inclined to go airborne withOUT jumps, so I backed off. Too old to go breaking bones with a horse that I did but as a dressage prospect. I do miss it, but I find dressage satisfying.
I never owned a horse when I was a kid so I rode hunters and equitation on lesson horses and leases on a local circuit, dabbled in local circuit dressage on sales horses when I was a working student, and switched to taking lessons at an eventing barn in my 20s. When I bought my own horse my plans were to cross train and go maybe up to training if we were both brave, but sticking to dressage after that. I never jumped very high and I never really had the inclination to jump over about a meter or so anyway.
I broke my hip a year and a half ago and I’m happy to stay in a dressage saddle from now on. I still get a rush trotting raised cavaletti!
Another plus is the low cost and low stress of showing. I can have my barn owner trailer my horse 20 minutes down the road to a recognized show on a Friday night, get two tests in on a Saturday, have my horse trailered home that evening, and be back to work on a Sunday morning and the whole thing costs me under $300 including what I pay him to trailer the horse whereas if I wanted to do that at an unrecognized hunter show it would be the same if not even more. I also feel perfectly safe showing my horse on my own without a trainer because I have ride times a few days in advance and there is no warm up jump to be claimed by one trainer.
I am taking a roundabout journey to my not really a dressage rider status.
I was a stone cold solid hunter princess of the go it alone variety for decades. But I always knew I would take up driving some day (bucket list). And I finally did, bought the pony, the harness and the carriage, broke the pony to ride, and finally to drive.
But as it turns out I have to do driven dressage in order to be allowed out on the hazards. 
You know what helps driven dressage? Yup. Dressage dressage. I finally broke down and bought some black tack last month. Up until now I’ve been faking it in my western saddle, showing some western dressage (I’m not going to lie, I’m a fan of the dress code, otherwise I ride it just like the other kind). At any given time I have three different types of tests floating around in my head. It’s kind of amusing when I try to ride one and slip into the other.
Dark side transition. 100% complete. No not really, I still do not own a dressage jacket, stock tie or (gasp) dressage boots. 95% complete.
