Helmet thread spinoff - how do you think we should be dressing for competition?

[fooler]

[QUOTE=retreadeventer;7561344]
If we need to change our dress to attract people to the sport, then it is no longer about the horse, but about the looks. I would not want to welcome to the sport kids who are attracted to how they “look” dressed in sportswear, or in traditional attire when they ride.

When I taught beginners at a large public riding stable, they had a basic dress code - helmets and boots – and beyond that it was ok no matter what. The best little kids I taught did not even have breeches but rode in sweats or tights or whatever worked. They did not care about what the other kids wore, either. They were far more interested in mastering posting trot so they could eventually learn to canter. That is what drove most of the good ones. And that’s what we want to “attract” people. The absolute fun and attraction of riding a good horse is the best attractant going. All the fancy sports clothes in the world means nothing compared to that feeling when your little beginner rider canters for the first time on an old schoolie who knows more than you do about riding. That’s what we want, isn’t it? kids who want to ride for the fun of it and would ride in school uniforms if their mothers let them (and I had a few of those that actually did because they didn’t want to take the time to change in order to make their lesson on time. they didn’t want to miss one second of horse time. THAT is the kid we want to attract.)[/QUOTE]

YES^^^^^^

[JenEM]

I’m honestly of two minds. On one hand, I LIKE getting all dressed up, looking sharp, and getting a lovely picture. On the other, after most of my life spent in hunters/eq, I’m all about taking advantage of not needing a coat at HTs and generally only break mine out when it’s cool enough to want a jacket to keep warm. I’m not sure why something like this (sans giant foam finger, obviously) isn’t the norm; it’s easy, it’s athletic, and you can find something similar at a pretty affordable range of price points. Heck, that shirt is fancy technical sports fabric, bought at an outlet for $25! I’ve found the Old Navy “school uniform” polos to be a great choice for showing, as they’re long enough to tuck in and cover everything essential, and are cheap enough that if I do stain them, it’s no big deal to turn it into lesson wear and replace it. But then again, I ride in a technical zip-neck or a polo 95% of the time anyway.

[JP60]

[QUOTE=JenEM;7563363]
I’m honestly of two minds. On one hand, I LIKE getting all dressed up, looking sharp, and getting a lovely picture. [/QUOTE]
See, in one way this is what I like about dressage (though the original title was competition and us Eventers have other disciplines to dress for :)). The movement is about precision, grace, and yes, even style. Wearing a formal(ish) outfit helps to match that feeling. Maybe it’s a little dress for success. I do agree that wearing a jacket jumping can be restricting (and hot), but since a show can decide to waive jackets, I think the rules cover dress pretty well.

Now this could be off topic and considered trolling, but if I could wish for one thing to be dropped, it is braiding. It is a worthless, time consuming effort to show a horse’s topline for less than a few minutes. We don’t braid for cross country yet require it in stadium when it would seem the horse needs to feel just as comfortable.

If you want to tear up tradition, then let us please go the full monty, otherwise we all are just crying our own miseries for change. In the end, I’ll buy that less expensive cotton blend coat that hangs in my trailer 99% of the time doing nothing then think I need a $300/$400 wool jacket to make me ride better. $900 boots? $300 breaches? We have been suckered to believe that if we look the part, we’ll ride the part (and they called him Super Skier for fans of Chad Mitchell Trio).

In dressage, it is about how the horse moves, not whether I got a horse kiss on my white pants.
In cross country it is how our horse answers the question, not if I look like a pro
In stadium it is how well I dance in three dimensions, not how shiny my boots must be.

So, want to get rid of stuffy outfits, fine, then let’s get rid of braiding (at all levels) as well and focus on what matters…

[Highflyer]

Braiding is not required at ANY level, for ANY phase. So if you don’t want to braid, don’t. My horse has a crazy mane, so I actually prefer to braid for dressage, then take the braids out and flatten his mane down with water, which keeps it in place for most of the day

[QUOTE=JP60;7563635]
See, in one way this is what I like about dressage (though the original title was competition and us Eventers have other disciplines to dress for :)). The movement is about precision, grace, and yes, even style. Wearing a formal(ish) outfit helps to match that feeling. Maybe it’s a little dress for success. I do agree that wearing a jacket jumping can be restricting (and hot), but since a show can decide to waive jackets, I think the rules cover dress pretty well.

Now this could be off topic and considered trolling, but if I could wish for one thing to be dropped, it is braiding. It is a worthless, time consuming effort to show a horse’s topline for less than a few minutes. We don’t braid for cross country yet require it in stadium when it would seem the horse needs to feel just as comfortable.

If you want to tear up tradition, then let us please go the full monty, otherwise we all are just crying our own miseries for change. In the end, I’ll buy that less expensive cotton blend coat that hangs in my trailer 99% of the time doing nothing then think I need a $300/$400 wool jacket to make me ride better. $900 boots? $300 breaches? We have been suckered to believe that if we look the part, we’ll ride the part (and they called him Super Skier for fans of Chad Mitchell Trio).

In dressage, it is about how the horse moves, not whether I got a horse kiss on my white pants.
In cross country it is how our horse answers the question, not if I look like a pro
In stadium it is how well I dance in three dimensions, not how shiny my boots must be.

So, want to get rid of stuffy outfits, fine, then let’s get rid of braiding (at all levels) as well and focus on what matters…[/QUOTE]

[atomicfriday]

I’ll see if I can find a picture of it but I bought a jacket from Walmart for less than $20 and my mom tailored it to look like a “real hunt coat”. No one could tell the difference.

Personally to the matter at hand I prefer to wear what is comfortable but I also don’t want the judges to instantly have a bias based on my attire. Shouldn’t be that way but you all know how that goes. I live in FL it gets very hot and humid… I could stand a dressage test in a jacket, although it’s not healthy when you think of heat exhaustion and dehydration as a very real possibility.

[JP60]

After reading your post I did some research and found this link from and older COTH thread. It does seem to confirm your point, but I think what I am swimming against is “tradition” and inertia.

Last year when I went BN I kept his mane pretty short so it was more a mohawk then flipping right or left and I did not braid. This year, going novice the buzz was to braid, but I had already hacked/clippered one side of his mane that was lying left, not right. Do you get the idea that I (1) don’t know how to braid and (2) know little about mane management other then pulling. Pulling Sterling’s mane requires drugs and I don’t like to drug a horse for something not required. thus why I clipped one side. I know see that mistake (sigh).

What to do(sigh). I’ll confess, I really don’t like it. My horse is turned out very well (for a almost white horse) with banged tail, oiled hooves, clean body, and accent on the eyes and nose. I feel like if I don’t braid I’ll get the whole you have no respect for your horse or you lack in turn out and at the moment one side of his mane is missing so braiding makes it look worse. But thank you for clarifying that there is no rule or requirement other then peer pressure. That’s worse then a championship course.

[CatchMeIfUCan]

[QUOTE=JP60;7563880]
After reading your post I did some research and found this link from and older COTH thread. It does seem to confirm your point, but I think what I am swimming against is “tradition” and inertia.

Last year when I went BN I kept his mane pretty short so it was more a mohawk then flipping right or left and I did not braid. This year, going novice the buzz was to braid, but I had already hacked/clippered one side of his mane that was lying left, not right. Do you get the idea that I (1) don’t know how to braid and (2) know little about mane management other then pulling. Pulling Sterling’s mane requires drugs and I don’t like to drug a horse for something not required. thus why I clipped one side. I know see that mistake (sigh).

What to do(sigh). I’ll confess, I really don’t like it. My horse is turned out very well (for a almost white horse) with banged tail, oiled hooves, clean body, and accent on the eyes and nose. I feel like if I don’t braid I’ll get the whole you have no respect for your horse or you lack in turn out and at the moment one side of his mane is missing so braiding makes it look worse. But thank you for clarifying that there is no rule or requirement other then peer pressure. That’s worse then a championship course.[/QUOTE]

Then roach it. Problem solved. Take clippers to the whole thing. Don’t have clippers? Then use scissors (sewing ones are the best). Take the forelock off too or braid it in a regular braid and band up. Takes 30 seconds.

Braiding takes me 15 minutes. I used to be a TERRIBLE braider - I couldn’t even braid my own hair. After braiding about 15 times, my braids are nice. I do about 8 in a mane. And you don’t even need to pull it to braid. You can cut it straight off like jumpers and do fat braids.

[gr8fulrider]

[QUOTE=JP60;7563880]
I feel like if I don’t braid I’ll get the whole you have no respect for your horse [/QUOTE]

My trainer, a pro who has competed up to 3*, doesn’t braid until recognized prelim. She’s been eventing in Area II since she was a kid and if there was a judge who didn’t like unbraided horses she’d know it.

So far out of 6 recognized events my horse has done I braided her for one, on a whim, because I had 1/2 hour to kill and a bag of rubber bands. My trainer showed both my horse and her personal horse at training level, both in front of the same judge. Her horse wasn’t braided. She didn’t give it a second thought and I don’t think the judges really do either.

[mkevent]

I can see both sides of the equation on this one.

I do think a coat in dressage does look nice and pulls the look together, but it doesn’t help with the “riding isn’t an athletic sport and it’s for elitists” argument. It is also ridiculous when the weather is hot and humid. It is silly to risk one’s health for the sake of looking stylish or following tradition.

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought the comments about attracting people to the sport dealt with those not knowledgeable about horse sports at all. Sometimes a simple misunderstanding keeps people from finding out more about a sport. I know I wouldn’t even consider ballet because I thought it was all about pink tutus when I was a child.

Consider if you had a boy that was interested in horses. If you showed him a picture of a rider competing in dressage, I doubt it would do much to get him interested in the sport, even if he would enjoy it. It doesn’t look fun to the uninitiated. Show him a picture of a rider competing cross country or a western rider reining and that looks like fun. Sometimes it’s that image that initially gets someone to consider a sport or not.

I agree with waiving the braiding at the lower levels and also on one day events. One days are so busy that the extra time it takes to put in braids and then remove them after dressage just takes more time and energy that can be utilized elsewhere.

I am happy to braid for straight dressage shows or if I were to compete at an event over a couple of days, but almost all of my competitions tend to happen on one day. Braiding for these has become a pet peeve of mine. I think ammies such as myself tend to keep braiding because of the “respect for the judge” idea and fear that it does lead to a less positive impression otherwise.

[Lori_B]

I have no quarrels w/ braiding. I don’t faint in the portapot in July if my horse is braided.

[asterix]

I can’t braid. Honestly have bad hand-eye coordination and struggled with it for a while, and then gave up. When I do championships or 3 days, I pay someone else to braid. Very few times I went prelim, I got a friend to braid. I’d rather use the time on proper dressage warmup, or walking my course.
I was also one of the first to go jacketless at one days after the rule was passed (I would sometimes be The Only One in warmup - no longer true, but).
Having scribed a fair amount and ridden with some genuine straight up DQs of the highest order I can safely say that riding well and presenting a well prepared horse appropriate for the level are both
a) challenging enough and
b) what the judge usually wants to see.
Riding like crap on a horse who is incorrectly trained but beautifully turned out will only garner you the dreaded “nice turn out” comment.

I have found that my scores tend to track to how good the test was. Period. When I have a good test, I get a good score. Bad test, bad score. Is there a judge here or there docking me a point because I’m not braided at noviice or wearing a jacket when there is no rule requiring it? Perhaps. But the sport is enough of a crapshoot that I think we have to just give it our best shot and live to fight another day. For some folks the beautiful turnout and braids make them happy and give them extra zing going into the ring. For me they represent stress and time I probably should have used in dressage warmup.
To each his own.

[2LaZ2race]

[QUOTE=Beam Me Up;7560355]
Interesting. I scribed at a 100 deg HT in MD in July, and the judge did make a point of complimenting each rider who chose to wear a jacket. She said she thought anyone who trailered and rode in the heat was nuts, but apparently if you were going to, she preferred you go all out and wear the coat.[/QUOTE]

This is insanity! A judge should complement a rider who puts their horse first and want to give them the best possible ride. I can not give my horse a good ride if I am over-heating because I’m wear 3 layers (I have big boobs so my gigantic sports bra counts as its own layer!).

Also, as someone who frequently shows alone, I can bring water to warm up, but I have to rely on someone nice to hand it to me or get off and on. and sometimes there isn’t a mounting block!

[HLMom]

I love this thread, but I’m too chicken to duplicate it over in the hunter/jumper forum.

As we searched endlessly for a jacket and choker-necked blouse that my 12 year old daughter wouldn’t declare “too uncomfortable to ride in!” I couldn’t fathom why on earth we put children in mini business suits to show their horses. It is insanity! And when one finally does find the jacket, choker-blouse, and tall boots that can be tolerated, one has the joy of knowing that the same drama (and expense) will repeat next year, since kids grow.

The sport should have switched to neat polo shirts and breeches a long time ago, at least for kids under age 18.

And yes, it would help convince people that riding is a sport if one didn’t wear a business suit to do it.

[tbgurl]

I am all for switching to polo shirts and non-white breeches. Can we start a petition? I’m serious!

I have suffered from heat exhaustion a few times while riding. There is nothing more ridiculous to me than to dress up like a Victorian-era man who lived in a cold/rainy climate (England) to participate in a demanding athletic competition, especially when most of those competitions are held during the hottest parts of the summer.

I would LOVE to show in a nice polo, light tan/beige breeches, belt, and either tall boots or paddocks/half chaps and, of course, a helmet. It would also reduce the expense involved in showing, which might increase the number of competitors. It makes so much sense to me, I can’t understand why it hasn’t become an option yet.

Is there a process in the USEF to get a rule change like that started by competitors? Petition or something else?

[asterix]

Not sure we need a petition. What you just described is completely legal (assuming the half chaps are smooth leather and match the paddock boots) right now at any USEA event in which all three phases are run in one day.
For us lucky ducks in Area II, this includes the majority of our events, at least through Prelim.
I know it’s not the norm schedule-wise in other parts of the country, and that strikes me as arbitrary – why can I dress differently than you in my dressage test just because I’m jumping later in the day and you are jumping the next day?

Since these things tend to advance in the direction of change, and not retreat, I imagine the one day dress code will soon become legal at any event, regardless of schedule, at least through Training and not including 3 days or champs.

[PaintedHunter]

We already don’t have to wear white breeches! We can wear beige and it’s perfectly fine.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I don’t own white breeches and likely never will. I typically do not braid below Prelim. And yes, I’ve competed at recognized events in my half chaps. Unless you were up close, they look like boots. All of which us within the rules and hasn’t affected my scores or placing.

[pologirl27]

I already wear a choker for dressage because I hate tying my stock tie. I do honestly like the sleek look of a black jacket and will wear it as long as it is under 100 degrees. Maybe people would be happy if the jackets rule went to multiple day events?

[empeventing]

In the dressage I think we should always keep classy! Something as simple as a black or navy jacket and a helmet, with white pants and gloves. For shirts I love the Le Fash NY long sleeve shirts and a stock tie. They’re super stretchy and classy looking. They also have really nice breeches too (www.lefashny.com)! Helmets I love Charles Owen, minimalistic!

[AmarachAcres]

[QUOTE=empeventing;7570393]
In the dressage I think we should always keep classy! Something as simple as a black or navy jacket and a helmet, with white pants and gloves. For shirts I love the Le Fash NY long sleeve shirts and a stock tie. They’re super stretchy and classy looking. They also have really nice breeches too (www.lefashny.com)! Helmets I love Charles Owen, minimalistic![/QUOTE]

None of that is “minimalistic”.

Eventually shows will have to choose between tradition and having people attend.

Prices on all the fancy stuff continues to soar. Athletic gear hits all price points, and is athletic.

We don’t have to dress like marathon runners but as others have said… if we want people to take interest in English riding as a SPORT, that is the part we should look.