“Educated flatwork” = “training” = “dressage”.
Correct flatwork is the basis of all disciplines, English or Western.
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This is so true! Here’s a great example of an Arabian stallion who was bred and trained to be a reining/ranch horse. After a great showing in hand last year, his owner was asked if she’d considered showing him in dressage. So she found a friend/client who was a dressage rider to show the horse this year…at third level: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/TZoTZ5tuUJewJ4V7/?mibextid=xCPwDs
Is he going to be an Olympic contender? No. But the basics were already in place from his reining foundation (natural athleticism doesn’t hurt, of course!).
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meh I could say “normalise riding dressage horses outside the sandbox for their physical and mental health” as a bunch (but not all) of the dressage riders I know locally never ride outside of the ring and it bites them on the a$$ when they show outdoors and there’s other stuff going on at the show grounds. There is a huge range in quality of training programs in all disciplines and to be honest unless you are in the program you have no true idea of what the individual programs do or do not do.
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