I’m probably an outlier in that I switched to dressage at the ripe old age of 11. :lol: Why? Mostly because I read a lot of Saddle Club books and thought dressage sounded so intriguing. I was always a weirdly disciplined and detail-oriented kid, so it fit. My mom asked the local tack shop to recommend a dressage instructor and I started riding with her.
22 years later, I’m still riding with the same trainer and we are like family. She helped me buy a 4-year-old in 2000 and bring him up to Grand Prix. He’s now retired but we showed successfully at that level together, a childhood dream come true!
I do also love to do other things with my horses though, especially outside the ring. My GP horse had issues that precluded jumping, but we always did trail rides. Last year I evented and foxhunted my young horse, and we only schooled dressage in the arena 1-2 days/week on average. I loved it and I think he did too. I am actually at a point where I am a little bored with dressage and wanting to do more jumping and eventing. I figure I am only going to get less brave as I get older, so I’d better do it while I can! The new pony seems on board with that so far. I’m also taking a cross-country and foxhunting holiday in Ireland with a friend this fall and really looking forward to that!
I think this, more than talent, is what determines who gets stuck below second level and who moves up.
And personally, I think to each their own - there is NOTHING which says you’re in some way a failure if you don’t want that focus.
I don’t find anything about dressage boring, and perhaps with an instructor who could help you find the little nuances so even when you’re doing a same transition repeatedly you’re feeling and searching for different things it would help. But the focus is intense. I don’t micromanage - I demand my horses carry themselves per their current preparedness for it, but I must always be aware and correct BEFORE there is a real need for correction. When I started with my trainer I thought that intense focus would break my brain. Now, if my horse starts to lean against one calf harder than the other I automatically correct it before it becomes crookedness or tightness. That’s an example of what riding every step means - but the intensity to get there can be emotionally and physically exhausting.
I was an eventer growing up until I ended up with an OTTB who was coming off some hard luck. I planned to event him but he was legitimately scared over fences. He’d jump anything you pointed him toward but was so over the top anxious, I just didn’t want to make him do that and feel that way. So we started doing dressage. I ended up as a working student for a short time for an amazing trainer from Portugal and while I wasn’t there long, he made a big impression on me.
I took a break from competitive riding after my OTTB passed away but when I came back I knew I wanted to focus on dressage and I wanted to ride GP. I stumbled upon a half lease on a Hanoverian gelding on CL, who I ended up buying. In hindsight I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so it didn’t seem at all unreasonable that I would get this 16 y.o., built downhill, 1st level freight train of a horse to PSG. Luckily I had a great trainer and we debuted at PSG when he was 20 and got my silver medal. Around the same time I bought a yearling on fire sale because hey, I got the old man to PSG, if I buy a baby we’ll definitely get to GP :lol: Apparently I have a good eye because he’s 7 now and is a lovely horse with conformation and athleticism that is MUCH more suited to his job than my old guy. He’s doing great so my GP dreams for him are still intact, and I’ve got another one in the chute - bought a custom foal by Benicio last year. She was born in May and is my absolute dream baby (and dream future baby momma). So obviously I am hooked. I still love to jump for cross training, but dressage is a never ending challenge to be a better rider/trainer/horsewoman and I love it.
I have always had a strong dressage base and grew up jumping and dressaging.
Current horse didn’t really seem to enjoy the jumping in an arena, and frankly, is not that fun to jump most of the time. Shes a difficult ride for me over fences. So we decided to make the switch a year ago…cue the long saddle hunt.
She has come a long way, and I think with the must better flat work we are doing, that we could add some jumping back into the mix for fun - but that involves finding an other saddle !
I started out as an eventer with my guy - he was a big, strong, forward minded TB. In the opposite of the OP’s situation: he had too much confidence over fences. Grabbing the bit and running once he figured out what the questions were was his MO. We ended up “taking a season off” to focus on dressage, to try to see if I could get to be a more effective rider where we would have less of an issue with his tendencies of being overly strong (approaching fences, over fences, departing fences…all of it). As the case would be, the answer was: yes. I could become a more effective rider and we could surmount these challenges, but his natural inclination would never change and he wasn’t going to forgive me any mistakes or errors that I made - the slightest opening, and he’d revert to his preferred method of piloting. It never really scared me, but the more I did dressage the more I found that I enjoyed it: having to figure out how to trick myself, trick him, and meet in the middle to find relaxation and harmony was a thrilling intellectual pursuit. The way that nuances could change everything (something as small as shifting weight minutely, or where my hand was) continued to fascinate me.
So, poor horse. He got stuck being a dressage horse. :lol: If he knew how that was going to work out, I’m pretty sure he’d’ve been a little milder through courses to stick to his over fences career. He enjoyed that so much. Dressage was always a bit of a “well, if I absolutely must…” I miss him every day (even his autocratic attempts to dictate everything).
Now all that said, if I got the same horse now knowing what I know now, I suspect that I would’ve run into fewer issues that precipitated my discipline switch…but other than the fact that I regret that it took me so long to get better as a rider, I wouldn’t really change a thing. I enjoy dressage tremendously.
I’ll always cross-train (jumping is fun. hacking out on trails is fun. dressage is fun. going on hunter paces is fun) but I suspect I’ll show dressage for the rest of my life simply because I find the mental demands of it absolutely thrilling.
Yes it will. Dressage is for training of the horse and rider so as the horse AND the rider do not get bored. That is what the levels are for. Never do the same thing twice. If the horse has done perfect circles it can be punishment to ask again.
I come from a hunter background and have discovered eventing as an adult amateur within the last 8-10 years, so got into dressage from that. I bought a young prospect that i was hoping would event, but for so many reasons, it isn’t going to work out that way. She has stayed small and fine boned, is a complete head case over fences (still bolting away after 12" crossbars, after 2 years of trying), and is legit terrified of hacking out alone. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of options, so we have stayed in the sandbox. Frankly, I am with @FatCatFarm. I am not a Type A personality and i do not see or experience the “thrill” in repetitive flatwork. I do not like micromanaging, and I am not convinced my horse is having a good time either. We have been dressage showing for 3 years and frankly, the harder I try and the more lessons I take, the worse our scores have been getting. I’ve been asking myself why i do this sport, and frankly have not come up with a very good answer. I’m starting to understand why all the western pleasure people roll peanuts around the arena for belt buckles, because that looks a whole lot less demanding.
Bought a 2 year old “arab sport horse” prospect to do the breed show hunters with and found out she couldn’t jump her way out of a paper bag. I mean, she was smart and game but all the gymnastics in the world weren’t fixing either her eye or her form. Loved the mare, accepted she wasn’t cut out for the hunters/jumpers and decided to give dressage a shot.
Once we got some decent training, Ms. Mare was top 10 AA all breeds for Arabs most years, top 3 in our GMO at our levels and won us a couple championship ribbons. Who knew a failed arab jumper would make such a nice little dressage horse?
Bought my first “purpose” bred dressage horse as a 2 year old a few years back. Since I’m not getting any younger or more svelte, I don’t see myself heading back into the hunter ring any time soon although Ms. Baby thinks jumping is Oh So Interesting! Of course!
I started riding at a H/J barn as a kid, got my first horse and he liked eventing, so I switched to that. Just local stuff, nothing big. He had to be retired, and around the same time, there was a nice dressage horse at the farm looking for a new person. I wanted to ride, so we tried it out, and it stuck! It’s been 7+ years, he is now mine, and I went from just “doing” my dressage tests when I evented, to schooling 3rd/4th on my current horse.
I will say, my heart is still in eventing. I prefer to be out of the ring, on trails, and jumping. I love what dressage does for the horses, physically, but mentally I would much rather be out of the arena. I’ve turned my dressage horse into a bit of a trail horse, and he’s an excellent jumper, so we play with a bit of everything when we can.
I can appreciate the upper levels, and what it takes to get there, but it’s just not for me.
What you need here it’s a new trainer. You can tell a dressage horse just by looking at it. The first thing you see is a happy horse. If you do not see a happy horse something is not right.
In your case it might be pain. Bolting after cross rails after 2 years and lower dressage scores after 3 years. Something is completely wrong .
@SuzieQNutter I wish! I mean, i do not literally wish it was a pain issue. But it would be nice to have a concrete reason. Horse receives regular massage and chiro and vet checks, and seldom acts out on the flat, so it’s not that.
I have been re-evaluating the program that I am in, and agree that a new trainer may be beneficial. I do not have a lot of options near where I live, but there are some instructors worth checking out, and a plan is in place to make that happen. I’m not ready to throw in the towel on the sport just yet, but I am currently very frustrated.
The trouble is when starting out that we do not know what we don’t know.
For me I was riding to the local pony club once a week. The instructor used to get on Pep and do the Spanish walk. How impressive is that? We went up from beginners to coming 5th in everything = white ribbons.
One day we turned up and another instructor was there. I can remember feeling miffed. My instructor had broken her leg. If she had called us I would have waited for her to recover.
Well ONE lesson from this new instructor and nobody went back to the old instructor. She did not just teach us how to ride. She taught us how to communicate with horses. How to become one.
I can still remember the day Mum said to me. “You know Tommy has done nothing wrong for a week.” My answer, " Pepper has done nothing wrong for a week either."
Those 2 horses and every single horse since has not done anything wrong. Horses want to please you. They will work their heart out for you. This has been true for the next 30 years and so many breeds of horses since.
In that year I went up to coming 3rd in everything. Things changed which meant more white ribbons!
Pepper NEVER did the Spanish walk again. I realised he was actually doing it out of anger with that instructor and he was now a happy horse instead.
He was conformationally wrong. He had a 6 foot carpet snake neck. A long back, a straight shoulder and he was herring gutted. I always told him he was the best horse in the World and he believed me.
The last year we won everything we entered including a One Day Event by 66 points and the Zone D Grade Showjumping. We were picked for the Zone Jumping Equitation team. We took part in the State Dressage Championships (in the mud!).
With that instructor I went on to become an instructor.
From there I went to work with a Level III instructor and riding trained horses I found out I couldn’t ride at all and hard to change everything again.
I was having lessons on other people’s horses. I have always retrained horses.
Then a horse off the track. The smartest horse ever. The first horse I trained. We went so high so quickly.
5 years ago I was given a gelding good horseman gave up on. It took a long time and I changed everything again for him. I found that he was not belligerant as thought and he does try his heart out now. I started going to lessons with him and all I can say is WOW
Last year I bought my own boy. He is different again. Again I have changed everything and OMG at what I learn in every lesson and I suggest people get lessons even if the horse is not going well now.
Unfortunately my ute packed it in last week. I will have no more lessons until hubby has time to fix it.
I am sorry I am too far away to come and help you. Maybe start a thread along for a good dressage instructor in your area.
My eventing pony (see pic) had pretty much topped out. Prospect really didn’t care to jump. Mom had brain damage from surgery to remove tumor, dad had bladder cancer and died, leaving me to care for mom, three children to care for, no time for horse’s training or our fittness.
Still, forty years later, age 69, I’m an eventer at heart. I remember driving past Commonwealth Park with the family one day when they were having an event and I started to cry. It still hurts.
I’m also taking a cross-country and foxhunting holiday in Ireland with a friend this fall and really looking forward to that!