The basics of dressage give you the skills to ride any horse properly, because you are working with what the horse is.
With those basic dressage principles, you can take a colt in it’s first ride and already ask it correctly to move for you the way you want.
That is different than the principles of so much of western riding or gaited riding, because they are after different goals than dressage is.
One example, in dressage training you ask a horse to canter with the inside leg, because as you touch the horse on the side that hind leg comes forward and start the canter depart correctly, physics at work.
Try it on yourself, walking along, poke on your side and you will feel that hip want to come forward in your next stride more strongly.
When I first came to the West, I was able to get a horse in the proper lead regardless of how it was trained, because if you poke there, that is the way any horse will respond.
Others were having trouble getting some horses to take the right lead, Ann Kursinsky has a whole chapter on that problem.
Why is that even a problem, I wondered?
Then I realized people were using the OUTSIDE leg to cue for canter, so the horses were learning to canter from a specific aid, like a trick, not because their body was set to do what asked.
There are important differences in how each discipline does things, each region does things, even in dressage, in Europe, while most is the same, there are some differences and that is fine.
My point, while sensible cross training is a wonderful way to become more skilled (not that sensible to want to, say, train a dressage or cutting or roping or polo horse to pace or big lick) for horses and riders, we really should honor those differences, is what makes what we choose to do at any time that and not something else.:yes:
