When did USEF first formalize and promote lower level dressage?

[Scribbler]

I’m curious as to when the national equestrian bodies, USEF and EC, first developed the lower level dressage tests Training through Level Four, and promoted them on a national basis.

I realize that FEI and Olympic dressage have a longer history going back to the start of the 2Oth century. But the national equestrian organizations only started in the 1960s.

I can’t find a clear answer online.

[pluvinel]

@Scribbler

I’m curious as to when the national equestrian bodies, USEF and EC, first developed the lower level dressage tests Training through Level Four, and promoted them on a national basis.

I realize that FEI and Olympic dressage have a longer history going back to the start of the 2Oth century. But the national equestrian organizations only started in the 1960s.

I can’t find a clear answer online.

You won’t find it because it does not exist as I have tried to explain in the thread about crossing over to dressage from hunter-land .

Before the USDF formed, “non-international” dressage was practiced as an informal equestrian discipline in the US. The shows were farm shows that catered to dressage aficionados, but were not under any national umbrella.

The USDF was formed in 1973 to coordinate all these various dressage activities going on in the US. I would imagine that national dressage tests evolved after that.

[lorilu]

Interesting but that was a pretty snotty answer. Not all
of us read a thread about crossing over from hunter land.

[Janet]

I do not know about AHSA/USDF, but USPC had consistent lower level dressage tests (starting with D 1) in the very early 1960s

[Manni01]

I am pretty sure they adopted the European system and there were lower level dressage tests in Germany before I was born… My mom competed with our horse in 2nd level tests in the early 60s

[pluvinel]

@lorilu

Interesting but that was a pretty snotty answer. Not all
of us read a thread about crossing over from hunter land.

Snotty??? Perhaps it was exasperation with someone who can’t seem to understand this history…and the question was posted in that thread in Post #24

Here are the explanations that I spent some time typing while trying to genuinely answer her questions.

Post #27

@pluvinel

Ummm no…try +40 years prior…DISCLAIMER: This history is off the top of my head…but I think it is fairly accurate.

The USDF GMO called CAMDA (Carl Asmis Memorial Dressage Association) was named after Carl Heinrich Asmis, a colonel in the German cavalry during Wold War I. He emigrated to the United States in 1921, a time when dressage was unheard of in the United States. He worked as a riding instructor in New York City until 1934, when he relocated to Maryland. He then trained hunters and jumpers at Durland’s Riding Club of Lutherville, MD.

In the years following World War II, there was a group of displaced European Cavalry officers who migrated to the US and who taught dressage and jumping.

After World War II, as dressage interest began to grow in the United States, Col. Asmis began giving clinics. In 1947, Col. Asmis became an AHSA recognized judge. In 1957, he served on the first AHSA Dressage committee, and in 1962, represented the United States at the FEI meeting in Berne, Switzerland where he was instrumental in writing the rules and regulations for equestrian competition of the 1964 Olympic Games. His daughter Helene Asmis, still teaches.

Names of prominent trainers from that era are Bert DeNemethy, Dezso Szilagyi, Bela Buttykai, Istvan Sorenyi Sander, Gabor Foltenyi…those are names off the top of my head, that came from the Hungarian School that was very close in their teachings to those of the Austrian Spanish Riding School after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire post WW-I.

IEO (International Equestrian Organization) predates the USDF and was founded in 1958, and is the oldest GMO.
http://www.ieodressage.org/about-us.html [INDENT][I]The International Equestrian Organization was America’s first dressage club and USDF’s oldest GMO. The late Lilian Wittmack-Roye founded the Pennsylvania-based IEO in 1958. Roye, a native of Denmark, immigrated to the U.S. in 1949 on a one-year contract with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

After her circus career ended, Roye settled in York, PA, and established a training facility, Bri-Mar Stables. Told, “Nobody wants a dressage show,” she proceeded to put on her own, a groundbreaking competition held at Bri-Mar in 1955. The IEO went on to host what some believe to have been the first CDI in the U.S., in 1976. The IEO also hosted the first AHSA recognized dressage show.[/I][/INDENT]

Besides IEO, there were other “dressage clubs” and attempts to mimic the European riding school model scattered in the US…basically in the east coast.

PVDA is the 2nd oldest GMO, and it was founded in 1964.
https://pvda.org/page/history

I believe Trip/Stretch (??) Harting started the Potomac Horse Center (PHC) in the late 1950’s to be a world renowned international equestrian training center intended to provide Olympic level training and teach serious horsemanship. I belive this is where Nuno Oliveira would come to teach in the US. This is where Betty Howett (BHS) taught following the British system.

Linda Zang’s Idlewyld Farm became the teaching base and location of Col. Bengt Lungquist (for whome the BLM championships are named)

There were other riding schools spread throughout the US to take the place of the now obsolete US cavalry schools…Morvern Park, and the American Dressage Institute (ADI) that was founded by a Margarita Serrell, a wealthy patron and based out of the campus of Skidmore College was disbanded in 1974…I believe Dr. Max Gahwyler taught there. ADI had very prominent alumni…I think the Poulins and other notables studied there.

What eventually became the USDF didn’t happen until the 1970’s when Lowell Boomer, founder of the Nebraska Dressage Assn, decided to invite active dressage participants to form a united body to represent dressage in the US…

Post#31

@pluvinel

Please read the post (#27) I wrote that answers your question… [INDENT][I]Told, “Nobody wants a dressage show,” she proceeded to put on her own, a groundbreaking competition held at Bri-Mar in 1955.

The IEO went on to host what some believe to have been the first CDI in the U.S., in 1976. The IEO also hosted the first AHSA recognized dressage show.[/I][/INDENT]

Dressage was just a “flat class” with patterns back in those days…with perhaps a jump at the end.

Post #33

@pluvinel

Remember there were no “Levels” in US dressage…it was essentially an individual flat class. There was no organized entity in the US…people just copied bits of what was done in Europe.

The US had a dressae presence from the US teams that consisted of cavalry officers. Most of the “lower level” (but there were no levels) was just the stuff that was taught to the young remount recruits.

There was no “dressage”…it was just riding.

From what I remember in the early days, the lower level local dressage tests were just written out patterns…somewhere stuck in a book, I have a test that was mimeographed (yes…the stinky mimeo machines) and written on a typewriter.

Lilian Wittmack Roye used tests from her native Denmark…whatever was used there…to provide the patterns.

Here…I was looking for her obit, and found this on Lillian
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article…fame-inductees [INDENT]After hosting a few unrecognized shows, Roye organized the first American Horse Shows Association recognized dressage show held in this country in 1955—hosting riders from Canada to Michigan. She hand-wrote all of the tests, which she translated from Danish, and judged the show herself. [/INDENT]

[pluvinel]

Here is a 1974 New York Times article on the ADI and the state of affairs at the time
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/23/archives/dressage-unit-disbands-upstate-training-facilities.html

[lorilu]

again, thanks Pluvinel - I did not read the “other” thread since I have no interest in transitioning from hunter land to dressage; and since we don’t know what topics come up as a thread evolves, how was I to know what was buried there? No need to be exasperated. Perhaps the poster jsut wanted the topic “unburied” for more input?

[pluvinel]

For those who are interested in this history…

Here is a link to Jennifer Bryant’s book that describes those times
https://books.google.com/books?id=yH…states&f=false

[pluvinel]

Here is more info out there in the interwebz…in the USDF Connection no less.
https://issuu.com/usdf2/docs/april17final?e=33388472/65920968

Flip to pages 14 and 22.

P. 14 has some history of dressage in California and the foundation of CDS. The interest in dressage started after the 1932 Olympics in LA, but international competition was reserved for cavalry officers. Civilians could ride and study “dressage,” but there was no umbrella organization. The first CDI in CA was held after the 1984 Olympics.

P. 22 has an article about Lazelle Knocke, one of the original members of USDF and instrumental in getting PVDA, DVCTA and ESDCTA started.

Again, you will see that in the dark ages, eg., pre-USDF, the dressage that was practiced in the US was under no official organization.

Shows and training were done in local areas where enough aficionados were located to bring over clinicians and pull together a small clinic or farm show. I rode in those shows in the mid-1970’s.

Ivan Bezugloff started Dressage Magazine (later to become Dressage & CT) in 1971 because there was no dressage oriented magazine in the US. It became “the” go-to source of information for all things dressage until it was sold in 1998.
https://www.usdf.org/halloffame/inductees/profiles/bezugloffjr.asp

And I think this information is important now, because if the USDF continues to ignore its membership and blows off the MFS Rule recommendation of the BOG, then I could conceptually see some spin-off’s forming that were not aligned with USDF…and we go back to the future.