Besides dressage, I compete in a second sport where there is no dress code --nothing in the rules requires boots, long pants, etc. The only requirement is that if the rider is 16 or under, the rider must wear a helmet. Adults can sign a waiver.
While most riders who compete in Mounted Archery wear something sport appropriate (boots, long pants, etc), there was a boyfriend of a competitor at our last meet who signed up to ride. He came out in fluffy slippers, pj pants, a T shirt, and had painted his face in a design of some kind --half pink, half blue. He could barely stay on the girlfriend’s horse. Yes, he looked like a clown. Many people --spectators and competitors, laughed at the sight.
I take my sport seriously. I work hard to improve and compete often. I may lack a sense of humor, but this wasn’t funny to me. It was insulting. To me it was similar to the once popular “kissing bandit” in baseball --I think —a woman who would run out and try to kiss players --her purpose was to stop the sport and draw attention from the sport to herself.
Without some kind of dress requirement in dressage, is it possible riders would come out in ever increasingly bizarre attire?
There is discussion in my second sport about creating a rule for dress --currently some riders dress as Renaissance style riders, others do a kind of saloon girl look with corsets and skirts (I had to help one rider untangle her feathers from her bowstring.) A few dress as Native Americans, but the two I knew were members of Indigenous tribes. The one woman who was not stopped wearing native clothing when someone explained cultural appropriation to her. Two contestants almost got into a fist fight when one dressed in traditional Middle Eastern garb, and the other contestant had only recently returned from a tour of duty in the same region. And then there were the political slogan T shirts --a few with F*** on them.
If I ruled the world, I would say “no costumers.” But how do you define a costume? The Japanese archers wear traditional Yabusame clothing --from the Middle Ages --how is that different than an American archer dressed as a Viking complete with horned helmet?
I am happy there is a dress code of some kind in dressage --that way I don’t have to think about what I will wear!!
I still do!
I guess WP judges’ eyes are lowered to watch the non-movement* & spared sun or lights glinting off rhinestones 
I’m saying it.
