That Boring Thing We Do Before Cross Country

As a dressage trainer in Northern Virginia, I teach a lot of event riders. And I mean a LOT. Like my strictly dressage students, they run the gamut—from the grassroots to the international levels, beginner novice at the local combined test to Rolex. Some of them are better at hiding it, and some of them don’t even try, but without fail, they have one thing in common: before they start riding with me, virtually all of them think that dressage is that thing that they have to suffer through before they get to the fun stuff.

I, however, love dressage. No, really. I LOVE it. I dream about it. I’ve loved it since I was 10 years old. It’s not just my job; it’s my passion. It’s my life. And like any proper zealot, I am on a Mission from God: to convert the non-believers.

In a few days I’ll be co-teaching the YRAP (Young Rider Advancement Program) clinic with my friend Skyeler Voss at her Morningside Training Farm in The Plains, Va. If my adult event-rider students are hard sells, convincing youth riders that dressage is worth their time, much less fun, is like the Mission: Impossible. But I fear neither death nor bored teenagers. I will convince them.

Here’s how.

1. Convince them that they’re already doing dressage in their jump lessons. Because they are. There’s Big-D Dressage—the sport where, through diligent and systematic gymnastic training, you do half-passes and leg yields and canter pirouettes and tempi changes—and then there’s little d dressage, where diligent and systematic gymnastic training makes your horse patient, adjustable and elastic.

So when you, Pony Club Penny, are working on making sure your horse goes to the base of the jump instead of taking off from Neptune, that’s dressage. When you work on checking your horse two strides out, and then getting a quick answer after he lands, that’s dressage. When you work on straightness, alignment, balance, engagement? Dressage, dressage, dressage.

2. Show them how they’re more likely to win when they dedicate a little energy to dressage. Look at the score sheet from your last event, Pony Club Penny. Is there a transition you could have done one point better? Could your free walk have been one point looser? A circle one point rounder? Your centerline one point straighter? If those four things are true, you could have had a rail in hand. Every point better you do in dressage is seconds on cross country. Tiny efforts, tiny improvements, add up by a magnitude, and have real-world meaning on the other two phases.

3. Show them that dressage isn’t just boring circles. I think trainers who teach kids well are really creative about finding ways to keep things exciting. It’s a pretty adult concept to stay focused for 45 minutes on something so nuanced as bend, or connection, or trot-canter transitions. Snoozefest.

I give my kid riders really hard, technical, precise exercises, exercises with a tangible victory. Do a 10-meter circle. Count the number of steps your horse takes. Now do another one in that many steps, plus one. Then add another step. Then add another. Or on a 20-meter circle, do transitions between gaits every 10 steps. Now do a transition every eight steps. Now every six. Or make a six-loop serpentine. Now make seven loops. Now make eight. Now do them only quarterline to quarterline.

They won’t be bored.

4. Finally, call their bluff. You’re such a good rider that you don’t need to focus on your dressage, eh? Then I bet you are a better rider than any of these people: William Fox-Pitt, who gave an amazing clinic at Morningside a while back I had the pleasure of auditing, and who spent much of the first day picking apart every tiny nuance of some very exceptional riders’ flatwork. Ingrid Klimke, who’s made many international-caliber Grand Prix dressage horses. Michael Jung, who sits so beautifully he looks like he could be an Olympic dressage rider for any country in the world, including his own, who’ve won more team medals than any other. And on, and on, and on.

And think about this: because I am diligent and focused about my dressage, as long as I could make it around cross country without hyperventilating (which, admittedly, isn’t out of the realm of possibility), I’d probably beat them at an event. Seriously—a wimp-ass like me would probably kick your butt at novice, Pony Club Penny. Do you want to get beat by a wimp-ass? I didn’t think so.

Look out, kids of the YRAP program, and beyond. This zealot is coming for you, preaching the gospel of Dressage, bringing the word of Our Lord Half Halt to the masses. And you’re going to love it.

Lauren