Right here’s some nice recommendation on find out how to finest study and bear in mind your dressage take a look at from grand prix dressage rider and coach Kate Cowell

Going incorrect in your dressage take a look at is most infuriating and also you actually can’t blame the horse. Whether or not it’s that terrible feeling when your thoughts goes completely clean otherwise you’ve ridden to the incorrect letter, or purely as a result of the horse is taking part in up and the distraction has prompted you to take the wrong route.

For no matter cause, we kick ourselves as beneath British Dressage guidelines the judges take two marks out of your whole rating should you go incorrect as soon as, 4 marks for the second error and it might probably finish in elimination for error in fact the third time. So what’s the finest sure-fire method of making certain this doesn’t occur to you?

The way to study a dressage take a look at

The commonest method is to memorise the letters or the shapes of the take a look at. Nonetheless each of those are from a ‘fowl’s eye’ perspective.

This may be arduous to switch to really driving the take a look at and being ‘within the second’, significantly if the horse begins to be much less constant to journey or the rider forgets to breathe!

The most effective fool-proof strategy to study a take a look at is to really visualise driving the take a look at.

Discover someplace quiet, sit in a chair and picture you’re in your horse within the competitors enviornment driving the take a look at.

Once you get proficient at it you may convey in additional facets reminiscent of listening to the decide’s bell ring to begin, how your horse feels, what it’s essential to bear in mind earlier than every motion, the place it’s essential to journey stronger for the extension for instance, or be extra relaxed for the stroll and the way your place feels.

Lastly, at all times journey via the take a look at at house as repetition is the important thing so the take a look at turn out to be autonomous.

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H&H options, racing and point-to-point editor

Gemma is an skilled journalist, having been a part of the H&H staff since 2014, who’s obsessed with all equestrian sports activities, together with racing and point-to-pointing. She has loved driving out for prime trainers Nicky Henderson and Charlie Appleby and took half in a charity Flat race at in August 2018. Gemma’s reporting skills have taken her to quite a few five-star occasions round Britain and Europe, in addition to European championships.