Equestrian Life Magazine September Issue 220 | Page 43

Misconceptions In Dressage It is perfectly acceptable for a rider to use both sitting and rising trot in a test Misconceptions and Mutterings! In these days of widespread social networking and internet forums there is a huge amount of information readily available to riders. Questions can be posed to a large audience and answers given quickly by many, usually anonymous, posters. Most of us have no idea who these people are or how knowledgeable they are and therefore whether the information they give you is correct! Courtesy of on-line retailer Dressage Deluxe, sponsored rider Jane Lavington, AI and List 3a judge takes us through some of the common misconceptions, which she regularly comes across with regard to riding dressage tests…. Rising Or Sitting Trot? BD rules state that up to and including Elementary, you may do either and I often hear it said that judges will give you higher marks if you sit rather than rise, especially at Elementary level. This is totally incorrect! Judges only mark according to how well the horse goes and as the rules allow a rider to do rising trot, they cannot mark you down if you choose to do this. The truth is that rising trot will gain you higher marks if it means that your horse stays softer and supple through the back and is subsequently more consistent as a result. If a rider opts to sit and causes the horse to stiffen and lose the fluency because they haven’t developed an independent enough seat to follow the horse’s movement without gripping or bouncing, then the score will suffer. On the flip-side of this, it is often posted on forums that judges don’t like it when riders sit at Prelim level but once again it will only lower the marks if the horse’s way of going is adversely affected. If I feel it really has had a detrimental effect on the horse in a test, I may well comment on it in the summing up, this however does not mean I am against any riders sitting the trot at Prelim but just that it wasn’t working in that test for the particular rider I was judging. Can You Change From Sitting To Rising In The Same Test? It is perfectly acceptable for a rider to use both sitting and rising in the same test, so if you started off sitting, but felt your horse was tightening, not moving freely forwards or was showing tension then you may swap to rising trot at any time without it affecting the marks. It may even have a positive effect on the rider mark as the judge will recognize the rider has made an educated decision about what was best for the horse at that moment in time. Correct Diagonal? Another question often raised is will you get marked down if you go on the wrong diagonal? The simple answer is no! It is not a requirement to rise on a specific diagonal in tests but, if it causes the horse to lose balance and suppleness through turns and circles, then the marks will be affected. Double Or Snaffle Bridle At Elementary And Above Levels? Again it isn’t a question of what we judges might or might not prefer, but whether the horse goes well or not. If two horses both do equally lovely tests, one in a snaffle and one in a double, the marks will be the same. The horse in the snaffle will not score more highly. The double bridle used inappropriately can tend to highlight weak areas in the horse’s way of going which may well result in the score dropping more than if the test had been ridden in a snaffle. So you can see how, contrary to popular internet beliefs, it is not judges’ preferences that increase or decrease your marks but how correct or not the horse’s way of going is as a result of the choices you make regarding the tack you use and the way you ride in the test. www.dressagedeluxe.co.uk 0800 321 300 Jane Lavington is based in the South-East, but teaches and runs clinics all over the UK. Email: [email protected] 07887 505 181 Dressage Deluxe Sponsored Rider & BD Judge Jane Lavington Double bridle or snaffle - It depends on what your horse goes well in www.equestrianlifemagazine.co.uk EL-SEPT13-S3.indd 43 43 22/08/2013 22:43:29