DressageArena.org

Get your FREE eBook at www.academic-art-of-riding.com Welcome to Riding Academy. The topic of this video is Why dressage? Dressage is a mean to improve the horse physically and mentally. The centuries old tradition of classical dressage provides a systematic method of schooling the horse to make him pleasant to ride and to prolong his useful working life. Another facet of dressage is the focus on harmony between horse and rider. And dressage is about beauty and about art. Many dressage movements look like dances, with the horse and rider totally in synchrony with each other. Dressage is also good for the horse; it produces a balanced, supple, strong and athletic horse. Dressage training can also be elevated to physical therapy. The trainer can overcome many natural weaknesses in his horse, especially natural crookedness, by appropriate gymnastic exercises. So dressage is very important for the health of the horse. Dressage is based on the natural movements of the horse. If the trainer wants to have a correct view of the mechanism of the horse’s movements, he must observe the young green horse in the pasture. He’ll discover the activity of the individual limbs and of the coactions of all the limbs during forward movement. He will then be convinced that Mother Nature has endowed the young horse with everything that he has seen in well trained dressage horses. In its games, the young colt will display quite a number of the higher-level movements from a passage to airs above …