Alanna

My 4 kids, horses, animals in general, hiking, reading, hanging out with good friends, music

DRESSAGE QUEEN WANNABE - that's me

My poor hubby isn't nearly the animal addict that I am and has put up with my passion. We now have 1 black cat - Boo,Napoleon the 135 lb mutt and,Ava the Umbrella Cockatoo and Aragorn's Elegant Falcon the Thoroughbred/Perhceron cross. Our newest addition is a crazy black lab mix that we adopted from an animal rescue. We have named her Josephine aka Josie.She passed basic obedience !!

A very sad day for us. We had to put our crabby old man, Oberon to sleep last night. He was almost 14. RIP old man, I'll always love you.... 4-28-93 to 2-6-07

Our Esoteric Sport [Dressage] Taken from The Tail End in USDF's September 2007 magazineOur Esoteric Sport Even devotees find dressage challenging to explain to outsiders By Wendy Rector RiddellNearly every dressage rider has had this cocktail-part conversation: "So what kind of riding do you do?" "I am a dressage rider." "What is dressage?" Pause; sigh; contemplate how to get out of answering the question. Finally: "Dressage means training. It is when you train a horse to do a test pattern, kind of like figure skating." "Is that what those Lipizzaners do? Those white horses?" "Sort of." "Do you have to wear those funny clothes?" As you explain about the attire, the questioner realizes that he or she has little in common with someone whose idea of fun is putting on a Halloween costume and leaping through the air on a white horse. "Sounds interesting--oh, there's Mary; please excuse me," comes the vague response, and both you and the unwitting victim are relieved that the conversation has ended. Our sport is difficult to explain to others, even to those friends and loved ones who genuinely try to grasp, unsuccessfully, what we see in dressage. Take a moment to imagine the sport through the eyes of a nonbeliever and you'll see why. First, the attire. We pour ourselves into white breeches. One need only walk around any show grounds to realize that most dressage riders should probably stay away from white stretch pants. To make matters worse, we then bounce around in a saddle for a while, the better to highlight our white-stretch-pants-encased thighs. We don dark wool coats--always appropriate attire for exercising, especially in the heat of the day. We finish off our look with hair nets and silk top hats, which offer no protections--safety, sun, or otherwise--black boots (the better to show the dust), poufy white neck scarves, and white gloves. (What sport is complete without white gloves?) While bouncing on our horses in our white stretch pants, wool coats, poufy scarves, dust-covered boots, and white gloves, we go before a judge in order to have our performances critiqued, bit by bit. After the ride, we race to the score board to await the judge's ranking. We rarely agree with either the ranking or the critique. We make excuses for the (overly harsh!) critiques. We conclude by vowing to all within earshot that we will do better next time. For this experience, we pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. To pursue our sport, we give up days, nights, weekends, free time, time with our families. We pour thousands of dollars into recurring monthly expenses, trucks, trailers, saddles, bridles with jewel-encrusted browbands, nutritional supplements, high-tech saddle pads, equine massages (to try to make up for the bouncing), not to mention the horses themselves. We pay for trainers (more if they speak German) to criticize our bouncing. We spend hours practicing, sometimes until our crotches are sore and we have open wounds on our knees. Broke and exhausted, we persist nonetheless. For us true believers, there is nothing better, and we remain devoted to our beloved sport well into old age. For the nonbelievers, I simply cannot explain dressage. The next time I'm at a party and someone asks what kind of riding I do, I'll reply: "I jump." Everyone knows what jumping is.