An introduction to Dressage This year at Mountbellew show we will be holding a unique event. For the first time ever at our show and I believe the first time ever in the country at an agricultural show we will be holding a Dressage Demonstration While many of us may have watched Dressage on the television and were fascinated by it, its very hard to figure out what the riders are at. They appear to be riding around in circles. Our aim is to explain what the riders are trying to achieve. Dressage comes from the French word training and this is basically what it is all about. You are aiming to produce an obedient fit supple horse. Dressage was originally used in ancient Greece by the soldiers to ready their horses for battle. While we don’t send our horses into battle any more this is still the way all the top riders prepare their horses for competition whether it be cross country jumping or show jumping. The success in jumping usually starts on the approach to the fence and dressage helps to ensure you arrive at your fence in the right position and at the right pace. Show jumping is often described as dressage with fences in the way. The riders on the day will each perform a dressage test exactly as they would at a dressage show. This test is performed within an arena, which is 20 by 40 metres. The arena has letters placed at predefined spaces around it. The competitors must enter the arena and perform a test, which contains various moves at different paces within this arena. The letters will tell the rider where to stop, start, turn, change pace etc. This test is performed in front of a judge who gives the rider a numerical score (1-10) for each move. In some competitions the tests are performed to music. In this type of competition riders may chose their own music, movements and choreography. Two additional types of competition are Pas De Deux and Quadrille. This is the synchronized swimming of Dressage with the pas de deux containing 2 horses and the quadrille having 4 horses performing together. The demonstration on the day will be given by Dalysgrove riding club. Dalysgrove are members of the Association of Irish Riding Clubs. The AIRC is made up of 125 affiliated clubs 8 regions and over 3500 members The club is based at Dalysgrove farm in Ahascragh by the kind permission of Leo Tierney. Dalysgrove farm contains a complete Cross Country Course, which is used for one-day events and for members preparing for competition. Lessons are held there every Friday night regardless of weather while there is enough of light in the evenings. When the evenings get too short they move back indoors to Damien Careys Equestrian Centre in Creagh Members compete both locally and nationally in Dressage cross country and Show jumping and have been very successful in all disciplines with many national titles being won. This year the club was runner up in the club of the year, which is a national competition. Dalysgrove started a Dressage league a number of years ago which has gone from strength to strength and is still the only riding club to do so in the west of Ireland The members demonstrating at Mountbellew Show are all members of the Dressage team, which represented the western region at the national dressage championships in mullingar this year. Dalysgrove always welcome new members and will be available on the day if anyone has any queries I urge you to please take up this invitation to attend this very unique event at Mountbellew Show. It is a great opportunity to get an introduction to Dressage in what is guaranteed to be a very informative and entertaining demonstration And who knows depending on the interest maybe next year we will have a dressage competition at our show! Looking forward to seeing you all there.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:58:56 +0000
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