Dressage is one of the three Olympic equestrian sports – the others are eventing and show jumping. The word “dressage” comes from the French word “dresseur”, which means training, and the sport involves showing off a horse’s training by performing a set of prescribed movements in front of a judge or judges. You also receive a written report of your scores for each movement in the test from the judge.
What is the purpose of dressage?
Dressage is all about the rider working in harmony with their horse, developing suppleness, flexibility, obedience and athleticism – these ultimately help make a horse/pony more pleasant to ride. Dressage as a concept dates back to 350 AD, and it has its roots in battle!! a better trained horse would be more effective and efficient on the battlefield. Over time, this developed into a way of demonstrating horsemanship, as well as the relationship between horse and rider.
Establishing a good level of dressage /flatwork is helpful for all pony club riding activities.
PC Competitions.
At Suffolk Hunt we love to have teams and individuals representing the branch at Grassroots and Area and Championships. There is also a winter dressage series, the Barrier Spring Festival and for those who are really focused on dressage there is a PC Dressage Home International and Dressage to Music.
We run training throughout the year at flatwork rallies and dressage test riding rallies, we also have one to one dressage training on a surface during the winter and on grass during the spring and summer.
Please google ‘PCUK dressage tests’ to see all the current tests and for further information.
If you are interested in training for SHPC Dressage Teams in 2024 or wanting to improve your dressage please look out for the information and bookings on SHPC Web Collect and fill in an interest form so the dressage manager can contact you.
For any further info please contact DC Jane, CI Clare, Rachel Fitton or Alison Barber.
Area 8 Dressage – Sunday 29th June 2025 – Suffolk Hunt – Ickworth