Bill’s angry! What? … Oh, Never mind Read More

BILL—It might be sacrilege. It’s not meant to be sour grapes, but the more I watch and listen over the years, the more specious I think our whole system of awards is. As has been said before by its detractors, dressage competition isn’t a sport. It’s an opinion. The same criticism, of course, could be applied to figure skating, snowboarding, gymnastics, skateboarding, and Dancing with the Stars (although we all know that’s not a sport by anybody’s definition). Read More

I always find it unsettling when things that goofy hunter people or kids on fat ponies can do with ease are such crises for dressage riders. One example is flying changes. The problem stems from this—teach your horse to resolutely hold his counter lead for about three years nonstop, and it’s no wonder he things flying changes are off his menu. The solution may seem surprising, but I can provide a long list of luminaries, many with classical backgrounds, who would echo this proposal. Read More

BILL– From time to time I’ve been known to complain about horses that are “trained” but not “broke,” which is to say, horses that know dressage “things” but don’t behave in a civil manner that should be expected of any horse—even a trail horse or some kid’s fat pony. Read More

If your judge penalized you for an error, most likely you were nervous and forgot to take your reins in one hand. That is an absolute requirement whether you are male or female—it’s written in the Rulebook. If you didn’t get a “minus two,” your salute probably wasn’t illegal, just unsightly. Read More

Horses can be more one-sided than the last election! In fact, they usually are. So, one goal of every serious long term schooling program is to make each horse more symmetrical—equally pliable, equally strong in both directions. The situation you’re describing is a horse which is hollow on his left side. This is letting him overbend when tracking left and causing him to fall against your right leg and through his outside shoulder. When you say he falls in going to the right, I’m assuming he also doesn’t bend to the right very well either.
In both cases, he has to learn to respect and move away from your right leg, but let’s examine each direction one at a time. Read More

BILL: Pretty good chance it’s because when he asks for a renvers (haunches out), you give him a travers (haunches in). If so, you are not alone in making this mistake. People do this to me all the time because, after all, travers—where you leave the forehand on the track and displace the quarters to the inside, bending your horse
around your inner leg—is the much more common movement. Read More

Rest assured if you are a neophyte dressage rider that the changing of the tests, while it may seem to turn your world upside down, will be of lesser consequence than was the introduction of New Coke. The new tests will last longer. Read More

What do you like or dislike about the new tests?
Invariably, every four years some trainers look at the new dressage tests as they come out and swear they make no sense, they’ll ruin the horses, and that they’ll never let their student ride some of the specific tests—ever. Then some time passes. We all get used to the new requirements, and the furor dies down. Read More

BILL – Well, it‟s a done deal with the new 2011 tests, so it doesn‟t much matter what I think. But just for the record, I don‟t think it‟s a very good idea. Understand, this is ground that has been gone over before. Whenever it comes to test writing, there‟s a tug of war among various factions who either adore or despise a particular movement and demand its inclusion/exclusion in the new requirements upon forecast of dire consequence. Likewise, there‟s a tension between those wanting to make the tests “horse friendlier” [read: easier] and those who want to protect “the art” from dilution and “dumbing down.” Read More