(“When I arrived at the show they gave me a different part of the elephant to feel.”)

Everybody knows the fable of the five blind men each describing an elephant based on the one part of him each has touched. That’s kind of the way I feel each time I’ve judged Western Dressage. At any given show the sample size is small enough that it’s risky to make a sweeping generalization after watching a dozen rides.

Last fall I saw a lot of serious weirdness at the show in Tallahassee. There what riders were interpreting as Western Dressage was, other than the familiar letters, unrecognizable—partly, I think, because there’s a tug of war among the people who created it over what it is supposed to be. I had a few dinky upper-level tests with mincing gaits after which I explained why this couldn’t possibly be what the USDF intended at the sport’s inception. I also judged an Intro One which was quite beautiful. And I had a Training Level 1, i.e.: Basic ride for which I gave 4 for gaits and 3 for impulsion. The “lope” was nowhere close to any legitimate gait. I spent a lot of time explaining things and quoting the WDAA guidelines to them. I don’t begrudge this duty. It’s what judges are supposed to do especially at schooling shows. I admit to being stressed when they try to tell me what they’re supposed to do when clearly they haven’t read their own rules and guidelines. But that’s just me.

Knowing I would have some western rides this weekend, I had prepared a little speech for them – Humor us. Ride forward. Do the stuff we want. It’s about choices and possibilities. You can do less in your other work but your horse will profit from being gymnasticized. I want to persuade you that western dressage could be like cross training for your regular disciplines, that it doesn’t need simply to replicate how your horses go in the main ring.

But then when I arrived at the show they gave me a different part of the elephant to feel. With a few exceptions they were going quite forward—even zooming around sometimes, And I didn’t need to say much about trying to make gaits. For the most part, they had them.

This time what they did not have was any meaningful connection or functional outline. They tended to mistake the phrase “light contact” for a passive, benign “just let them poke their noses out” way of going. You can live with this at Intro but not at First Level.

If I were to change one thing about their rules it would be to insist that Intro through First Level be ridden in a conventional shankless snaffle bridle. The dressage that we want to see and that will do their horses more good than simply riding patterns must include contact and connection. A novice rider accomplishing that in a curb is less than unlikely.