Were to start in dressage??

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Henmen

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Hi people,
I would really love to take my mare to the top at dressage, she has wonderful paces, but i am a total and utter novice and so is she - shes barely broken!!
So where do we start? What do we do? I know we' d have to do local ow level stuff to start with, but after that? And for how long?? When should we join dressage equivalent BSJA???

Any help greatly appreciated!!
 
Hey there

regular tuition is a must - if you cannot afford this then I would join the Riding Club - they have fab tuition especially for more novicey horses and they have comps and national champs - plus tuition is cheaper - deffo the way to go IMO
 
i personally would get yourself a good trainer and get advise from there. Look on the british dressage website for trainers in your area. How is your horse bred? There is no rule about when you start to affliate, you can do it when you want. The horse has to 4 years old to affliate but thats it really. I would advise that you do unaffliated first and that you should be getting around 66-68%+ in an unaffliated prelim before starting affliated prelim.

As you are both novices to all this a trainer is what you must get, you definately cant do it alone if you really think your horse will go all the way. If you do id get it entered in some young horse classes aswell - but your trainer will advise you on that if he/she thinks you and your horse are up to it.
 
After finding yourself a good instructor, the Walk/Trot tests are a good place to start. It seems that more and more equestrian centers are doing these now and they are a nice low-key introduction into the world of dressage.

Have fun and can't wait to hear the first report!
 
I don't agree with the % you are mentioning there P_G!! Alot of Unaff stuff is judged by Aff judges, so will be getting similar marks, and I would be well pleased if I even got over 61%!!! I competed an old loan horse unaff and aff, and he would quite often get better marks at aff as judging was more consistant!

Trailblazers is a good place to start, and just get her out as much as possible to get a feel for it!! Enjoy
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No i'm not getting at you, just seems like a high target to be aiming for before attempting a affil prelim! But fair enough if there is alot of difference in your area, sorry wasn't meaning to be sharp!
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Umm yeah! quite agree actually, that does seem quite high.

My old trainer however, wouldnt affiliated until she would be able to win an elementary - but that was just her
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Makes me laugh, winston and i never even got placed at Prelim, but at the same event in the novice, I could win by 10% higher than the 2nd place rider *shakes head* why??

I think finding yourself a trainer and perhaps joining a riding club (we have an actual dressage club here) and get out there
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Suppose it depends on individual targets, if you are wanting to go out and win every time, then fair enough, if you just want to go to compete and improve through the ranks, I don't think you should set yourself TOO huge a targets.
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Know what you mean eventing, I'm just preparing for first dressage on my boy, knowing he would have got a conversion of 61%+ in his first ODE... am interested to see how we get on!
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I think it all depends on how you feel about competing.

What I mean is, do you get a thrill from just being out competing, or do you think it will be the training that will be your reward?

I've been in a similar position to you, I've done some local unaff dressage and was in a place wondering whether to affiliate. (mainly to ensure the quality of the places I'd be competing at).

I've very recently found a wonderful classical dressage trainer who perfectly compliments my long term trainer (she's an ex 4* eventer/advanced dressage rider).

The new trainer has backed up what my instructor has been saying for years, that it's the foundation that counts.

As my horse is young and very large, he has advised me not to rush into competing and focus on getting his training top notch.

I feel very relieved as I was beginning to feel that I was having to compromise my values, just to make George fit into a 20x40 test!

I've now made the decision to spend my hard earned, on lessons with both trainers, and not stress about getting to any dressage comps which will only hinder us at this stage (I hope I'm making sense).

Anyway, the training has always been what has inspired me, so I won't miss competition for a while
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I'm currently looking at working on some classical riding club young horse tests at home, just to keep focus
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I hope this helps
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Echo the others though, find a trainer you like and find out their inspirations
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I was getting about 62-64% unaffiliated and now I get 67-70% affiliated. Maybe its best to try to affiliated comps as an open rider to test the water.
 
The marks thing has come up a few times and we do seem to have a north /south divide. I totally agree with P_G. I found my marks dropped around 5% when affiliating, but then I competed at the same places and venues as P_G!

An affiliated class round here is often won with a mark lower than the qualifing percent, to get the 65% was a major achievement!
 
Its definitely odd - the major venue near me uses judges from down South not sure why there would be a North/South divide. My last but one was judged by a list 1 from Bedfordshire.

Most of the prelim/nov up here are won with over 70%
 
ive often seen affliated elementary classes at venues won with just 60%
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Whereas i could go out round here and do an affliated elementary and probably get around 67% for it..........where as unaffliated i generally get between 63-65%
 
All the best riders are based down South though so perhaps the judges have spent too much time watching amazing piaffes and passages down there and cant motivate themsevles to stray beyond a 6 when marking lower level tests.

I was born in Bedfordshire
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Wow we have swapped
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- Richmond is further North but our Riding Club used to have their Area Quals at Richmond Equestrian Centre - been there a few times.
 
*not addressed to me but replying anyway!*

Your BE dressage mark is just your percentage subtracted from 100. Say you got 65% in your test, your BE mark would be 100 - 65 = 35. Similarly, if you got a BE dressage score of 40 then that would be 100 - 40 = 60%.

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i agree with most peeps, you need to find yourself a good trainer in your local area. Defo join RC, as your local one will hopefully use very good trainer and not cost the earth.
I agree with P_G you need to be getting 65+ in unaffili before affil, as judging at BD is harder but more consistent.
What i done with my horse, started with unaffiliated and doing very well ie winning and being placed. Popped up to BD and was completely blown out............. so when back down to unaffil and had more training and in summer moved back un into affil and now have had two wins at affil and started to get points
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good luck as it lots of hard work, but fun
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BBs
My instructor said the same thing the other day! Took her SJ er out to dressage for a change of scenery, wasn't placed in the prelim but won novice by 9%.
Got to be either lots of pot hunters at prelim level who consisitently go out at un affiliated prelim level and score high 60%s but refuse to move up to novice! Or possibly just that the novice level judges are looking for different things?
 
There are usually more competitors in prelim so the chances of winning/getting placed at novice are higher. Judges are looking for different things and assuming you had a listed judge (i.e. trained) they will be looking at the scales of training when making their judgements for each horse.
 

Henman, I would suggest as you're not familiar with this dressage milarky (sp) and what the % means, you should take yourself on foot to a few competitions and watch/look/learn and ask questions there, people are only too happy to help you out.

You need to get to grips with the basic priniciples, then find your instructor and go forward from there when you know what your goal is.

Good luck
 
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