DRESSAGE

The facilities and space on offer at Lough Farm enables the noble art of Dressage to take place within its grounds.  There are many amateur and professional supporters of Dressage, who are keen to take part in these events.

To the uninitiated, Dressage sees rider and horse moving together in an 'aesthetically beautiful' light and free style and symmetry, that is poetry in motion! 

There are a series of complicated movements that the horse and rider must learn together to achieve this harmony.  Perhaps difficult to describe, when one is watching this event, the perfect 'pairing' stands out with that certain 'wow' factor; they just look superb together and the movements are effortlessly and perfectly performed.

The set movements are undertaken in a 'marked' arena, at each 'mark' the rider should be instructing the horse into a further task.

This ideal of working together has a deep rooted history, going way back to 430BC when a Greek Commander Xenophon wrote the 'Hippike' (translated - The Art of Horsemanship).  A military man who took his mounted soldiers into battle; the leaping and turning, prancing steps and complete understanding between horse and man was, as can be imagined, absolutely vital, not just for the survival of the individual horseman, but for winning the battle.  Stylised versions of these movements were taught and they form the basis of Dressage to-day.

A spring for sudden advance, can be seen in the piaffe.  The pirouette reasonably self explanatory movement, which can be seen as a vital manoeuvre in close fought battle; like wise the levade a 'half halt'; the courbette a towering horse and the capriole a huge leap high in the air, to name but a few Dressage terms of to-day.

Link through on lines below for animated clips of Dressage movements.

Also below is a link to the Olympic pages, containing a short outline of Dressage as an Olympic sport.

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