COLUMN
Brister’s Brief Repeat after him: Dressage is essential. Our new HorseVibes columnist, eventer CHARLIE BRISTER, gives us the low-down on why we should stop complaining and just DO IT.
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ressage is important. Dressage is essential. Dressage is crucial. Every eventer on the planet has heard that nightmare refrain.
I know I’m not the only person out there who’s had or has a perception bias against dressage but now I understand how it can help make everything so much easier. (I do, truly.) Rewind a couple of years to my first eventing competition, when I was 13. As a primary school kid I would ride young racehorses in pre-training for my mother around the farm. Aside from the pre-training my weekends were spent riding with my Irish family connections wildly across paddocks and jumping anything and everything in our way. That wild riding certainly developed ‘stickability’ and pluck. But there was no finesse. There I was armed with my eclectic equestrian skill set, when my mother decided on putting me in as a late entry into Oberon horse trials. (Notice I
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It took years of competition until I could think about a 20m circle and a leg yield without grimacing. But to be honest, now I’m over the moaning, hearing other competitors complain is pure gold!
That’s where the dressage comes in. If only there was a way of making your horse jump better without it…
haven’t yet mentioned dressage or show jumping lessons or training days, or, or, or…that was all to come after my first competition…to be honest I don’t advise this approach.)
HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - MARCH 2019
At the time I understood the idea of a dressage test just as well as a 13-yearold boy understands women. Luckily, one of those has improved since then. On the morning of the Oberon trials, I
