22/11/2024
What is dressage? Today that is not a simple question. I think we currently have at least four distinct types of dressage and a few sub types. I have illustrated these four types beginning with the top image of the Duke of Newcastle, William Cavendish, who wrote the first book on dressage translated to English. I will label his dressage as "Aristocratic Menage Dressage".
While Cavendish's writings contributed to other forms including military dressage, what he practiced was the aristocratic Haute Ecole level of riding that became trendy with the ruling classes of Europe beginning in the 16th century. This dressage was a show of wealth requiring massive staff, riding halls, the most expensive horses and attire.
The next type is what I call "Working Dressage", pictured lower left. Like Aristocratic Menage Dressage, Working Dressage has the precision and shared balance and movement in unity of Aristocratic Dressage, but it also has a practical purpose. Working Dressage purposes include working cattle and participation in bullfighting.
The lower center picture is of Anky van Grunsven, Dutch individual Olympic Gold Medalist in dressage 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, and 2008 Beijing. She is considered the originator of and poster child for hyperflexion training or Rollkur. Her dressage is the most commonly known form of dressage that I call "Modern Dressage". For me, this dressage is a contemporary version of Aristocratic Dressage. It is about money, "art", the most expensive horses and all the rest that the centuries old European ruling class pursued with their wealth and power. It has no purpose except to demonstrate itself.
Lastly, at the lower right we see Henri Chammartin, Swiss equestrian, who won the 1964 Olympic individual gold medal in dressage. This version of dressage I call "Military Dressage". It is the ultimate form of dressage in terms of practical application because lives depended on it. While similar to Working Dressage in its purposeful applications, it takes equation to a level that includes work at the gallop, meaning it includes the entire range of the horse's ability to collect and extend.
Military Dressage is free of all affectations, trends, and fashion and its lowest common denominator was its kill or be killed context. Military Dressage was the universal standard for the non aristocrats up until the 1960s. It was the singular method in all five phases of Combined Training, now called Eventing, as well as in Grand Prix jumping.
All of these forms of dressage claim, in varying degrees, to be based in the unity of balance and movement. However, I think that these four forms fall into two categories. Aristocratic Menage Dressage and its current revival as Modern Dressage I will, out of kindness, refer to as artful, however artificial their expressions might be. Working Dressage and Military Dressage are more practical and whatever art they express is in the form-follows-function tradition.
Others like Cowboy Dressage, Western Dressage I see as having some dressage principles that are transplanted into a context where dressage has no clear roots. This does not invalidate them. They only have me wondering how they will evolve over time.
I have avoided using the term "Classical Dressage" because, like so many horsemanship terms, "classical" has lost so much of its meaning due to widely different uses. Is Cavendish's or Working Dressage Classical? What about Saumur and the Spanish Riding School? They all have some right to the term classical, and there are plain imposters using the term as well. I hope this clears up at least some of the confusion around dressage in today's horse world.
