JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – One of the sports you’ll see while watching the Tokyo games is the equestrian Olympic sport of dressage.
It became an Olympic sport in the 1912 games in Stockholm, when only military officers were eligible.
In 1953, the rules evolved to allow both civilian men and women to ride, making it the only Olympic sport in which both sexes compete against each other.
That’s one of the reasons it continues to grow in interest around the world.
It’s been around for centuries in Europe but only started becoming popular on this side of the pond, among riders in the U.S. in the 1970s.
Back then, I was one of those horse-crazed young girls, taking jumping lessons and learning to compete, but I was intrigued watching my trainer and her horse and their talent together at the elegant, controlled discipline of dressage.
It looked like they were dancing.
Through the years, I’ve discovered that it can take years to progress in the world of dressage, no matter what level of rider you are. But if you’re persistent, it can pay off.
Decades after I first sat in a saddle, I’m still riding, nearly every day. I’m still trying to improve and working through the Florida heat and humidity to do it. And as the years go on, I’m finding that time in the saddle gives me endurance, flexibility and even helps keep my mind sharp.
Fellow equestrian Marge Savage agrees, saying “I had an injury or a knee repaired this past year and it was mentally hard to be out of the saddle.”
Savage also rides with dressage trainer Suzanne Graham, who’s been helping me figure out this exhausting but addictive sport through the years.
As Graham demonstrated, the upper-level movements of dressage seen in the Grand Prix competition at the Olympic Games, Savage acts as her “eyes on the ground,” helping point out if Femi, Graham’s horse, is indeed executing the movements Graham is asking her to perform.
She explains that dressage riders are competing at the highest level of the sport, with patterns or “tests” that include movements like the piaffe.
“The piaffe is an on-the-spot trot, as she is demonstrating,” Savage said.
And the passage, another very difficult movement for the horse, in which the horse and rider appear to be slowly floating forward, effortlessly.
Then there’s the pirouette, which Savage describes as the ultimate example of “collection” in a horse.
“The horse is sitting. It has to be in position, and all of a sudden, it needs to jump forward and sideways, one foot after another in a fairly small circumference,” Graham said.
Graham points out, all of these upper-level movements, coming through years of discipline and persistence.
“I had to work crazy hard. I wasn’t given any horses,” Graham said. “I had to start from the babies, and Femi was 5 when we got her and took her all the way to the Grand Prix. That’s just crazy rewarding.”
Graham is an accomplished United States Dressage Federation gold medal winner, meaning she’s performed all the levels of the sport successfully in her career, including performing her horses at the national level.
She pointed out, it’s work that pays off, and many horses can be suited for the sport with the correct guidance and training.
“You don’t have to have the fancy horse. If the horse has the heart, is a big thing, like in any sport with horses. If they have the heart, they’ll do it for you and that’s what’s so cool,” she said. “It’s so rewarding when you actually have that a-ha moment, and you’re like, wow! I just taught ‘em something else!”
Another element in the sport of dressage includes music.
Lynnette Wadsworth only started riding in her 40s.
Now the former dance instructor has turned a hobby into a business called Goldbar Freestyles, creating musical freestyles for dressage riders and their horses.
“I help them select music that’s appropriate for their horse, and makes them look like they’re dancing,” she said.
Her splashy black and white horse Dandy was an exhibition horse in Spain where he played the bull and the trainer was a matador.
Wadsworth says she had to choose bullfighting-themed music for his dance.
“It’s just festive and fun,” Wadsworth said. “It just fit him.”