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Chapter 5 Working in the Dressage Arena
The Arena
You have been using the dressage arena for some time now both on the lunge and practicing riding forward in all the working gaits. Now is the time to analyze the arena, which is your special training area.
The standard dressage arena is 60 meters long and 20 meters wide. Also approved is a smaller dressage ring, which is 40 meters long and 20 meters wide.
The smaller dressage ring is usually used for the lower level tests Pas de Deux and Quadrille and the larger one for the upper level and FEI dressage tests. The dressage arena is segmented and documented by alphabetical letters at regular intervals both on the short and long sides.
The centerline defines the center longitudinal-line of the arena. The arena can also be split down the quarter lines, some 5 meters across from the long sides. (See Figure 6 for details and geometry).
For training it is best to use the larger arena where you can ride the school figures and turns in less restricted conditions.
In any dressage arena you need good footing, sand not too deep, rubber chips mixed with sand or other suitable artificial footing that gives firm, safe, level and springy feel for the horses hooves. The ring will need daily maintenance, both dragging with a tractor or sit-on mower, and hand raking around the ring edge and corners. It is impossible to ride a corner if the footing has piled up into the corner due to weeks of accumulation. This happens frequently in the real world and the unsuspecting riders never get a chance to ride a correct corner. Without a correct corner it is difficult to ride straight down the long side of the arena and impossible to set up for a school movement after the corner. Make sure that, where -ever you ride, both the footing and the ring maintenance is up to speed.
The dressage arena has alphabetical letters at regular intervals, which defines the logistics of the arena. However the sequence and indeed the logic of the alphabetical letters seem to be at random and probably are! Some say that the letters once lined the walls of the royal stable yard in the old imperial German court. The letters indicated just where horse of the respective courtier was to be placed to await its rider. For example: K for Kaiser/King and F for Furst/Prince. To remember these letters, which at face value are hard to memorize, ingenious or frustrated dressage riders have composed various rhymes to assist the learning of these odd letter’s’ which line the dressage arena. Two quaint yet informative little rhymes are: “A Kitten Entered Her Corner Munching Bad Fish” and “All King Edward’s Horses Can Make Big Fences.” The arena letters are a recent addition to the dressage scene. They seem to have come undocumented and from thin air in the 1900’s and appeared in 1920 Olympic Game’s. From a humble beginning, of 11 letters which are placed in the small dressage arena the final set of letters placed at the quarter markers and center-line had arrived by the 1920 Olympic Games and so completed the full set of 17 letters seen in today’s dressage arena. All the school figures involve these marker letters, so you do need to get on friendly terms with them and their placement in the arena. Enough of history!
More fun definitions for naming the letters in the dressage arena:
1. The letters commemorate the sites of legendary falls by 18th century dressage masters. Karl somebody-or-other’s stallion launched him into orbit from the end of one of the long sides. Conrad brought bought it in the middle of the far end, Xavier’s horse got the urge to lie down and roll right in the center of the arena, etc.
2. “Hey” after riding 500 20 meter circles in rapid succession, no-one can remember the alphabet?”
3. The letters are consecutive and in alphabetical order, in a now extinct language spoken only by early 18 century Hanoverian carriage horses.
4. In the very first dressage arena, the markers were designed and named by the lowest bid contractor.
5. Well, the letters are “supposed” to be in alphabetical order, but somebody’s Trakehner keeps getting out at night and re-arranging them.
Tips
- · Know the arena size and alphabetical letters
- · Some easy ways to remember the letters
- · Good footing is essential
- · Regular maintenance of the arena is necessary
- · In 1920 the full set of 17 letters was introduced
Straight Lines and Turns
Dressage is an old sport with the various school figures and movements steeped in antiquity. Why continue to ride these old lines and figures? Today we argue that it is necessary to obtain a correct, supple and happy horse that can track straight on straight lines and curved on curved lines. Many of today’s trail and sport horses have no special need for this degree of suppleness. A turn is a turn that need only involve a change in direction with no attention to bend. The horse can be pulled around by the inside rein, spun around with hind legs together or just mooched around, taking several differing straight lines, until the geography is, more or less, performed and the horse is going in a different direction.
Remember that the object of dressage is to produce a beautiful and happy horse rider combination. The art of appearing effortless, confident and willing is not easily learned by either the horse or rider part of the equation. In the sport of dressage we influence the horse in every way from curved lines, straight lines and side-ways lines. We have our FEI and USEF ‘Rules’ and ‘Guidelines’ as to how the horse should carry himself in the basic gaits, how he should turn and halt, and even the rhythm and cadence required in the gaits at the various levels.
 These guidelines should be not only understood but also practiced by the all dressage enthusiasts. Are you convinced? Let me tell you one of Franz Maringer’s teaching anecdotes’. “In Australia around 1960, Franz owned a wonderful mare called Gay Pam. This mare was competing at the Sydney 3 Day Event with the best combined-training riders in Australia at the time, including the famous Bill Roycroft. Gay Pam was also a successful Grand Prix dressage competitor, in an era when Australia had few Grand Prix horses. Franz was schooling the mare in Centennial Park (where the competition was held) when a trail rider came up to Franz “Fancy looking mare you a riding. How long did it take you to train this horse to do those fancy tricks?” asked the trail rider? Franz thought for a moment and replied. “I have trained this mare for 5 years now”. “By crikey!” the trail rider exclaimed. “That’s a long time -. I would never have the patience!” Then with a smile, Franz asked this question, “How long have you owned your horse?” The trail rider considered this for a moment and sheepishly replied. “I guess for about 13 years or so”.
Riding in the dressage arena is certainly not the only schooling that you practice. Supplement the arena schooling with trail rides, small cross country adventures, cavalletti and grid work as well as lunging. For your formal arena work will help to have your dressage trainer for at least one session a week, otherwise try to borrow a barn buddy or friend to be your “eyes on the ground.” It is nice to have the added luxury of mirrors as well. If you do not have this luxury, or it does not come with your boarding barn, try to video the schooling sessions at least once a week. It is amazing how much you can improve in a week with help from a trainer, mirrors or a video camera. Sadly, it is conversely amazing, how you can deteriorate in just a week without this assistance.
Our first goal is to ride around the arena (on the four straight sides) and execute a turn in each corner.If you can do this, at the working trot and medium walk, then the USDF Introductory dressage tests are within your grasp. Let’s go! Most horses and riders are one sided. The horse is naturally stiff to the left and hollow to the right side and the rider can be either left or right handed. That is, both horse and rider have their own straightness problems to address and correct. This makes simple movements such as riding a straight line in both directions very difficult indeed! Due to this innate stiffness and the fact that the hindquarters of the horse are wider than the forehand, the horse goes naturally a little hindquarters-in on a straight line. Try this experiment when the arena has been freshly raked and harrowed, trot down the long sides of the arena and execute the corner turns as best as you can. Then you can see exactly where your trusty steed has been stepping. I will take a bet that the line is not straight on the long sides; your track will probably show that the horse is on two tracks, with the hind legs generally carried to the inside. The turn will not show an even curve of hoof prints but either an abrupt or wide turn with the horse again on two tracks. Do not despair! There are lots of good reasons for this phenomenon. Although the horse is a wonderful and noble creature, he is unaware of our requirements for forward and straight. When he moves from A to B he will take the shortest line with the least effort.
.jpg) When he executes a turn he does not naturally bend to the direction of the turn and then bend his whole body. The horse will always opt for the short cut! By moving crookedly, he does not have to develop a strong hindquarter, supple back or even move freely forward. Sometimes the rider’s position can be at fault. For example if tracking left on a straight line, the action of the rider’s left leg is usually weak, if the rider is right handed, and the horse has good opportunity to fall against the rider’s left leg. The horse thus continues on in a more or less straight line, but is in reality on two tracks. The front and the hind feet are not in alignment. Knowing these facts, regarding the weakness of both horse and rider, allows us to begin our arena schooling. Start by riding freely forward and attempting to be straight on the straight lines in the arena and bent on the circles and turns. Riding the horse freely forward from behind and through the back allows the horse to track straight and overcome his own natural weakness to be crooked. The rider once correctly positioned, with a balanced seat and correct lower leg, will be able to assist the horse to move forward in a straight line. If the rider’s weight is dropped, say to the left, then the horse will tend to move back on two tracks again.The more we progress in riding dressage the more we come back to the basics (as described in earlier chapters) for both the horse and rider.
 The next task is to ride the corners of the arena while still on one track and with the horse bending through the body around the turn. The horse and rider, starting at the Introductory and Training Levels, can execute a wider turn than is required at the higher levels. A common error is to ride the corner too deeply. Often in the Introductory tests you see the rider going into the corner too deep and having to haul the horse out on the inside rein. This looks rough and the horse’s legs are not on one track. In addition the rhythm of the gait is disturbed. The horse comes nicely forward into the turn and due to rider error ends up loosing both the forward and the turn. The other common mistake is when the rider allows the horse to fall against the inside leg during the turn, and thus falling out through the outside shoulder.
 Riding a correct corner is up to the skill and correct position of the rider. The horse cannot be expected to anticipate how we wish the corner to be ridden. In fact the horse would rather wander through the turn in the simplest fashion possible! Start with a corner that is a quarter of a 15-meter circle and as the horse achieves this turn easily and in balance, then increase the degree of difficulty to a quarter of a 10 or 12-meter circle. See the next section on circles. It is important that the horse moves easily through the turns of the arena with no obvious deviation of rhythm or speed. Do not focus on what is wrong but focus on what is right, about both riding freely forward on straight lines and making turns on curved lines.Franz Maringer felt very strongly on such seemingly simple work. He always said. “If you do not take the time to make this firm foundation, your basic dressage work, as you progress up the training ladder will be sadly compromised.” At any level of dressage, all things being equal, the horse with the correct basics will always win.
Tips
- · Object is to produce a beautiful and happy horse rider combination
- · The first goal is to ride straight and forward down the long sides of the arena· Problem! The horse is not straight on straight lines
- · Next goal is to ride a corner
- · Preparation and execution of riding a turn is the responsibility of the rider
- · At any dressage level the horse with the correct basics will generally win
Riding a Circle
The main difference between a turn and a circle is that the circle is continuous. You just keep going “round and round” as the old song tells us. At dressage competitions you can see the oddest shaped circles executed, by not only children, but also by intelligent adults. Pear, egg and apple shapes, squares and all types of oblong silhouettes are shown to the judge with the utmost confidence. Why this problem? A circle is a circle is a circle – silly! Just as riders will swear black and blue they are riding a straight line, the same riders will also swear that they are riding a circle. The human brain will believe anything that we tell it. If we do not have any competent help, or eyes on the ground, we will feel that we are riding correctly both on straight and curved lines. A client, who had been riding for many years, complained that once her trainer had told her that her horse was finally straight on a straight line, that it felt crooked to her. This was because she had no effective left leg for some years and her horse was always falling against the left leg and out through the right shoulder. Over this time period, her brain had told her that the horse was straight and of course she believed it! It took more time for her brain to assimilate this fact and to accept it as the truth. Then, finally she felt good about riding straight and forward and realized that her brain had been defeating her goals. Another client felt that riding a circle was easy and really beneath the dignity of an experienced rider. Why? Because her brain told her that she could ride a circle, even when it was obvious to all that her circles were like wavy hay fields!
Once the mind is clear and open to change the rider can continue the learning process. A circle has a radius, which is half the diameter. The diameter determines the width of the circle. It can be 20, 15, 10 and 8 meters in most dressage figures. The classical volte, at 6 meters, is the smallest circle that the trained horse can describe while still remaining on one track. Riding correct circles and turns enables the horse to achieve suppleness by use of the swinging back, bending of the spinal column just behind the first vertebrae for a brief moment before continuing on the circle line. The horse is ridden so that he arrives, about one half a horse length, before the tangent of the prescribed circle, and leaves that tangent about one half a horse length, after the tangent.
 Sounds too theoretical? Think of a circle like this. First, mark the four tangents of the circle by using a 25 USA cent coin, there are 4 tangents. If you are attempting to ride a 20-meter circle to the left starting at C, then the four tangents are: the first tangent is about 2 meters past the letter H and the second tangent at the letter I,. the third tangent is at about 2 meters before the letter M. The final tangent is back at the letter C. Congratulations! You have now executed and planned a correct 20-meter circle. Well done!
A simple way of thinking about riding a circle is to first visualize the logistics. Just like the riding of a correct turn or corner, the job of executing a correct circle is absolutely up to the skill of the rider. Left alone the horse has no wish to exert himself to bend continuously around a circle line. The rider must always look where he or she is going! So often the rider has no clear idea just where they are going or where they will end up. The horse is blameless in this case. He has no idea that the rider wishes to ride a circle correctly unless the rider communicates this intent to the horse. When riding a circle the rider must be forever on the alert and be aware of exactly where the horse is, at any particular moment, on the circle. In addition the rider should always be looking ahead to the next tangent so that they can influence the horse to maintain a circular line. The horse is only straight for an instant at the tangent before continuing on a circular line.
The art of riding a correct circle is to turn just before the tangent and immediately control the horses’ outside shoulder, and to turn it towards the next tangent. At the next tangent the rider turns the horses’ outside shoulder once again, this action automatically places the rider’s hips parallel to the horse’s shoulders. This action allows the rider to re-establish the inside bend with the inside rein. Then, instantly the rider releases the inside rein and allows the horse to continue on the circle, inside leg to outside rein. Ridden this way the circle becomes easy in the geometry and finally in the execution. We are informed by sports-physiologists, that new information, such as the correct riding or a circle or turn, must be practiced at least 15,000 times before our brain will file this job to the automatic nervous system. Once this action is automatic, we can relax and focus on other important things. Remember that our brain can only handle a certain number of items at a time. This is the reason why a good and effective, instructor or trainer, will make your progress up the dressage training scale in slow and weighted increments. Each stage is the building block for the next stage. All along the way the brain will be taking over on some of the basic items allowing you to focus on new training and riding skills.
 While riding on a circle, the horse’s body from head to tail, should be bent around the riders inside leg and the rider should be able to see the eye lash of the inside eye of the horse. So often you see the horse totally over flexed to the direction of the circle. This is often because the rider is using too much inside hand and the horse is not on the outside rein and is falling out over the shoulder. If the rider is unable to see their horses’ inside nostril it generally means that, the horse’s head is tilted and again, the horse is not established on the outside rein. Ride each step forward, which becomes a simple task once the geometry of the circle is established. You also need to maintain the connection to the outside rein and honesty to the forward influence of the inside driving leg. The rider must look ahead to the next tangent and never look inside or outside the circle. This will disturb both the balance and geometry and the circle line will “go to pot!” The rider must try to keep the outside leg on the horse and a little bend around the inside leg position. This will prevent the horse from stepping out with the outside hind leg. However, the more usual problem is that the horse will try to fall in on the inside leg of the rider and pop out his outside shoulder. This Chapter has been devoted to the dressage arena itself and to riding straight lines, corners and 20-meter circles inside the arena. Such basic stuff! Many riders will tell you that it is all a waste of time. Anyone with half a brain can do it!
This is not so! Let us move onto the more exciting work of the upper dressage levels. We live in a technological age where most matters can be solved with a quick press of a button or a touch of a mouse. Even physical fitness can be achieved in a gym without ever seeing the outdoors or feeling the soft breath of the winds on your skin. The truth and beauty of riding dressage is the basic simplicity of the initial training. Franz Maringer would say: “The philosophy of dressage is so simple, yet over 90% of dressage riders never really understand the principles.” The reason that this chapter is so important to all beginning (and some more advanced) dressage riders is that it contains the absolute basics of dressage, the tree trunk that needs to be sturdy and strong in order for the branches to grow.
Tips
- · A circle is continuous. It goes round and round
- · Dressage riders show crazy and different “so called” circle designs in competition
- · The rider’s job is to ride correct circle geometry
- · The horse is not a “mind reader”. Poor circle geometry is not the fault of the horse.
- · The horse has no desire to bend continuously throughout the circle, unless requested by the rider
- · Need to focus on new figures some 15,000 times before it becomes automatic in our mind.
- · Straight lines, circles and turns are the basics of all dressage work
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