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Disciplines
Classic dressage is an Olympic sport. Its
origins date back to ancient war practices and through remakes
of those tests put into practice in 19th century's European
armies. There is a certain number of movements that must be
carried out in Dressage and they are called figures. The
goal is to get the highest possible score.
To have a good performance at a figure, both
horse and rider must be confident, must have a bond, since even
the slightest error affects the entire quality of the movement
and eventually, the score. For a horse to get to the Olympics, a
lot of Training, Health and Luck are required.
Generally speaking, the Training of a
dressage horse gets started at the age of 4 to be continued all
the way until its best, what usually happens between 12 and 16
years of age.
That's a gradual work that demands much patience,
particularly at building a mutual trust relationship between
horse and rider. After all, it's no easy task commanding an
animal weighing around 100 stone with simple commands from a
rider who's on top but weighs only between 8.5 and 14 stone!
-The importance of Health is basically
related to the capability of the horse to endure 6 days a week
and 11 months a year of various kinds of exercises. By the age
of 12 the horse will have turned into a true and heavily
muscular athlete with a personality of his/her own!
As for Luck, that is a true need at many
of the stages of work with the horse. No matter how hard a rider
analyzes the conformation, gait, temperament and health when
choosing a horse in the field, good luck definetely counts for
the confirmation and combination of the factors.
The judgment in a dressage test is rather
subjective. The judges analyze the reprise of each team giving
scores from 1 to 10 for each of the figures performed. The
judges get specific training and achieve higher levels in the
judging scale depending on the number of hours they have worked
in judging, and on how up-to-date they are, meaning how much
training they have been taking part in lately.
There are several series, in accordance with the level of
difficulty of the figures. The easiest one, for beginners, is
the elementary. After that, it goes as follows: Preliminary,
Intermediate I, Intermediate II, upper level and
International GP. There are various figures divided in minor or
greater levels of difficulty according to the level of the
reprise. Some examples of figure are: extended canter, free walk,
simple change in canter, tempi change in canter, pirouette,
shoulder in, travers, renvers, passage, piaffe, etc.
Driving
Modeled on the
ridden three day event, a Horse Driving Trials is in fact a kind
of triathlon aimed at testing the overall versatility of an animal
in harness as well as its rider.
The sport,
which has seen Lusitano horses win the World Championship in the 'four-in-hand'
class, was introduced in Brazil by Interagro, after a period of
training of its members and staff at the Coudelaria de Alter, in
Portugal, under the direction of Dr. Luis Lupi. Subsequently, five
vehicles were imported from Germany, from the well known Künhle
industry, which manufactures the best competition vehicles; one is
a "Marathon" carriage for that kind of obstacle competition; two
of the "Fun-Line" for leisure and less specialized competitions;
and two "Phaeton" for leisure and dressage sports. Except for the
first one, used for 'cross-country' tests, these vehicles may be
used as 'singles', 'pairs' or 'teams', the latter including 4 (four-in-hand)
or more animals. Interagro already drives teams of 4, 6 and 8 and
is starting a team of 10 horses.
Driving horses
must possess especial characteristics, such as strength and size,
ability to perform, good gaits with great extension, and a lot of
suspension in the trot, which is the main gait for this sport.
Other disciplines
- Cutting
- Eventing
- Jumping
- Therapeutic Riding
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