February/March 2013 - Page 12
F
or the western horse and rider partnership there are a
myriad of competition options that riding western offers
every thing from super-slow pleasure classes, the
practicality of trail, all the way to the fire and excitement of
reining and cow horse classes. Now, however, there is another
choice to take into account.
The newly founded discipline of Western Dressage that is
taking the US by storm and has now been introduced into
Australia, combines techniques to build suppleness and strength
that classical training affords, relaxation in the back, impulsion,
longitudinal and latitudinal straightness and the cadence and
rhythm in the gaits. Classical dressage techniques have been
used by top western horsemen and horsewomen for years;
however, it is only now that an organised effort has been made
to recognise the benefits that interdisciplinary training brings
to the western horse and rider to give the combination of
classical and western riding a formal name and recognise it as
its own discipline with its own form of competition.
The newly founded discipline that
is taking the US by storm is now
being introduced into Australia.
DRESSAGE
WESTERN
Introducing
by Jennifer Chisholm-Høibråten
Santa Fe Renegade, a
Morgan stallion, and
Debbie Beth-Halachmy.
Photo by Eitan Beth-Halachmy