Improve Your Dressage Scores with These 5 Tips

Push the free walk and pay attention to directives to raise your score

Dressage is the ultimate expression of harmony. Sometimes. On other occasions you stare at your scores in frustration after riding what you thought was a beautiful test, only to find you’ve got a 53% and come in the bottom third. Or, you just can’t quite break that 65% barrier. Your test is 'satisfactory' but not 'good'.

What gives? Sometimes, it’s the small things. By being mindful of your riding and by paying close attention to how your test is scored, it is possible to push your marks up by a few percent – and every single point counts in dressage, as we all know!

Here we look at five ways that you can ensure better performances…

1 Always push the free walk

This movement is overlooked time and time again by riders. Invariably, it’s one of the lower scoring movements simply because riders take the opportunity to relax and let their horses dawdle along on a loose rein. Remember, it’s a long rein – but not a loose one. Keep your horse marching along and if anything, push the walk even more forward than normal.

TOP TIP: You want a big overtrack and stretch for top marks, so practice this movement at home to ensure that your horse doesn’t jog.

2 Ride everything as accurately as possible

While it’s true that you shouldn’t sacrifice a good movement for the sake of accuracy, simple things like making your circles the right size can improve your score. Test sheets will often say things like ‘not to marker’ or ‘circle too small’ – and the judge cannot score a 15m circle well if it’s a 20m circle when you ride it.

3 Read the directives

The directives are found right next to the movements and say things like ‘fluency of transitions’, ‘lengthening of the frame’ or ‘rhythm and activity’.

These are your single biggest clues as to how to impress the judges. They literally tell you exactly what you’re being marked on!

Sometimes, they can be quite detailed. When going through your test, make notes of what the judges want. Amongst other things, you’ll find that calm and fluent transitions are important, along with stretching of the neck, lengthening of the frame, and bend on all your circles, loops and serpentines. When you ride a serpentine for example, make sure you focus on really showing the judges obvious changes of bend on the loops.

We can all make improvements, and we can all dream of matching the performance that the wonderful Isabell Werth produced in Lyon recently...

4 Use the areas that ‘aren’t marked’

Obviously, the entire test is marked. However, as mentioned above, you can quite easily see what the judges are looking for in the test. If your movement says something like ‘RMC medium walk’ followed by ‘C working trot’ and the directives indicate that they’re looking mostly at the transition, then use the corner between M and C to get the horse really bending around your leg and soft.

The same can be applied to lengthened or medium paces – use corners or sections that aren’t the focus of the marks to prepare as much as you can for the movement coming up, where the judge be paying particular attention.

5 Check your position

Many people get a bit tense at a show, especially if their horse is fresh or naughty, or they’re just feeling the pressure. The result? You see a lot of riders leaning forward, looking down and tensing their shoulders in the typical defensive position. This not only lowers the collective mark for your riding, but makes you less effective as a rider.

TOP TIP: Head up, shoulders back and sit down!