Questions about Hartpury from a dressage novice

[Tendonsandjoints]

Hi everyone. I am an experienced rider but totally new to the world of dressage.

1. Could some kind person point me to where I can find a list of all the different levels and competitions? It's confusing!

1. Is anyone else watching Hartpury via Horse and Country? I gather Olivia Towers is following Charlotte Dujardin. Do you know when they are on please and which competition is it?

Anyone?

To answer your first question, have a look at the British Dressage site

And I’m afraid I don’t have a clue about the particular competition you’re watching but suspect it’s recorded so you can probably find the results by googling

Sorry not familiar with Hartpury specifically but the basic levels are:

-Intro - walk and trot only, simple school movements
-Prelim - walk trot and canter, simple school movements
-Novice - medium trot and canter, counter canter introduced, slightly harder movements
-Elementary - basic lateral work, collected trot and canter, simple changes of canter lead (through trot and walk)
-Medium - harder movements e.g. walk pirouettes, half pass, and extended trot and canter

And then it goes advanced medium, prix st georges, inter 1 and 2 and finally grand prix which is the highest level and what you see at the Olympics etc., includes the hardest moves such as piaffe and passage - but even Olympic riders will still compete at the lower levels on their less experienced/younger horses. There are a whole variety of different tests at each level, find them by googling e.g. Prelim 7, Novice 12 etc., you usually have to pay for the sheets which contain the mark schemes etc - but there will usually be multiple you tube videos of people riding the tests, some with commentary explaining what the judge is looking for so that's a good way to learn. Basically at all levels it's about the scales of training, the horse working correctly and in a relaxed fashion, performing the right moves as required by the test accurately, the rider being quiet and effective.

Different affiliated and unaffiliated competitions will have different structures, some will just simply run multiple intro, prelim and novice classes on the day (with a different test for each) and everyone competes against everyone else, but quite often classes will be divided into 'open' and 'restricted' (for less experienced combinations) sections, or there may be senior and junior classes (based on age of rider), young horse classes (for horses aged 4, 5 or 6), there are qualifiers for regional and national championships, specific classes, leagues or championships for horses of different breeds (e.g. native ponies or retrained racehorses) plus a lot of riding clubs or venues run summer or winter leagues so you may earn points towards those...

Basically it can be confusing to know what to enter, but pretty much any rider with a relatively well schooled and quiet horse should be able to go out and do an unaffliated intro or prelim test so no need to boggle your mind too much if you want to give it a go - find your local venue and enter whatever classes you're eligible for, buy the test sheets and practice them in advance then bling yourself and pony up on the day and give it a crack! You'll always get a judges comments sheet afterwards with (hopefully!) constructive feedback on where you can improve!

Wow! Thanks very much for these responses! Much appreciated!

Pleasedontdothat Thank you, I did look at that very site believe it or not, but managed to miss the crucial page, so thanks for the specific link! I am keeping an eye out on results via Google!

Maxelly It is very kind of you to go the trouble of writing all of that out! That is the most comprehensive, but easy to understand, explanation that I have found anywhere to date! So thank you very much! You have given me encouragement to try and get stuck in and submit an application for a test at a very basic level!

My other question is that I am not UK based but in Europe (obviously not easy to travel back and forth atm but hope to do so in future) but in terms of the rules, are they the same all over Europe, ie will British Dressage rules be roughly the same as those in countries such as France, Holland, Belgium etc?

To add to Maxelly: beyond Grand Prix, you get the High School movements, which aren't part of competition: that's the airs above the ground done e.g. by the Spanish Riding School. The piaffe shown at Grand Prix is a preparatory movement for those, for example.

Regarding rules in other countries, they will be roughly similar, although there can be national "schools" of riding/training, as in, trends in style and methodology. A lot of the terminology used in dressage comes originally from French, and e.g. the Scales of Training from German. The levels are also roughly similar. E.g. in Germany, Eingangsstufe (E) (entry level) is about equivalent to the British Prelim, Anfängerstufe (A) (beginner level) is like Novice, Leicht (L) (easy) is like Elementary, Mittel (M) (medium) is obviously a bit like Medium, and Schwer (S) (hard) is roughly parallel to Advanced Medium. The international levels (PSG and above) are the same.

Hi, yes as Trivium says it will be broadly similar in Europe although there will be subtle differences in what exactly is required at each level between countries (outside the international levels which obviously are standardised but I assume you aren't planning on coming out at PSG for your first test ). For instance I have heard (and may be talking absolute nonsense) that in France the basic lateral moves are required much earlier than in the UK where they don't come in until Elementary at the earliest and there are some of the easier Elementary tests where there is very little of the them, just reflects the differences in priorities in training. Also I'm not sure any other country has the Intro level, I guess it's just Brits that are scared to canter their horse in a competition lol (just joking for any Intro lovers, I know there's good reason to have those tests and they're very popular).

To be fair I wouldn't panic if there's a move you aren't super confident with in a test you are looking at doing, my little mare really struggles with doing a proper medium canter (and isn't great in medium trot either) due to her build (cobby type) and general level of training/balance, and it hasn't stopped us doing OK at UK Novice level, each movement is marked separately so while we always drop marks in those movements rarely scoring above a 6 ('satisfactory') and sometimes as low as a 3 where it's not really happened at all but we can pick up marks elsewhere so it really doesn't matter, we only compete as a bit of fun anyway so not too bothered about winning...hoping to have a shot at an Ele test later in the year.

The scales of training and mark schemes should be broadly similar internationally although again there may be small differences in what things are called...

Apologies for only just getting back to this thread now.

Thank you so much Trivium4all and Maxelly for posting all of that detail, it all makes sense that the basic moves within the discipline would be the same,with subtle variations according to country, as I have had lived in three different countries and that has been true of basic equitation lessons, jumping and XC.

You both sound as you are very fully engaged in the sport ; I know from friends that once you start, riding that centre line can become very addictive!

And no, I don't think I will be rushing to PSG to start off, a very small local comp at basic prelim level will be just fine for starters

Thanks again everybody!