Dancing New Orleans Horse

[TheSilveryTinsellyPussycat]

I'm wondering whether this actually dressage, Oh horsey people? It must be, surely?

That’s magnificent 😂 only in New Orleans…

Love it!

My question is genuine. Presumably you dressage people can see how the rider is communicating with the horse. The nearest to dressage I did during my short period of riding was to get my horse to back, and turn.

Great video! I think it's actually Western style riding/training being shown here (which makes sense given its New Orleans where that would probably be the predominant style), certainly the officer is in a Western style saddle and I think it's a bitless bridle too.

Western riding has a different 'root' purpose than classical dressage, today's competition western ('reining') evolved from moves/training used to work cattle and other lifestock whereas dressage has its origins in cavalry riding. But a lot of moves are shared (e.g. rein back/go backwards, pirouttes, leg yield (go sideways) - although the bow at the end is I think just that horses' particular party trick, it's not something seen at the world championships of either! Both dressage and reining at their heart have the same aim, for a horse that is incredibly well trained, obedient to the subtlest cues from the rider so that it all appears effortless and the whole picture is of horse and rider working together in harmony. The basic aids are the same in both systems too, legs and seat determine direction of travel, pace/gait, rhythm and tempo, hands control the forward motion - you can see the officer moving his legs in the sideways parts and his reins to back up and pirouette. There are differences too in how the rider uses their weight and their aids (e.g. bitless bridles are standard in western, not competition legal in dressage although some use them in training) and the end result is quite different in how the horses carry themselves - here's a random youtube video of competition western as an e.g.

To be honest it looked like the horse was unhappy to me - going sideways, backwards and spinning because it didn’t want to go forwards. The rider was very calm though which was good but you really wouldn’t want your horse to be doing that in a dressage test (you’d always want less tail-swishing and happier ears)