To answer your question: dressage in French just means training.
And dressage training spans a massively wide spectrum:
For example I use basic dressage very regularly out hacking when I open a gate without dismounting when my horse has to back up and turn slightly and stop. And then go forward and help me close the gate behind me. And when we have to load on to a horse box or turn half circle at the end of a lane.
The aim of training is to be able to manoeuvre a horse easily using minimal aids so basically the horse is controlled , and balanced, and it’s energy is properly harnessed, it is using its body correctly and you are both safe.
The middle and higher level of the sport is to move correctly in three gaits, stop and start and master other movements which are increasingly difficult:
Basic paces - walk, trot and canter.
Halt & rein back.
Circles & serpentines.
Shoulder in, renvers and travers.
Passage & piaffe.
Pirouette - walk & canter.
Half pass and canter zig zag.
Simple, flying & tempi changes.
Some of the most complex . movements such as piaffe are based on the natural movements and short steps a stallion would take when slowing down from a fast pace as he approaches his mares; other movements are based on curves which mimic herding left and right.
Obviously at the very top end of the sport and with the introduction of music freestyle it becomes a cross between an art and a sport.
Is the sport cruel?
The answer is it should not be, there is NO excuse for cruelty in any horse sport, but once riders reach a high professional competitive level, of course huge pressures come to bear on them and their mounts.
Dressage horses at the top end of the sport take approximately 14 years to train properly and are hugely expensive. The horses themselves have to be enormously strong and powerful to withstand the range of movement they are required to perform consistently and repeatedly and therefore they need very skilled riders to contain their strength and energy. (I imagine Allegro for example must have weighed around 650 kilos of pure muscle and bone when he was competing?) and therefore they require very patient and skilled riding.
I am very torn on this one because I think it is good to strive for excellence and correct technique at the top, setting the example for those of us at much lower levels.
At the same time, there have now been a number of high profile incidences of top riders rider using cruel training methods which are completely unacceptable.
What is so very disappointing about this latest incident is that the sport was supposedly improving welfare standards and judging was supposedly changing to take in to account more natural head positions and strict rules have been introduced about blood on flanks or on the bit leading to immediate elimination.
I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that British dressage may not recover from today’s revelations. And if cruelty is found to be endemic at the top of the sport, it doesn’t deserve to recover frankly.
But it will have a very detrimental effect on all of those children in the pony club learning the dressage basics and trying to perform them well.
Also, if Charlotte is guilty, how “clean” are her competitors here and abroad? How clean is the person accusing her? Why did they wait four years to accuse her? Who else knew in the team hierarchy? Dressage is a small world. Did the judges know? Did her team mates know?
And most important of all, how long have horses been suffering?