Product Description

Dressage, the equestrian practice in which a horse makes highly precise movements in response to barely perceptible signals from the rider, has taken hold of equestrians worldwide. Participation rates have risen by 200 percent over the past twenty years, as baby-boomer riders have discovered dressage to be less strenuous and dangerous than jumping, yet offering the satisfaction of mastering techniques and the opportunity to compete and advance to higher levels of achievement. "101 Dressage Exercises For Horse and Rider", presented in Storey's highly visual "Read & Ride" format, features a full arena diagram and step-by-step instructions for each exercise. The exercises address all levels of riders, starting with the basics and moving up to manoeuvres developed by members of the U.S. Olympic team. Training tips and masterly guidance make this an indispensable reference for all dressage riders. Even Western riders interested in enhancing their performance will find these foundational exercises useful. Dressage riders are information-hungry readers, often referred to as "the thinking horsemen." This book's sturdy format, comb-bound and drilled so it can be hung on a ring-side post, will appeal to these reading riders, whether in or out of the saddle.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21455 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Plastic Comb
• 240 pages

Customer Reviews

101 Dressage Exercises is Excellent
If you find yourself doing the same exercises day after day with your horse and would like to introduce some variety into your work then this is the book for you.

101 Dressage Exercises is full of ideas that will help you improve your horses way of going. They range from very easy to fairly advanced though with some imagination you can simplify the more difficult exercises and then aim to progress your work so that you doing the exercise that they describe.

I was having real problems with canter work - both transition into and out of and during. I concentrated for two weeks on my horses canter. Before this I was getting 3 and 4 for canter work in Prelim Affiliated Tests but 6 and 7 for trot and after concentrating on his canter work by using the cantering exercises in the book in my next test I got 6's and 7's. The cantering even feels better.

The book is laid out with a diagram on one page and on the opposite facing page a description of the exercise and what you have to do. It is very easy to follow. It covers warming up, looseness, straightness, rider position, lateral work, cantering, suspension, flying changes, lengthening and fitness.

The book assumes that you already know how to get the horse to leg yield, turn on the forehand and haunches, shoulder-in etc - it does not explain how to do this - it informs you how you use these movements to improve the horse. Though not every exercise requires you to perform one of these movements. Many of the exercises include simple transitions and flexing the horse.

It really is a must have book in order to give you and your horse variety in your work. I would normally do 4-5 exercises spending 10 mins on each with 5 mins on each rein. I was able to generate a plan using 4-5 different exercises each day for 16 days. It really has made schooling much more enjoyable and I think my horse enjoys it more too! I would say it is the most useful book I have ever bought and I have bought a lot of horse riding related books!

Indispensable
I'm not going to rabbit on, other than to say the previous review by 'A Reader' is spot on. This isn't a treatise on how to ride - that is assumed knowledge. Rather this is a collection of exercises split into categories addressing specific goals. A complete must for getting out of that 'bored in the manege going round in endless circles' feeling we all get sometimes - it's good to pick out 5 or so complementary exercises and then go and school with some purpose and structure.
This is a truly indispensable little book - and it's even in format that you can hang it up for quick reference (don't leave it in the stable.... a large quadrupedic friend of mine says it's quite tasty...) ;-)

Too many filler pages
On first review I thought this was a helpful book with a number of exercises which as the sales blurb says "gives exercises for all levels of rider". Unfortunately the reality is that there are too many pages filled with dummed down exercises. It may have been perhaps useful to have included such things a "the carrot stretch" to remind us all to add these sorts of things into our training regime - but I don't think it needs 2 pages even to demonstrate to a complete novice. There are a couple of helpful exercises but there are much better examples of this sort of book on the market.