Online Dressage By Jo Monck
O
nline dressage, who ever heard of such a thing I thought as I heard it being discussed during a meeting one day, well, everyone, it appears, except me. In the school that evening it crossed my mind again and when I had finished I googled it to find out a bit more about this new thing. I found a good few sites to explore and here I found a treasure trove of competitions to enter and found my fingers pressing a few keys and making a paypal payment and hey ho there I was now entered for BD Intro A which I could do without having to even leave the house except to stroll out nonchalantly to the school leading my equine partner in crime, Mr D. The next day, armed with a very patient friend holding an iPhone we set about recording my dressage debut. Now, I’m not saying we are bad but I am saying that Charlotte Du Jardin will not be losing sleep over our intro A, I’m a true dressage newbie so this seemed an ideal way to find out just exactly where we were at without the humiliation of doing it in public.
The night before I had read up on the rules of what tack was allowed and what to wear, Mr D had been thoroughly cleansed and was looking quite smart devoid of his coveted collection of green stains, this in itself was an occasion to be recorded on camera and looking at my own inadequate appearance I decided on a black jacket and white breeches to complete this rare vision of cleanliness. If we were going to do this I figured we may as well dress up and pretend we were at Olympia, then immediately regretted my decision as I felt I should really have the riding skills to match my outfit so settled for a black top and jods. The online sites do request that if you wear show kit then you must put boots on your horse to show that it hasn’t been filmed at a competition.
My friend Ceila and I sat with a cup of tea prior to videoing, where were the nerves that you usually get before a dressage test? Nothing, nicht, nada this was looking to be suspiciously like good fun. Stress free dressage not stressage, how appealing is that? Videoing a test is surprisingly easy, Celia took up her position just behind C and zoomed in when I was at the other end of the school so that all my mistakes were clearly visible in the video and simply followed me with the iphone. Three goes later we had a four minute video that I then uploaded to Youtube and then sent the link off to the online site I had entered with.
Celia Wilkinson
One of the online sites I came across was E-Riders which is run by Susie Baughan and her partner Alex. Susie took over the running of E-Riders about a year and a half ago from her friend, Carol Walton. In the first month they had just seven entries which grew to a huge entry of over four hundred recently! They have a very friendly online community where help is instantly forthcoming if you have a problem, or just a question regarding dressage. I can also vouch for the online BD Judges being extremely helpful, as one took time out to draw diagrams to help me learn how to gain more points and improve. E-Riders has become so successful that recently they have been nominated in two sections of the Rural Business Awards.
78 SUMMER SPECIAL 2019 For the latest news visit
www.centralhorsenews.co.uk
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