Quotes & Sayings About Dressage

I had a very outdoorsy childhood. I was athletic and used to ride and do dressage. I could ride almost before I could walk. There is a picture of me at 18 months old sitting happily on the back of a donkey. — Alison Jackson

What are the origins of dressage? Did just, one day, some young horse say to his dad, 'Dad, I don't want to charge into battle ... I just wanna dance'? — Stephen Colbert

Not all horses are going to be show jumpers, not all horses are going to be dressage horses. So you have to sort of find where the horse physically fits into what might suit him, but all horses can be comfortable and all horses can have good, solid fundamentals. — Buck Brannaman

The biggest enemy to the partnership of dressage is impatience and the human nature to dominate other creatures. — Walter Zettl

A horse perceives eye contact as provocative, as if it and its status in the herd are not being respected. If it cannot avoid eye contact, it will react in a different way, by rebelling for example. In dressage you don't get anywhere by not showing respect, however superior your species might be. Any animal trainer can tell you that. In the mountains in Argentina there's a wild horse which will jump off the nearest precipice if any human tries to ride it. — Jo Nesbo

Far be it from me to force anyone into either chess or dressage, but if you choose to do so yourself, in my opinion there is only one way: follow the rules. — Lars Von Trier

The idea of being a young 50 sounds like you're trying to kid yourself, like a Harley-Davidson or something. I've bought a dressage horse instead. — Martin Clunes

Great dressage demands more than skill; it engages a rider's inner wisdom and his ability to communicate with a mount in the silent language of horsemanship. — Elizabeth Letts

Remember, the conversation between you and your horse must never be dull or inert. It should be, "Ask, receive, give. Ask, receive, give." Ask with your body and legs; receive through your body into your hands; give primarily with the hands, but also with your body and legs, so that you can ask all over again, receive again, and give again. The give is your thanks. If you don't give, you must ask harder the next time, and even harder after that, until you end up with a dead or resistant horse. I have heard Major Hans Wikne, coach of the Swedish dressage team and head of the Swedish National School for Instructors, say so many times, "For everything you ask from your horse, your must give back a little more. The give is more important than the take." Riding is much more than a push-me-pull-you between leg and hand. — Sally Swift

Miles gathered his reins, tensed one calf, and shifted his weight slightly, and Fat Ninny responded with a neat half turn and two precise back steps. The thick-set roan gelding could not have been mistaken by the most ignorant urbanite for a fiery steed, but Miles adored him, for his dark and liquid eye, his wide velvet nose, his phlegmatic disposition equally unappalled by rushing streams or screaming aircars, but most of all for his exquisite dressage-trained responsiveness. Brains before beauty. Just being around him made Miles calmer; the beast was an emotional blotter, like a purring cat. Miles patted Fat Ninny on the neck. "If anybody asks," he murmured, "I'll tell them your name is Chieftain." Fat Ninny waggled one fuzzy ear, heaving a whooshing, barrel-chested sigh. Grandfather — Lois McMaster Bujold

When one makes sculptures of horses, one remembers all of that great relationship that humans had with them ... Even today one raises horses only for dressage, the races, for the pleasure of horseback riding. It has become an animal of romance, an animal of pleasure which has lost its utility in the West. — Joe Fafard

You get that horse to really operate as if he's your legs and you can take that anywhere you want. You can dress up in any kind of clothes you like. You can be a jumper, dressage rider, trail rider, cowboy, anything. — Buck Brannaman

Dressage is when you put a dress on your horse. It's like putting on drag, but for horses. — Misha Collins

I think some horses are meant to do ... eventing or dressage. We have Western horses who canter around. I think it takes, especially at the level I'm at now, it takes a horse that wants to do it. — Jessica Springsteen

It's very good for you, riding. You know how every model is like, 'I do yoga.' Well, I find horses to have the same effect, in that you have to put your ego aside and concentrate on making the horse do the things you want it to do, and move in the way you want it to move - particularly if you're doing dressage. — Edie Campbell

The stallion's crest was arched, his nose was perpendicular to the floor, and his hind legs were gathered underneath him, showing off the powerfully developed muscles in his massive hindquarters. His ears cocked back toward his rider - he was concentrating. — Elizabeth Letts

Just as experience dictates to the ballet teacher the length of time necessary to train his students, so the horse, too, needs time to mature into a great four legged dancer. This fact cannot be obliterated by seeming successes that supposedly prove the opposite. For, even if someone should succeed in training a horse to high school level by the age of eight, this individual occurrence cannot shake the foundations of the classical art of riding, if this dressage horse is completely unsound and unusable by the age of ten. — Alois Podhajsky

Just as ballroom dancing and pair skating command partners to work together seamlessly, in the sport of dressage, the rider performers an intricate pas de deux with his partner - a twelve-hundred-pound four-footed beast. — Elizabeth Letts

The Romneys have a horse competing in the Olympics. Ann Romney's horse failed to win a medal in the dressage event today, which is a shame because if there's one thing that family needs, it's more gold. — Conan O'Brien

And it's not that going out for a hack is wrong or bad, I certainly don't view it as that; it's just that there's something about the dressage, being put through your paces, that makes you better. — Julia Ormond

I horse ride. I find it is the best way to maintain my fitness and stay physical. I have to practise anyway for my equestrian front. I do dressage and schooling too. I also do physical training where I work on my neck and upper body strength. Racing is a high endurance sport and you are in the car for a long time so this area is crucial. — Liz Halliday

In general, the deployment of austerity as economic policy has been as effective in bringing us peace, prosperity, and crucially, a sustained reduction of debt, as the Mongol Golden Horde was in furthering the development of Olympic dressage. — Mark Blyth

The goal of all dressage riding should be to bring the horse and rider together in harmony ... a oneness of balance, purpose, and athletic expression. — Walter Zettl