Dressage Freestyle, Original Horse Version

Dressage is the consummate expression of horse and rider becoming one. I think I've mentioned somewhere in this blog that I rode dressage as well as "stadium" jumpers and both are a perfect melding of two minds and bodies into one being. It's similar I think to the tremendous ties of loyalty between dogs and mankind (maybe more loyalty on the part of the dogs however).

When you stop to consider though that the horse is a prey animal, that anything on it's back is something to be fought instinctively I think it lends an even greater appreciation for how much horses have given up for people. Not only letting us on their backs and following our commands, but being taken from a natural life of roaming and grazing over 10-20 miles in a day to being cooped up in 12x12 stalls, of if lucky a stall with a run or of small pasture. We ask for and expect so much of them.

So in keeping with the dog "dressage" post below, I thought I'd share this video from the World

Equestrian Games Freestyle Dressage Final performance of Andreas Helgstrand on Blue Hors Matine.

I wish the quality of the video was better, but the quality of the horse's movement and expressiveness, and the oneness with the rider, the evidence of the tremendously deep bond between the two, is the epitome of the art form. It might make you cry with joy, or at least think "WoW".