by Jennifer Klitzke

Have you longed to learn dressage with your gaited horse, yet have a trail horse that detests arena work? That’s me and Lady.

Gaited Dressage for the Trail Horse

Not all horses are wired the same. That includes my naturally gaited fox trotting horse Lady. I began riding her in the arena, because that’s how I’ve introduced all of the horses I’ve ridden to dressage over the years.

Lady is a marvelous trail horse, and I quickly discovered that she didn’t understand the purpose of riding in an arena without a change of scenery!

Instead of fighting with her, I brought Lady to her happy place—the trail. And that’s where we work on our gaited dressage. We use natural obstacles to maneuver around such as trees and the fire pit. Then we leg yield from one side of the path to the other, followed by a soft halt, and a gentle and slow rein back, to a slow balanced walk, and then transition to her easy gait before transitioning back to a free walk on a long rein.

Gaited dressage on the trail helped our training in 5 ways:

1) Passenger to Participant

Instead of being a passenger and let Lady follow the trail, I became an active participant in our relationship through the exercises and transitions,

2) Tuning Me Out to Listening

By being present with Lady and guiding our travels, it gave gave her a reason to stay dialed in to me instead of just following the trail.

3) Tension to Harmony

During our ride on the trail Lady lost the tension she had in the arena and we developed more harmony.

4) Fight and Flight to Trust

Working together on our journey through the woods helped Lady and I develop a partnership of trust. Lady began to listen to me for the next cue, release and reward. This helped establish me as the trusted leader of our relationship where Lady looked to me over her fight or flight defenses.

5) Developing the Basics of Gaited Dressage

While on the trail, we began to ride the elements of a low level gaited dressage test by establishing relaxation, rhythm, balance, connection, and forwardness, as well as developing harmony and softness. While I worked on applying effective aids and reinforcing a balanced riding position.

Lady seemed happy working gaited dressage on the trail.  Come to think of it, so did I.

Dressage on the trail has become a new kind of training for me—training without walls in the beauty of nature which feeds my soul while freeing me of the rigidity and perfectionism that often plague me in the arena.

Let me know your thoughts if you’ve given dressage on the trail a try.

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