Dressage Test For Jumpers

WHO the exercise is for:

Combinations who have upcoming competitions at an indoor venue (or other small arena), hot horses who get excited by jumping, and young horses who may not yet be jumping but need a bit of variety to stop their dressage practise from becoming too repetitive.

HOW to set it up:

If you have a dressage arena you can use that, otherwise upturned buckets or strategically placed rocks will do the job. The arena should be roughly 40m long (A-C) and 20m wide (E-B). Place 3 sets of poles in the centre of the arena using varying spacing.

WHAT to do:

You can pick up any standard dressage test and perform it in the arena with the poles (trot or canter the poles but do not jump them). Here are some additional suggested movements for jumpers:

• X Halt between the 2 poles for 3 seconds, proceed at canter (or trot for greenies)
• C Begin a 3 loop serpentine (avoiding each set of poles - unless of course you have particularly long poles!)
• F-M Collected canter, M-H working canter, H-K forward canter
• A Turn up centre line, walk through the first 2 poles, then leg yield around the 2 poles at X, continue leg yielding to H

You should be able to find, or make up, a test to suit any level of horse – and this can even be done driving/long-reining while starting young horses to add variety.

WHY we do it:

A dressage arena is small, working inside an arena like this occasionally helps us keep our horses collected and balanced. Incorporating poles or jumps into a dressage test can also help a ‘hot’ horse to calm down as they don’t know when they will next be presented at a jump, so often they settle down a little.

MORE tips:

You can replace poles with jumps and even small combinations (usually in a larger 60x20m arena). To add variety you might like to use a 44-gallon drum as each letter marker (leave a couple of written directions/movements on each drum, and halt periodically at drums to collect the next phase of your test).