Dressage Divas!

We asked top international dressage rider and Aloeride sponsored rider Leah Beckett for her top 6 top tips for competing this summer. Fantastic advice for all dressage divas!

Practise on your square halts and riding accurately to your markers – these can really boost your marks in a test!

Ask someone to video you in a test run through at home prior to your competition. Watching it back can help you make improvements in your schooling leading up the test day and even minor tweaks can have a big impact on overall marks.

Learn your test! Having a caller is all very well, but as a rider, you should be preparing for each movement well ahead of the caller and if you can’t hear your voice you will be in a spot of bother!

When I am training the horses I try and make myself as interesting a rider as possible. So within their training I try and keep it varied and not do all things everyday – sometimes I will work on basics, some days exercises, some days test riding, some days trot, some days canter. If you think of riding as asking the horses for a percentage of their power, then I will only hit 100% a few times a week and just play in-between the percentages.

Variety is the spice of life and I love the horses to go out in the field a couple of times a week and if I can mix up hacking and schooling as well, even better!!

Having a happy and well-rounded horse makes for a much happier athlete, which is much more settled and has a much more open mind to training so try to work with your horse and incorporate exercises he or she loves as well as the more difficult stuff in your training sessions.