Wow.... I recently decided to start dressage lessons and I start those lessons next Wednesday. I will be riding one of their horses, because I didn't feel either Dawn nor Dash would be very good at it, not enough impulsion, neither is collecting yet -- things needed for a dressage horse.
Well today George, my natural hoofcare practitioner, came to trim horse feet. I had given old Dottie a dose of bute (pain killer) because it's painful for her to stand on three feet for very long. She's been doing so well since she got that HA shot I thought maybe it might help her stand without pain if I worked her a little before she had to stand for George. So I put her on a line and took her into the arena to limber her up.
I was longeing her, which means I stand still and hold the rope and she goes circles around me. She walked and trotted and I even had her canter and she was doing great, very animated and feeling good, snorting and blowing, and really enjoying herself, and then all of a sudden . . . she was doing this lovely passage, and I can't describe it, see the link below, but my arthritic old mare was doing this beautiful, bouncy, animated haute ecole movement -- and then she stunned me further by doing a piaffe for a few beats.
http://www.equestrianlife.com/videos/watch/472/Piaffe_&_Passage_in_Dressage
23 years old, retired, arthritic mare dancing for me at the end of a rope -- and not a camera around.
She may have just become my dressage horse.
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