Long, long ago (a few months) in a galaxy far, far away (the Chantilly, Va., Dover Saddlery store), I heard a young person lamenting how boring her weekend was going to be, because she had to take a DRESS-AAAAAHGE lesson. She pouted, making a face and crossing her arms.

I could have cried.

I felt the same way I feel when I hear my students tell me tales of previous trainers reducing them to tears, telling them they were idiots or telling them they’d never achieve anything until they dreaded riding, or at least dreaded riding dressage.

It truly breaks my heart. Somewhere along the line dressage trainers got a rep for being haughty, rude and negative. They make their students sweat the details, abuse them over tiny nuances and then fail to celebrate even the largest of victories, forget the small ones. Dressage is boring, just circles and patterns, pulling the head down, that thing we have to do before we run and jump. It’s old-fashioned and irrelevant.

No! I want to cry. I want to do a Tom Cruise and jump up and down on Oprah’s couch. NO! It’s beautiful! The details are just part of this incredible picture, this amazing way of approaching riding that opens all these incredible doors! It is profound and fulfilling and FUN!

I came to dressage from western trail riding and never looked back. I’ve ridden saddleseat, I’ve team-penned, I’ve even been the worst hunter equitation rider the IHSA has ever seen, and no flying legs or concho’d saddle or big fences could steer me away from the circles in the sand. Dressage feels like home to me. It makes perfect sense, and it’s simple. It’s elegant. I feel about dressage the way math geniuses feel about math—it is everything, everywhere. It is nature. It is divine.

And it is FUN! Midge made the most amazing piaffe today on a soft, almost loose rein. I smiled so much my face hurt. I rode a client horse today for the first time who was so textbook, it was poetry; leg, hand, boom. Bouncy like a rubber ball. He’s just a lower-level guy, but it’s the most amazing feeling when they just come to you like that. And when they learn something new? When I said to Fender, hey, let’s canter half-pass, and he said sure, why not, and just floated across the ring? Heaven.

So why the boring rep? I suppose compared to galloping cross-country, dressage does lack a certain je ne sais quoi, but I’d like to think there are ways we trainers can make it less painful, if not pleasurable. I have a flotilla of event-rider students who tell me that they’ve never had fun in a dressage lesson before, and I am FIERCELY proud of that.

And then, why the nasty-trainer rep? That one, I fear, we might deserve.

I teach a woman who built a stunning facility for herself and for her trainer when they moved from New England. That trainer tortured this woman. She called her names. She made her cry. And J, bless her soul, built this amazing place in the heart of Horse Country, a place so stunning it took my breath away the first time I came by.

I can’t tell you all how many times I’ve heard stories like this. “My last trainer told me I was an idiot.” “My last trainer called me pathetic, a waste of effort.” “My last trainer yelled at me every day.”

It’s like Stockholm Syndrome.

I do what I do because I love horses, but more because I love people. I want my students to have the same tingly feeling in their hearts when they experience On The Bit, to feel the adrenaline zip through them when they ride a really good leg yield or lengthening. And I work with the people I work with because I know they feel the same; I get Michael’s boot up my butt all the time—about having a plan, about dedication, about riding the @#$&! corners and letting go of the @#$*! reins, but it’s because he wants me to succeed. He, and Scott, and Pati—they ride every step with me, and with the rest of their students, just like I do with mine. It’s a hellofa thing.

J, my student with the incredible barn, told me today that she was “a whole new rider.” She’d never felt like she had the tools to do this dressage thing right. And folks, she’s a terrific rider, on a super horse. There is zero reason for her to have doubted herself for one second.

To all the Js out there: If dressage isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong. If your trainer is anything other than your fiercest advocate and biggest cheerleader, find a new one. Right now. Riding is a challenge on its own, under the best of circumstances. It should never be a chore.