Traditionally, eventers scoffed at straight dressage riders. After all, who wants to go in endless circles when you could be galloping cross-country?

The dressage riders got their digs in too.

They knew those crazy eventers did something in an arena before tearing around over hill and dale, but you couldn’t really compare that with the art of dressage, could you?

But in the modern form of eventing, it’s not enough to be clean and fast cross-country. Those scores from the first day really do matter toward the overall result. So the eventers decided that if they must do dressage, they’d go all out and ask Robert Dover, six-time member of the U.S. Olympic dressage team, to help out.

The U.S. Equestrian Federation hired him to assist eventing Chef d’Equipe Mark Phillips in preparing the U.S. eventers for international championships.

“I love a challenge,” said Dover.

And the work would turn out to be challenging, but his training tips and dressage sensibilities were incredibly useful for the elite eventers he worked with and might just have some practical applications for lower level eventers as well.

In Dover’s initial meeting with the eventers who’d been named to the USEF spring training list, he decided to address first things first. He asked them to come to their second session turned out for competition.

“It was an eye-opener for all of us!” said Dover. “We discussed what would be more appropriate. They’re riding as professional dressage riders, and their sport cannot be different from my sport in regards to appearance. They should not look like people coming off of a foxhunt.”

In particular, Dover objected to tall top hats. “You shouldn’t appear like someone who should go down a chimney,” he said. “The attention should go toward the beauty of the animal, not the rider’s head.”

He also looked askance at the variety of colors in the eventers’ dressage attire. “The stock, breeches and gloves would be three different colors,” he said. “You need to go in all white or the same shade of cream.”

With his traditional dressage background, Dover prefers white, but he said that cream is appropriate for a chestnut, as long as everything is the same color cream.

“I don’t like lots of brass,” said Dover. “The horse should show its own beauty. It doesn’t need shiny metal things on the bridle.” But he didn’t mind a clincher browband, as long as the rest of the bridle metal was subdued.

“Boots–don’t go in a hunt field boot with brown tops,” he said. “If you’re going to be taken seriously by the top Europeans who’ve been raised around straight dressage, our riders need to look just as serious and accomplished.”

He also asked riders, “What’s with the breastplates? Do your saddles fit properly?”

And many riders had to admit that they never thought about whether or not they actually needed the breastplate. It was just part of their equipment.

Forward Does Not Mean Fast
Dover cringed over some of the riders’ attire, but he did say that in general, eventers do a better job than dressage riders of turning their horses out. The horses were shiny, fit and looked beautiful with a little updating.

But there was a lot more work to be done beyond makeovers. Dover invited riders to a classroom session where they discussed dressage theory. “I wanted to go over the basic principles of dressage–why things work the way they work,” he explained.

“As far as riding goes, I’ve tried to instill a stronger sense of the basic principles–half-halts, forwardness and throughness,” he said. “I want to show the scope of their gaits and their elasticity so that the tests could be ridden reliably, on the aids, showing animation and great scope over the ground. This is what I tried to change through the training of these riders to understand half-halts better.”

But these horses are hot, sensitive Thoroughbreds, right? The reason they blow-up in the dressage test is because they’re so fit, isn’t it? Not according to Dover.

“Hot and on the aids versus hot but not on the aids are two very different things,” he said. “I found the event horses might do silly things but in general were not forward thinking enough. I thought they would be wildly forward, but in truth they are behind the leg and behind the aids.”

Dover explained that the blow-ups in the arena happened because the horses weren’t being ridden honestly with a connection from the rider’s seat and legs through the reins in an elastic contact.

“Rather, they were put in a frame and were too light behind the action of the reins,” he said. “When anything happened, they would hit the bit and either bounce back off of it and rear up or bolt forward. Others would just stay very light but a little bit overflexed and a little bit low-fronted. It’s really about the acceptance of the bit from the seat and leg that a lot of the horses were missing. They weren’t using their back muscles and stepping from their hindquarters over their back through the bridle in an elastic contact.

“In the worst case scenario, we had horses that had no concept of the half-halt and very poor elasticity,” Dover continued. “They didn’t understand how to come under and accept the weight on the hind legs and then have lightness and throughness through the bridle. In the best case there were riders that already had a strong sense of that, and I could sit back and try to enhance it a little bit, but I was really happy with the way the rider was training. And there was everything in between the two extremes.”

They Could All Go Grand Prix
Dover might’ve been able to improve the riding, but isn’t it possible that the factors that allow a horse to run and jump around a four-star cross-country course might actively work against him in a dressage ring? Is it just too much to ask such horses to perform a dressage test that, at the four-star level, is comparable to fourth level, test 1?

But Dover was enthusiastic about the ability he found hidden away inside those hot little Thoroughbreds.

“Some of them are fantastic movers,” he said. “A lot of them are built a little bit like a race horse, where they’re a bit higher crouped and they don’t have the uphill build of a dressage horse, so that may limit them to a certain degree. But for the most part the horses that are on our squad could all also be at least national level Grand Prix horses if the time were put in.”

Once the basics of dressage were more thoroughly understood, Dover pointed to a few more obstacles that hold eventers back in their dressage. The first was limited time.

“Their time has to be split up between the phases that make up their sport,” he said. “It’s not appropriate for them to spend so much time doing their flatwork. They need to spend time with their fitness and jumping, and that limits how quickly they can progress.”

But on the other hand, as everyone knows, dressage should complement jumping, not work against it.

“Dressage is the ability to create a perfect communication between horse and rider,” said Dover. “I don’t know that [good communication] could be counter-productive to jumping, although doing it poorly could be.”

He also described how to maximize time spent doing dressage. One of his mantras is to aim for perfection. If a horse is asked to do a correct flying lead change for dressage on one day and then allowed to get away with any kind of change over fences the next, there’s no reason to expect the horse will be consistent on dressage day at an important three-day.

“I don’t ride my horses in dressage six days a week,” said Dover. “My horses do two days on and then go for a hack. The difference is having a clear understanding and vision of what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Then you don’t need so much time as long as the time you do spend is time well spent.”

He recalled one of Col. Bengt Ljundquist’s sayings: “Fifteen minutes of excellent work is better than an hour and a half of wandering aimlessly around.”

And as the work at home improved, another hole in the eventers’ dressage training became clear to Dover. They were badly missing some ring craft.

“The eventers needed to learn how to be showmen,” he said. “But the truth is that most dressage riders still need to learn a lot ofthat too.”

Dover helped the eventers learn how to ride a dressage test better.

“I changed a lot of how they present themselves as they go around the arena from their first halt and salute,” he said. “They know how to show their horses to their best advantage now, each one individually. They were losing points for not having expression and brilliance. The accuracy with which they were riding was much less than it is now. All things first are about just bringing it to their attention and then giving them the tools they need to fix things.”

Follow Your Gut
It’s all very well to have Robert Dover explain how to make elite event horses look their best in the ring, but how does that help your ordinary, novice-level eventer?

“I see the same things at horse trials that I see in dressage shows,” said Dover. “Some of it is OK, some of it is not nice and some of it is fairly horrible.

That’s not just eventing, that’s riding–I go to shows and look at the warm-up and think ‘Oh god, what is that?’ You wonder how did that person come to believe that’s the way things should be done?

“At a gut level people generally know the difference between what is right and what is wrong,” he con-tinued. “They know if they’re floundering around and riding, hoping that things will go right as opposed to really knowing why things are the way the way they are.”

Dover suggested emulating people who’ve proven themselves as both riders and trainers.

“The eventers should know if they’re going to compete against Ingrid Klimke, who also rides Grand Prix dressage, they’re going to have to ride that well and look like a person who is meant to be taken seriously in an international dressage arena,” he said.

And while Dover may have been a bit horrified by the attire of these riders who professed to be taken seriously, he was impressed by their riding and work ethic.

“I have tremendous admiration for the riders I’ve helped,” he said. “I respect their traditions and their horsemanship. I hope to bring the perspective of an international dressage rider and trainer. If that helps them to have any advantage as they go along in their careers, then I feel like I’ve done my job well.”

Rolex Was The Proving Ground
Did Robert Dover meet his goals of improving the top U.S. eventers in dressage? If the 2006 Rolex Kentucky CCI**** is typical of where U.S. dressage is going, then he did.

The top five riders after dressage were Americans who Dover had helped throughout the winter and spring training sessions.

Of course, Darren Chiacchia aboard Windfall and Kim Severson with Royal Venture could be counted on to lead the dressage regardless, but Chiacchia’s score of 33.0 certainly proved that Windfall was doing the best dressage he’s ever done.

Mara Dean grabbed third with Nicki Henley; Becky Holder took fourth with Courageous Comet, and Stephen Bradley rode into fifth with From on a score of 43.9.

“Robert is really stepping things up,” said Holder. “For a lot of years I went in trying not to have a blow-up. Now he’s teaching me to be expressive. It makes such a difference on cross-country to have an adjustable, straight, rideable horse.”

“If you looked at the group that I worked with at Rolex, they were turned out beautifully,” said Dover. “I’ve helped the eventers learn to ride a test better. Their scores have reflected that. Hopefully, things will continue, and we’ll have a fantastic summer at the World Equestrian Games.”