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Dressage is not your average horse play
Ruy Fonseca of Brazil riding Tom Bombadill Too competes in the Dressage Equestrian event in London, England.
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Gorenstein dressed for dressage 4
Gorenstein dressed for dressage 3
Saddles for sale at Dover Saddlery
Kai Ryssdal: I blinked, so I might've missed it, but I think NBC squeezed about 25 seconds worth of dressage into its broadcast last night. The first round of equine events went off today. No spoilers here. Not gonna tell you who won. But you've surely heard the name of the most famous dressage athlete in this year's games. Rafalca, the horse owned by Ann Romney. Thanks to her -- the horse, not Mrs. Romney -- dressage has had more publicity than perhaps ever before.
So we asked Dan Gorenstein from New Hampshire Public Radio what it takes to get involved with and excel in that rarefied, blue-blooded world.
Dan Gorenstein: First, there's the horse.
"Mr. Ed" clip: A horse is a horse, of course, of course...
Uh, no. This isn't about running the fastest or jumping the highest -- dressage horses are ballet dancers.
Pamela Goodrich: We do movements that are very, very difficult. These horses, it's like dancers.
Pamela Goodrich has a long barn full of dressage horses.
Goodrich: It's feeding time at the zoo.
Goodrich explains to me how precise and technical the moves are. Horses must canter in perfect tight circles; shift gaits every stride, so they look like they're skipping. The art is to coax a 1,200 pound beast to go against its instincts and love it. Not easy for a novice like me.
Goodrich: My recommendation for you would be to get a professor, to teach you.
Goodrich introduces me to a horse named Lamborghini.
Goodrich: And he is a Lamborghini, very spicy to ride.
Pretty hot price tag, too, if he were for sale.
Goodrich: $60,000 to $100,000.
The professor can't do all the teaching. I need a trainer.
Katherine Dow: Yu should probably be on your horse six days a week, the seventh day at lesat doing something with it.
Someone like Katherine Dow. She also says I need to hit the gym -- hard.
Dow: You are going to need to spend time at the gym because you're going to have to work on your core strength.
Dow tells me top riders get their horses to make all these intricate moves subtly -- to win, it must look effortless.
Dow: You want to look like it's a partnership and the harmony between you and your horse.
Speaking of looks, elegance in dressage is essential.
Janet Nittmann: Welcome to Dover Saddlery.
Janet Nittmann of the tack store Dover Saddlery shows me to a changing room, where my finery awaits. In dressage the clothes capture both the fussiness and the grandeur -- some would say opulence -- of the sport. White britches, top hat, silk tie, white gloves and an antiquated cut of a coat the shadbelly.
Nittmann: Short waist at the front and then the long tails at the back. So sophisticated. A judge can't help but be influenced by a beautifully turned out rider.
I slip on the coat.
Gorenstein: Wow.
Nittmann: You look good, dressed for the part.
Nittmann itemizes what I'm wearing. Shadbelly.
Nittmann: $879.
Top hat.
Nittmann: $400.
Britches.
Nittmann: $379.
Gloves.
Nittmann: $62.
Silk tie.
Nittmann: $100.
And custom boots start at...
Nittmann: $1,000.
That doesn't include anything for the horse, like a saddle. Nittmann says there's a range, but if I work my way to the top, it's going to cost me.
Nittmann: We are talking over $12,000.
Now, there's just one last thing to do -- go see a loan officer.
I'm Dan Gorenstein for Marketplace.
I caught this story on my way home yesterday and enjoyed it. I believe the point of the story was "what it takes to get involved with and excel in that rarefied, blue-blooded world", with excel being the key word. Sure, pretty much anyone can get involved with dressage on a limited budget, but most people who want to really excel at the sport competitively at an upper level will need to spend the money and buy a pretty expensive, most likely imported horse. The same is true for anyone wishing to get involved in eventing or show jumping. Aside from the $12,000 saddle, I agreed with everything else that was written and enjoyed the short story on dressage. Keep the equestrian themed stories coming.
I wonder how much money Michael Phelps parents spent on swimming lessons and traveling to competitions? Or the average cost of getting an Olympic gymnast trained and competent enough to represent her country? Any sport taken to the extremes of Olympic caliber is prohibitively expensive for the average family. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get your kid swimming lessons, or that a horse is outside the realm of reality for 99%ers. Dressage is an obscure enough sport as it is. Please don't make us more obscure by making us into elitists.
I just wanted to agree with the comments pointing out that your report on dressage focused on the most expensive extreme of the sport. If you want to ride, you can always find ways to ride, regardless of your income. My dressage rider friends are nurses and social workers and students.
You don't need a $100 000 horse for dressage. I know rescue horses who do dressage, BLM mustangs who do dressage, ex-racehorses who do dressage. Any horse can do the basics, and some can get quite far into their training. Don't have a horse? There are always teenagers leaving for college who want someone to ride their horse during the year. Or pregnant women whose doctors are asking them to take a break from riding. Or average working people who can't make it out to the barn seven days a week who are happy to have a good rider working their horse a couple of days a week. I've never owned a horse, and I've never lacked a horse to ride.
Custom boots may set you back, but the ones off the rack are good enough. There are good sales. If you take care of your boots (and your saddle) they can last forever. I'm still riding in the same $200 pair of boots I bought in 1992. You can ride in helmet, schooling breeches ($30 on sale), boots, and a polo or t-shirt for everything but shows.
I bought my $50 used coat (only worn for occasional shows) twenty years ago with my boots. Some years it fits me better than others, but it'll do. Don't own a coat or a pair of white breeches? Ask a friend. Somebody will loan you something to wear.
A trainer six days a week would certainly set you back, but an occasional $50 lesson will do you fine if you practice in between. If you can't afford the lesson, you may be able to work off the cost with a couple of mornings of stall mucking.
I never would have thought that when my sport finally got media attention I would wish it would go away. If you want to talk about dressage, focus on the hard work and the partnership and the patience of training a horse up through the levels. I'm sick of stories that claim it's an elitist sport. Most of the riders I know are just average people, working hard to afford something that is not out of reach.
I am very disappointed in the narrow view of your story on Dressage. NPR is usually about telling the whole story. But here they only represent the top 10% of Dressage riders. For the record dressage isn't dancing its french for "training". And while yes, at top levels it is very expesive, for the other 90% of us its very reasonable and more about time and effort than money.
Since you were so helpful with a list of "typical" coats and uniform costs let me give you a more realistic view:
Dressage Coat (not all of us where Shadbellys - $150
Helmet - $70
Britches - $30
Gloves - $10
Stock Tie - $15
Boots - $200
I'm not sure why you chose to highlight the expense of sport that has so many other wonderful stories to be told, like the 71 year old Japanese Olypian that came back to the sport after 30 years off. But I thought I'd at least set the record straight for the other 90% of us.
Hey Guys,
I like to support those things I think are worthy and was going to send you a donation when I heard the initial request. But then I listened to your report on Dressage. It began well, explaining the difficulty of the sport and the dedication, skill and physical ability needed to do it well. Then it became an expose on the expense of the sport. Probably a thinly veiled attack on the Romneys. The prices listed were for very high end equipment and reporting them was nothing short of propaganda. I know many people of modest means that practice Dressage and revel in their partnership with their horse. I am not a frequent listener but have always had respect for marketplace and have never known you to succumb to sensational journalism. This piece bodes the downfall of your program so I cannot make a donation today.
I'd like to point out that Dressage, like pretty much any sporting activity, has become so expensive that people who work for a living were squeezed out of it years ago. Once upon a time (the 70's and 80's) a family making around $30,000/year (which is what my parents made collectively) could be involved in equestrian events. My family used to own a tack shop, so I'm familiar with the costs of equipment--and I was completely stunned at the price tags listed in this story. We got out of the business years ago, but perhaps we should have stayed in, because now you have to be among the Romney's of the world to even hope to afford the price tag.
