The pinnacle of training

PICTURE the perfect piaffe; what springs to mind – contained energy? Controlled power? Maintaining on-the-spot elevation before moving forwards fluently into passage seems so easy for the ultra-collected grand prix horse.

A truism of dressage is that it takes a lot of effort to make something look effortless. It’s not surprising that collection is considered the pinnacle of performance, sitting at the very top of the scales of training.

“It’s the final piece of the jigsaw,” acknowledges British Dressage (BD) List Two judge Islay Auty FBHS. “If you don’t have the ‘fundamental five’ in place – the building blocks of rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion and straightness – you cannot achieve true collection.”

For the uninitiated, the concept of collection can be confusing. Dressage trainer Andrew Day breaks it down