Dressage Movements Explained

The Passage

The passage is an elevated, collected trot. It is unique because the horse’s legs are raised high and are suspend for a longer time than other movements.

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The Piaffe

A piaffe is performed when the horse does a collected trot on the spot, without moving or moving very little. The centre of gravity is in the hindquarter, and the front legs should be free and agile.

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The Pirouette

The pirouette (which means ‘to whirl about’) is a movement that involves the horse keeping an inside hind leg relatively static, whilst moving the rest of its body around it in a circular motion.

The image below shows the ideal movement of the horse’s body.

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Flying Change of Leg

This involves a horse swapping which legs it leads with as it canters (during a canter, the legs move asymmetrically, with more emphasis on the left or right side).
This can only be performed in the brief moment that all four legs are off the ground.
It is similar to a child swapping the direction of their skipping.

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Lateral Movements

This is any movement for which the horse is not moving in the direction that its body is aligned.

There are a variety of different manners in which a horse can be taught to perform lateral movements, each depicted below:

 

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The Half-Pass

The half-pass was mentioned in the diagram above. When this movement is performed to take a rider and horse from one side of the arena to the other, it is referred to as ‘traversal’. It can also take place as a zig zag, and flying changes of leg are required if done in canter.

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