Dressage Arenas

Dressage has been used as a competitive meet in which warriors, knights and riders had been participating with their horses, in order to exhibit their potential as riders, and also their horse’s concentration levels and strength to learn, throughout history. Dressage is known to be around since the time of ancient Greeks (since abut 2000 A.D), where Greek warriors used to participate in dressages, organized in huge dressage arenas, to train their horses and exhibit the skills of the battlefield. Since that time, dressage has evolved a lot as a sport. It is now a test of the rider on how well he can bond with his horse, in order to make the horse perform to the maximum of its ability, both physically as well as mentally in the dressage arena.

Dressage arena is a kind of a stadium (similar in structure to a Colloseum), where the training of the horse as well as an exhibition of the acquired skills and control over the horse is exhibited by the rider as well as the horse. These arenas are generally observed to be of two sizes – standard and small. Each of these types of the dressage arenas are similar in the sense that there are certain positions, around the arena, that are denoted by the use of certain letters. These positions around the arena are used to signify where the various movements by the rider as well as his or her horse are to be performed.

Dressage takes place in the form of certain predefined levels. The introductory as well as the lower levels of the dressage are performed in arenas called small arenas. The dimensions of these small arenas are 20 m by 40 m that is; 66 x 131 ft. Small dressage arenas are also used in introductory tests of USDF, as well as USEF training level tests. The periphery of the arena is denoted by a series of letters from the English alphabet in the following order – A-K-E-H-C-M-B-F.The alphabet denotation starts from the point of entry, and progresses till the point of exit, in a clockwise direction. Certain letters are also used to mark various positions in the centre of the dressage arena. The denotation is such that if we move along the centre line of the dressage arena, the positions are denoted by D-X-G, from right to left. When Equine Canada and United States Dressage Federation, combined with each other in the year 2003, the use of small size arena for exhibiting dressage shows was discontinued.

On the other hand, a Standard Arena measures 20 m by 60 m in dimensions and is used in dressage testing of all kinds as well as eventing. The letter string used to denote various positions in a standard dressage arena are A-K-V-E-S-H-C-M-R-B-P-F, in the same order. The denotation on the central line of such a dressage arena is such that if we move along the centre line of the dressage arena, the positions are denoted by D-L-X-I-G, from right to left. Here, the letter X marks the center of the arena.