# Flatwork or Dressage?



## Elana (Jan 28, 2011)

"Dressage" is the French word meaning "training." All training on the flat that brings the horse forward, using his hind quarters, developing his "ring" and working in a balanced manner is doing "dressage." A good hackamore reinsman starting a 2 year old or a seasoned competitor working a Grand Prix Jumping Warmblood on flat is training.. or doing 'dressage.'

Dressage Level 1-4, Prix St. Georges, Grand Prix, Haute Ecole and Airs above the ground are competitions or exhibition.


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## thesilverspear (Aug 20, 2009)

But what if you practice all the movements, can collect your horse to some degree of competency, do passable half-passes, shoulder-ins, mediums, etc., but don't compete. At anything. Ever. 

How would you classify that? Is it as simple as competing versus not competing? 

Dressage is flatwork, but not all flatwork is dressage.  

It is more of a relative term in the context of whatever else you are doing. In my experience, having spent a lot of time around a lot of hunter/jumpers, "flatwork" referred to the time they spent schooling the horse "on the flat," or rather, NOT over fences. If they were any good, it would be "dressagey," getting the horse working on the aids, nice and soft, in an outline (but this was not necessarily the case with everyone). It was all "flatwork," rather than "dressage."

If you're not a serious hunter/jumper or eventer, then almost *everything* you do is "on the flat." So the term essentially becomes meaningless.

Just to make it a little bit more ambiguous, I've met riders in other (jumping, mainly) disciplines who will say, "I'd like to learn a little bit of dressage." For them, "flatwork" means schooling the horse without fences, but the horse might be totally inverted and on the forehand, whereas "a little bit of dressage" signifies -- quite specifically -- training the horse to come into an outline and actually use its hind end.


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## Cinnys Whinny (Apr 10, 2010)

I've been taught and have always thought of flatwork as all and any work that does not go over fences. It can be western, english, dressage, saddle seat....if you don't go over a jump, your doing flatwork.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

The only ones I ever hear use the word "flatwork" are hunter or jumper riders and it seems to mean that it's work on gait, balance and improving obedience to the seat, instead of jumping. Whether that is the same as low lever work for dressage training or not kind of depends on how they are riding. If they are mostly just having the horse canter around with out any connection to the bit, then , to me, that is not quite the same as dressage flatwork .


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## Elana (Jan 28, 2011)

thesilverspear said:


> But what if you practice all the movements, can collect your horse to some degree of competency, do passable half-passes, shoulder-ins, mediums, etc., but don't compete. At anything. Ever.


Funny.. I did this as a matter of course in training any young horse to go on and do whatever the new owner was up for. It is "Dressage" or "Training" and it is laying that all important foundation. 



> How would you classify that? Is it as simple as competing versus not competing?


No. Training is training. Now you can be at level 2 for instance.. but it is still dressage or training. The levels and other names are what they call the exhibitions and trials and so forth. 



> Dressage is flatwork, but not all flatwork is dressage.


You are over complicating this. Dressage = training = Flat work = hackamore Reinsman = training = Dressage. Dressage and training are interchangeable terms. To say you are dressage training is like saying you are training training..... (tho we all say "training dressage" or "dressage training" here in the US). 



> It is more of a relative term in the context of whatever else you are doing. In my experience, having spent a lot of time around a lot of hunter/jumpers, "flatwork" referred to the time they spent schooling the horse "on the flat," or rather, NOT over fences. If they were any good, it would be "dressagey," getting the horse working on the aids, nice and soft, in an outline (but this was not necessarily the case with everyone). It was all "flatwork," rather than "dressage."
> 
> If you're not a serious hunter/jumper or eventer, then almost *everything* you do is "on the flat." So the term essentially becomes meaningless.
> 
> Just to make it a little bit more ambiguous, I've met riders in other (jumping, mainly) disciplines who will say, "I'd like to learn a little bit of dressage." For them, "flatwork" means schooling the horse without fences, but the horse might be totally inverted and on the forehand, whereas "a little bit of dressage" signifies -- quite specifically -- training the horse to come into an outline and actually use its hind end.


It all gets pretty silly in the end. What we want is that horse that is balanced and able to work off his hindquarters. You get that thru training and that training is pretty much the same as the start and training you give a horse that is going to be a hunter, jumper, Eventer, Cutting horse, Reining horse, Barrel horse or ranch horse. 

Like I said.. you are getting all bolixed up in the vocabulary. No need. Just train the horse and lay on a foundation. Call it Fiddlestix if you want to.. it is all the same stuff with the same goal... a balanced horse that is light on the forequarters and able to collect and extend, move with suppleness and lightness.


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## thesilverspear (Aug 20, 2009)

I love forums. 

I was mainly responding to Duffy's question, as she seemed to be suggesting that dressage meant competition and flatwork meant everything else.

All of these terms are social conventions -- there is no _a priori _meaning outside of how people use them. The convention is that most people do not use "dressage" interchangeably with "training" and sadly, most horses I've met in the last five years do not have a the sort of foundation you describe on them. Such horses are "trained," as they can carry a rider and walk/trot/canter and jump, but not trained in a way I find makes them a pleasant or balanced ride.


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

Elana said:


> "Dressage" is the French word meaning "training." All training on the flat that brings the horse forward, using his hind quarters, developing his "ring" and working in a balanced manner is doing "dressage."


Agree with Elana here. 

I started the thread while back asking western trainers here on how do they start the horses. I do remember an excellent post from one of the members (sorry, don't remember the name) that basically they start in snaffle and teach the horse to be light, forward, and working from behind first (the _*foundation*_), and only then proceed to more complicated stuff. That's absolutely the same things I work on whether I go to my dressage trainer, the eventing trainer I started working with just recently, or the jumping trainer while back. 

So to me flat work = dressage = foundation (and I know many eventers and show jumpers take dressage lessons regularly, still those jumpers don't compete in dressage and use their jumping saddle for the _dressage_ lessons).


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## Chiilaa (Aug 12, 2010)

I remember another thread asking this same thing. I think we all agreed that flatwork is "dressage" and shows are "Dressage". Note the capital on the shows one lol.


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

Chiilaa said:


> I remember another thread asking this same thing. I think we all agreed that flatwork is "dressage" and shows are "Dressage". Note the capital on the shows one lol.


Yeah, I remember this one too (it's been a while).


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## Scoutrider (Jun 4, 2009)

To me, flatwork is any ridden work without fences, work "on the flat." Dressage (in the "d" sense) is training, and includes any exercise that improves the horse's overall fitness, condition, and carriage. For me, dressage can be done in any setting, any well-fitting saddle, on the flat or over fences. "D" Dressage is "d" dressage applied to its own formal discipline and in competition, and has its own more specific history, methods, ideals, big names (trainers, riders, breeds, bloodlines, and individual horses), and equipment. You can be a "d"ressage rider without ever entering competition, or even owning a dressage saddle. 

All dressage and Dressage is flatwork, but flatwork can be, and all too often is, done without positive impact on the horse's fitness. Good training in general and dressage have the exact same goals: to develop a willing, athletic, sound partnership between horse and rider. Although the ideals of "D" dressage often present a very different image than that of a specialized cutter, reinier, hunter, or barrel horse, there is no difference between the basic needs of these disciplines: a horse traveling with a rounded topline, engaged hindquarters, light and soft response to the aids, and respectful partnership without fear between horse and rider.


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## Elana (Jan 28, 2011)

thesilverspear said:


> I love forums.
> 
> The convention is that most people do not use "dressage" interchangeably with "training" and *sadly, most horses I've met in the last five years do not have a the sort of foundation you describe on them.* Such horses are "trained," as they can carry a rider and walk/trot/canter and jump, but not trained in a way I find makes them a pleasant or balanced ride.


Emphasis added. 
Now I am pretty long in the tooth (aged.. LOL) but I can recall a time when NO ONE trained much "dressage" in the US. I was in Pony Club (PC) in the early 70;s late 60's (that is 19, not 18... btw.. I am not THAT old). When I was in PC, everything was jump jump jump jump. 

I did not have a lot of money and my parents were not exactly well off. I had to earn the money to keep a horse in a small barn we built on our property. I also had to buy horses that were cheap (mostly young and not trained). A lot of learning went hand in hand. 

I was very interested in dressage so I started there. I loved the airs above the ground and their previous functionality as they were associated with using horses in battle. Soo... I read books that had been translated (often badly) on training for dressage. The PC folks were all about jumping and considered all the "flat work" I did to be an utter bore. 

My main horse had an osselet in his left front fetlock joint. He was sound mostly, but jumping caused him pain so he was more suited for dressage. He also had a steep shoulder so knees up over fences was not his forte. He was the first horse who taught me what it meant to get a horse light in front.. to hold a horse between your seat/leg and hands and what a full bridle could do (as opposed to a snaffle or mullen mouth pelham with two reins). He is a horse I trained to do a (disjointed) piaffe on and the horse who would do a Levade and hold it. He was a white cremello... blue eyes.. off white mane and tail. He was the horse that taught me about foundations. 

Sadly, the jump jump jump mentality ruined many a horse in those days. I recall a very talented jumper.. a Leopard App.. about 17 hands.. looked like the best warmblood in build. He could clear a 6 foot fence like it was not there. He was over jumped (they tried to take him Grand Prix with too little flat work and foundation). He ended up being over jumped and just quit!!! 

The point is that the foundation is important and even tho you may have a top barrel horse, top Grand Prix jumper, top dressage horse.. you need to return to the foundation to keep is solid. Any horse that that does only one thing will get sour if you don't go back and remember to work on stretching, suppling, and all the gymnastics necessary to keep that top athlete in top form! 

A top football player does not ONLY practice foot ball. He still goes out and runs, does floor exercises, stretches, and weights to stay in shape.. he does not just play and practice foot ball. Same with a horse. 



kitten_Val said:


> Agree with Elana here.
> 
> I started the thread while back asking western trainers here on how do they start the horses. I do remember an excellent post from one of the members (sorry, don't remember the name) that basically they start in snaffle and teach the horse to be light, forward, and working from behind first (the _*foundation*_), and only then proceed to more complicated stuff. That's absolutely the same things I work on whether I go to my dressage trainer, the eventing trainer I started working with just recently, or the jumping trainer while back.
> 
> So to me flat work = dressage = foundation (and I know many eventers and show jumpers take dressage lessons regularly, still those jumpers don't compete in dressage and use their jumping saddle for the _dressage_ lessons).


Yes. All foundation work has the same goal. Most do not want to spend enough time on it, or enough time returning to it, to keep their horses supple and able to perform whatever task you are asking.. be it barrels, cutting, reining, jumping and so forth. The basis is the same.. light, responsive, supple horse with enough stretch in his back and strength in his abdominal muscles to do the task. 

Most resistance.. most horses that regularly resist.. do so out of a lack of foundation training.. or <gasp> dressage.....


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## thesilverspear (Aug 20, 2009)

Aye, Elana. You are preaching to the choir.

At the series of barns I've boarded at for the past five years, very few of the horses have a solid foundation on them. Even the "dressage trainers" I have seen teach people to hang on the inside rein to get the horse's head down but show very little concern with what the horse is doing with the rest of its body. Here "dressage" seems to suggest the horse going around with its neck arched by any means necessary, rather than anything else. I find it all a bit depressing.


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## maura (Nov 21, 2009)

Great thread, and some great posts. 

To me, flatwork is any work without fences and can include staples of traditional dressage - lateral work, figures, a lower level frame, etc. 

Dressage is flatwork with the goal of collection and sustained collected paces. 

This is a useful distinction for me because if I'm schooling a pleasure horse, show or field hunter, eventer or a jumper, I am going to use flatwork. 

For a Dressage horse, I will use dressage. 

They might look very similiar from the ground at the beginning but the different purposes of the work are key. 

Dressage training with a goal of collection/sustained collected paces ideally produces a horse that is entirely between the rider's leg, seat and hand and that always waits for a rider's aid. This is not actually desirable in a horse that's ridden over fences or cross county, you want the horse to maintain some indepedence and initiative. So my flatwork's goal is to produce a horse that's athletic, fit, uses itself correctly and is responsive to my aids, but not completely submissive to them as a true dressage horse should be. 

So I sometimes get cranky about the aphorism "Jumping is dressage with speedbumps" because I picture someone riding a horse in a 2nd level frame around a course of fences, and that isn't pretty. 

I am not quite as vintage as Elana, and in the 70s and early 80s in Pony Club (I was a young instructor) "dressage" was heavily in vogue, and there were a lot of kids riding to their fences with their horses faces vertical and doing the 6 stride lines in 12 and thinking they were really riders now, and it had the same traumatic effect on me that Elana's early PC experience had on her.


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## Elana (Jan 28, 2011)

The secret to a horse over fences (or running barrels) is a horse that can collect and extend.. Squeeze Box horse if you will. THAT is what dressage training foundation can get you.. and get some calm in it too. 

I cannot imagine the 12 strides in 6 thing.. that is just BAD... LOL

I can imagine the 4 collected strides and 3 extended strides before a vertical, landing, collecting, tight turn, extend a stride and over an oxer......

The position of the horse's head/face is the result of maintained collection.. it is NOT the thing that you train. If you train for the vertical face, raised poll first you will be riding your horse front to back.... 

When you ride and train back to front, and you ask for collection, the horse will naturally raise his poll and tuck his chin.. as part of the balancing shifting weight rearward (it really is physics). It is a horse the is using his "ring" of muscles. Training.. good foundation.. you should be able to lean forward and give with your hands and get an extension while sitting up and a touch with your hands should get collection.. and no yawing horses with mouths open and eyes rolling and back hollow! 

It takes a LOT of work to get this squeeze box horse. When you see one you will know. It is the winning Barrel horse that walks to the start line and stands still, and then EXPLODES out of the box.. it is the Grand Prix Jumper who is tight and clean that works the course with great speed that comes from efficient movement... it is the Dressage horse that executes and extended trot across the diagonal that looks more like flying than trotting and then comes back down smooth as glass to a collected trot at the end.... 

...and if you think SEEING it is magic just get the chance to ride it ONE TIME and you will never neglect foundation work again!


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## maura (Nov 21, 2009)

Elana, 

When doing flatwork, I always work on two speeds at the walk, three at the trot, and at least three at the canter. The horses I showed as jumpers had five distinct paces at the canter, and I imagine upper level event horses do as well. 

I draw a big distinction between shortening and lengthening, and collection and extension. 

Spyder and I once had an interesting conversation about this subject, because in my view, sustained collection is a place I do not want to go with a jumping horse. (Brief moments of true collection in rollback turns, maybe, sustained, no.) But I view collection as something that starts at 2nd Level as a very distinct step, and Spyder viewed it as a continuous process the foundation for which is laid at Intro Level and built on gradually until it's manifest at 2nd level. Whether it's a step or cliff as I envision, or a gradual process as Spyder describes, there is still a point past which you do not want to go with a jumping horse. 

IMO, people who go past that point create a horse that has to be held precisely between leg, seat and hand at all times. The other term for those horses is "professional ride only" and it's the kiss of death if you ever intend to sell the horse. 

So, do I want my jumping horses to be connected back to front, using their backs, flexible, obedient, almost infinitely adjustable? Do I want to be able to place each hoof exactly where I want, and move them at will? Yes, and yes. But to me, that's not collection. Collection occurs when a real shift of balance rearward occurs, the front end lifts, the rib cage rises and the whole horse appears to get taller. Yes, I've ridden horses in sustained collected paces and it's exciting and exhilirating, but still not what I want in a jumping horse, or the feeling I want cantering down to a big oxer. 

Litteaur makes the useful distinction of connection rather than collection. So flatwork to me is working towards *connection*, and Dressage is working towards collection. You may use the same techniques and exercises at the beginning, but the goal is different.


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## Spyder (Jul 27, 2008)

maura said:


> Spyder and I once had an interesting conversation about this subject, because in my view, sustained collection is a place I do not want to go with a jumping horse. (Brief moments of true collection in rollback turns, maybe, sustained, no.) But I view collection as something that starts at 2nd Level as a very distinct step, and Spyder viewed it as a continuous process the foundation for which is laid at Intro Level and built on gradually until it's manifest at 2nd level. Whether it's a step or cliff as I envision, or a gradual process as Spyder describes, there is still a point past which you do not want to go with a jumping horse.
> 
> .



Just a note here. I still hold to what I said but usually once the horse has reached a level of collection that is visible at the FEI level most horses do not change or add jumping to their routine.

HOWEVER there have been several horses that have done just that and when you see some horses even now ( mostly the European ones) and you see them jump and then see them come together after the jump you think...wow that horse looks like it could do a high level at straight dressage as well.

The NA rider puts less emphasis on the flatwork as it pertains to dressage (meaning various recognized movements) whereas the German rider bases virtually all it training on having a horse that could easily do level 2 dressage or better.


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## DuffyDuck (Sep 27, 2011)

Remind me NOT to post at midnight when my thoughts are jumbled xD

Its great stuff guys, makes for good reading, thanks 

Any western riders out there that want to put something in?


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

maura said:


> Litteaur makes the useful distinction of connection rather than collection. So flatwork to me is working towards *connection*, and Dressage is working towards collection. You may use the same techniques and exercises at the beginning, but the goal is different.


Just want to add that too many people call "collection" what is in fact "connection". "Collection" word seems to be used for everything on forum(s): on bit, round, headset, frame, you name it...


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## Elana (Jan 28, 2011)

What I believe is that it is all the same.. but used differently. Like Spyder says.. it can come together while jumping. At some point in laying the foundation you train a discipline and that is where you get the differences. A high end Grand Prix jumper collects (rounds, shifts weight to the rear) and extends (increases length of stride and body and speed) in a manner different than a Grand Prix dressage horse. It has to be that way.

My point is the foundation is laid in the same way because if it is not, there will be holes and they show up at the higher levels and during times of higher demands. 

I would say somewhere IN level 2 a horse is redirected and trained for its discipline. The issue is a LOT of people are impatient and they start to redirect that training before being able to do anything like Level 1.... JMO


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