Let’s all go to a Horseshow!

I first heard of online dressage competitions six or seven years ago. It come up for discussion amongst my Irish dressage friends, some of whom are judges, as people wondered how an online competition might affect our regular dressage competitions, as well as how the judging worked. The site under discussion at the time was dressageanywhere.com, which runs British Dressage and FEI tests and is quite a serious, dressage only site.

Within the last year or two, I came across interdressage.com, via fellow blogger Helen of Skyfaxa. It looked a bit more light-hearted and varied than dressageanywhere, but I wasn’t tempted to participate at the time. Then in January this year, I felt I needed some motivation, so I decided to enter Aero in one of their competitions. Some of my followers, here and on Facebook, followed the process with interest.

So now, folks, I am wondering – how many of you would like to attend the Interdressage April show with me?

There are loads of different classes, for all levels, and there is something to suit all styles of English riding. Western riders could perhaps do the showing or Practical Horsemanship tests if any of them are keen to take part?

Straightforward dressage tests

Baroque dressage tests, ridden and in-hand

Equitation and Turnout (showing, methinks)

Equitation Jumping (show off your style between and over fences)

Golden Oldie/Promising Youngster – ridden and in-hand showing

Practical Horsemanship – handling test

There are prize money, rosettes and certificates on offer to the victors, but it’s not about winning, it’s about F-U-N!

To find out more, visit the Interdressage site and check out the April schedule. If you’re in, let me know. If a few of us want to have a go, we can treat it just like a real, local show that we’re going to attend together. We chat about what class or classes we will enter on our blogs, on Facebook or on Twitter; we watch each others’ rides once our videos are uploaded and chat about them too; and then wait together with bated breath for our results. There’s even a virtual Interdressage bar on Facebook if we want to hang out with other competitors. We could even come up with our own hashtag!

PS : Just to be clear – I have no connection with Interdressage. It’s just that I had a good experience with them and I wanna share the love!