Where the Real Action Happens

What do students of dressage prefer to watch during a top competition? The warmup, of course. Go ringside at the FEI World Cup Dressage Final Omaha 2023.

Story and photos by Jennifer O. Bryant

At many top competitions, the warmup ring is shielded from outside eyes. That’s not the case here in Omaha.

To spectators’ delight, the warmup ring for the FEI World Cup Dressage Final 2023 is smack in the middle of the trade fair, with a wide concrete apron circling the ring in the cavernous indoor CHI Health Center sports arena/convention-center complex.

I watched some of the warmup in 2017, the first year Omaha hosted the World Cup Finals, and I regretted not watching more. I certainly can’t miss the freestyles on April 7—these are the performances that will decide the Finals medalists, after all—and I don’t have a Harry Potter Time-Turner so unfortunately I can’t be in two places at once; so I made the decision to go all in for the warmup this time, during the Grand Prix. I was eager to learn how the best dressage riders in the world warm up their horses for peak performance in the show ring. So come backstage with me and I’ll share what I observed.

Plans for Success

Riders don’t qualify for a World Cup Final by happenstance. These competitors waste no time in the warmup. The amount of time they warmed up varied—typically from 30 to 45 minutes—but there is zero chitchat, zero ambling around on the buckle, and zero aimless activity.

As you’ll see from the photos, spectators crowd right up to the fence (“I could have reached out and touched him!,” I overheard one man say of Steffen Peters’ mount, Suppenkasper). The place was filled with visiting schoolchildren, tots in strollers, Native American music and dance demonstrations punctuated with drums and bells—in short, way too much was going on to permit these hot, sensitive dressage horses to take a good look around. The eventual Grand Prix winner, 2022 FEI World Cup Dressage Final champion Jessica von Bredow-Werndl of Germany on TSF Dalera BB, let her mare walk on a longish rein for a good 10 minutes before beginning her warmup, as did Germany’s Ingrid Klimke on Franziskus FRH—but the reins were never completely slack.

The warmups were well-honed systems that the riders have found work best for their individual mounts. The dressage training progression was on display, with most horses beginning in a classic Training Level-type rising trot with good stretch over the topline. Ingrid Klimke rose into a half-seat and let Franziskus canter on, to help loosen and warm up the stallion’s back. (It took the pair a little longer than usual to settle into work, as the breeding stallion was, shall we say, responding to the presence of mares in the venue.)

Once the horses were warmed up and loosened, the real work began. Some, like German legend Isabell Werth on DSP Quantaz, incorporated gymnastic exercises into the early phases of the warmup. Sweden’s Johanna Due Boje put the Swedish Warmblood mare Mazy Klovenhoj through a series of suppling exercises, including renvers in canter and a canter leg-yield with slight counterflexion. The Oldenburg gelding Sir Donnerhall OLD looked a little “up” to start, so perhaps it was to gain his focus that rider Morgan Barbançon of France rode a series of canter-halt-rein back-canter transitions on the rail early on.

Railbird Learning

It’s fun to just “spectate,” but when a top rider is in front of you, you’re wasting a valuable opportunity to study and learn. I mentally compared the World Cup Dressage Final competitors’ warmup approaches with my own, and they had a lot to teach me. For example:

Utilize the walk. Final first-timer Alice Tarjan of the USA gymnasticized Serenade MF with steep walk half-passes and leg-yields in various zigzag combinations, in exaggerated positioning. All of the riders gave their horses fairly frequent, short walk breaks between work sets, and the walks remained marching and on contact, even if the reins were lengthened.

Horses may be rounder and deeper than textbook position, especially early on. Especially in the loosening and suppling phases, the poll is not always going to be the highest point.

Touch on each element of the test. Every rider ran through the main elements of the Grand Prix test: halt and rein back, trot and canter half-pass zigzags, pirouettes, piaffe, passage, two- and one-tempi changes, center lines and halts. They may not repeat each movement ad nauseam, and they’re clearly not trying to “school” the movements; they’re making sure all the buttons work.

When the horse is fit enough, you’re less likely to “leave it in warmup.” The USA’s Anna Buffini on FRH Davinia la Douce had one of the longer warmups of the Grand Prix competition—much longer than Tarjan’s—and I started to wonder whether “Diva” was going to get tired. But she didn’t look tired, and the pair went in the ring and laid down a score of 70.047%. Several horses got warm enough—in the comfortable indoor setting—that their grooms sponged or scraped them off part way through the warmup. Nobody appeared to be holding back to “save something for the show ring.” In fact, they…

…ramped it up a little extra in warmup. Like Tarjan, Werth rode exercises, such as the canter zigzag, with too much bend. I saw exaggerated shoulder-in positioning, halts deliberately held longer than necessary, and extra piaffe steps. Perhaps knowing that horses can back off a bit in the atmosphere of the show arena, the riders were making sure that they had more power and suppleness than they needed going in.

Keep sets short. Nobody rode full-length, all-out extended-trot or extended-canter lines. There were short bursts and lots of mediums (what we mortals would probably call extensions), but these riders know that extensions sap horses’ reserves and are unwise to drill for soundness reasons. When they asked for something, they got it; then they gave their horses a break and went on to something else.

Balance is everything. The horse that remains in the best balance throughout the test is often the one that rises to the top. Dalera doesn’t have a textbook dressage build, but she has a balance that few others can match. Whereas the other competitors appeared to be working toward establishing the desired balance, somehow Dalera came out of her stall already there. My notes from the warmup read: “Dalera doesn’t have to find the balance; she’s in the balance all the time.”

Cool–down is important, too. Von Bredow-Werndl, Werth, Klimke, and others all went back into the warmup following their tests for a short cool-down consisting of a stretchy rising trot and a couple of laps of relaxed walk before dismounting.

Basics Prevail

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the horses that stood out to me in warmup tended to be the higher-placed finishers. A good foundation and a sound warmup plan doesn’t always win the class, but a poor strategy can definitely lose it. If you get the chance to be a railbird at a top dressage competition, take advantage of it. Watch and analyze. You’ll come away with your standards raised and your inspiration sparked.