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Dressage show thrives in Ponoka as season beginner

With this year’s dressage season just starting, a show competition kicked off in Ponoka as a specifically engineered way
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Natalie Marsden and her warmblood

With this year’s dressage season just starting, a show competition kicked off in Ponoka as a specifically engineered way for the riders and horses to get back in the saddle and re-solidify their skills.

Dressage Daze took over the Calnash Ag Event Centre March 22 and 23 as a mid-sized show entered by approximately 50 riders.

“I started running this show last year because there was a need for a competition,” said show director and competitor Allegra Hohm, who explained the dressage competitors needed a way to ease back into the bigger shows.

Dressage Daze also serves as a qualifying competition for Provincial Championships, which will also be held in Ponoka, May 3 and 4.

The event boasted both traditional and western styles of dressage for an open and inviting atmosphere for all levels of riders. “This show, I think we draw the largest number of young riders in Alberta because of how inviting it is,” said Hohm.

Like any dressage show riders and their horses competed in a number of tests; a series of movements where scores are added and averaged together by a panel of judges to total the riders percentage score out of 100.

“At the most basic levels they’re looking for a harmonious picture,” said Hohm.

As the levels progress judges look harder at skill development of the horse and rider as well as development of the horse’s body. “You’re training your horse’s body to do more and more difficult movements,” Hohm explained.

With dressage comes a foundation of discipline which Hohm says any horse will benefit from, but especially for higher levels of competition warmbloods descending from European lines, because they have the body and abilities the judges lean toward. “It’s just they’ve been developed over centuries for this. Their movements are more lofty.”

Enter western dressage. The fairly new style is developed more for stock horses that have been bred to move quicker and closer to the ground, instead of the lofty fully extended movements of a warmblood. “They’re looking for more just a really well trained stock horse,” said Hohm.

Hohm started the annual show last year, specifically housing it in Ponoka at the Calnash Ag Event Centre. She says the show and riders really enjoy having the opportunity for both a warm up and show ring to keep the competition moving along, something Hohm says can’t be found anywhere else in Alberta for them.

Hohm competed with her two horses at the event. Rowan is an 11 year old Swedish Warmblood she purchased six years ago and Guadalupano is a one and a half year old Pura Raza Espanolia, meaning he’s registered in Spain rather than North America, through which he’d be called an Andalusian.

“My goal with him is to do a Grand Prix,” said Hohm.

Hohm began riding at a young age as a show jumper, but when she took her first dressage lesson on a whim she never looked back.

“I really like the sport because it’s so individually based. You’re just kind of competing against yourself .  It really allows you to develop a good partnership with your horse and it demands you have a good partnership with your horse,” she explained.