COURTESY OF NUTRENA
Olympic-award winner Debbie McDonald offers dressage workshops in Waimanalo this weekend.
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Top American rider champions dressage
Let's get real -- the only way the equestrian sport of dressage could be more precious is if the horse were on ice skates. The rider is in top hat and tails, like a doorman; the horse prances in place like a child who has to go potty, or poses like a Wehrmacht drum major; the music is Wurlitzer-iffic. At first glance it's all rather silly and Euro-stodgy and far too reined in.
Dressage clinics
With Debbie McDonald and trainer (and husband) Bob:
When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Place: Hilltop Stables, Waimanalo
Admission: $75
Call: 389-0248
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So look harder.
If Americans are so doggone good at horses, why do the world-class dressage riders come from Holland and Germany? We are regularly licked in dressage, not just in the Olympics, but in the off-year events as well. Makes a fella want to hang up his spurs. Or his top hat.
But hold your horses. America's getting better at dressage, and it's largely thanks to Debbie McDonald, a sunny lady from Idaho who is arguably the best dressage rider in the country. In the 2004 Olympics, she scored a bronze -- it's rare for American dressageurs to even touch metal -- and in 2003 she won the World Cup competing in Sweden, the only American ever to get that far.
Last year, she was ranked No. 3 in the dressage World Cup. (You guessed it, the first two were Dutch).
And on Saturday and Sunday she'll be in Waimanalo giving dressage clinics at Hilltop Equestrian Center.
Dressage is often compared by fans to ice dancing or ballet because it takes great control and skill, melded into a performance that's as much art as sports. It was the sport of the military and demands perfect interplay between horse and rider -- indeed, the rider's commands are supposed to be invisible; a nudge with the knee there, a tiny pull of the reins there. No yelling "Yee-haw!" and slapping the horse's rump with your hat.
Form is everything. The delicate balance between horse and rider is such that the horse is supposed to "float," not clop around the arena. The basic moves include brief and long striding gaits, moving sideways and diagonally, pirouettes and "piaffes," the showy bit where the horse trots while standing still.
Then there's the "Musical Freestyle," in which all the above are combined and set to music. The judges have their sharp pencils out for that one.
"I started out in show-jumping, but because of injuries I had to slow down," said McDonald. "Dressage is certainly not the top equestrian event in the country, but it's coming up. So I gave it a try."
There's no College of Dressage, as it turns out.
"I had to find a person trained in dressage to take me on. It can take nine years to get really good at it, and all the world-class trainers seemed to be in Holland and Germany, naturally. My goal was the World Equestrian Games, which in our world is larger than the Olympics."
She lives in Sun Valley, Idaho, and "trainers would come here to offer the classes. There's a kind of network of dressage enthusiasts, and we spot-check each other. For the most part, it's an individual sport. We really only come together at one time for the big games."
Actually, dressage is a team event. The other player is the horse. McDonald's primary mount is Brentina, a chestnut Hanoverian mare, and she's a star on her own, with her own Web site (brentina.com) and her own Breyer model-horse statuette.
"Most of the sport horses are warm-blood breeds, and dressage horses are imported breeds, like Hanoverian, Dutch Warmblood, Westphalians. They are quite the stars, and fly in their own compartments from meet to meet."
The sport is bankrolled by independent enthusiasts, not being grown enough for corporate sponsors," said McDonald. "My sponsors (Jane, Peggy and Parry Thomas) have been with us for 32 years!"
Just in case you're wondering, they wear "britches," not jodhpurs. Britches have the extra cloth on the inside of the thigh. The attitude and look of the pair are vital.
"Its very subjective in judging. The horse has to be totally keyed up and yet move on cue. They are very sensitive to every nuance from the rider. They have to have the winning desire, like a racehorse, but that determination and energy has to be contained. So there's a ... presence ... about them, a cloud of energy that floats. Even their expression is more exciting than that of the average trail horse."
After the clinics -- basic dressage techniques, tips on a horsy career -- it's on to Los Angeles for McDonald, where she'll partner up with Brentina and go into training for the Games this summer. They won't return to Idaho until September.