Dressage rocks - spread the word

My feet twitched throughout Carl Hester and Uti’s tempi-changes this morning, my fingers shook as Laura Bechtolsheimer entered the arena on Alf, and my stomach muscles are only now recovering from the excitement of two fantastic tests that put Britain in gold medal position going into the second day of competition. It turns out all I needed to get me feeling something slightly more intense about these Olympics was for the dressage to start.

No, dressage excitement isn’t an oxymoron. Sure, I’ve heard the sport likened to paint drying and grass growing in the past 24hrs – by a chap on the bus and a man in the curry house. Both had randomly got tickets for the eventing dressage over the weekend. Admittedly, if I were selling the sport, that isn’t where I’d start. You’ve at least got to throw in some tempi-changes (skipping) and piaffe (dancing on the spot) to stand any chance of grabbing the attention of someone who prefers their sports to revolve around balls – or at least wheels.

           

Dressage is most commonly labelled “horse ballet” by the uninitiated. That’s fine. The equines point their toes and pirouette, while those who love them are as passionate in that devotion as any Royal Opera House season ticket holder. Men’s magazine journalist Pete Cashmore today coined the term “posh pony disco” instead. And I’d take that, too. Valegro et al have, after all, been privately educated, and reside on charming estates in Gloucestershire. I’ve not heard their accents, mind – though I couldn’t tell an upper class Dutchman or Dane from Adam anyway.

See, people can call dressage whatever they want as far as I’m concerned. If they’re calling it Something I’m happy, because that means they’re talking about it. For eight years I’ve been attempting to garner more interest in the sport, behaving like some sort of kür missionary. Tactics range from posting You Tube links of Blue Hors Matine at Aachen 2006, or Totilas in Kentucky in 2010, to sending endearing images of Uthopia taking a nap, and drawing attention to the sheer cuteness of Blueberry’s dished nose. I’ve even stooped so low as to point out how good looking the riders are, both male and female, and therefore had to go home and beat myself with a copy of How To Be A Woman in penance.

In the past three years the message has been more readily received. Totilas single-hoofedly made riders in other disciplines at least stop referring to dressage as “the boring bit you have to do before cross-country day”. It helps enormously of course that the British team are in with a bloody good shot of gold in London. Success has 1,000 friends on Facebook, let alone all those fathers. Opinions are shifting – a former colleague who used to swear and spit when I passed her dressage pages for proofing was über-excited to be attending the dressage in Greenwich.

But I want more – there’s little satisfaction in preaching to the semi-converted. I want anyone in Britain who has cheered our rowers, cyclists and judo(ists?) over the past two days to be as ecstatic when our dressage team smashes it. I want them to have a clue what the sport is they’re (hopefully) applauding – for them to have seen it. So, two o’clock tomorrow, BBC red button, there’s a charismatic Spaniard on a crowd-pleasing grey stallion, followed by the best and handsomest dressage horse in the World – Valegro – ridden by the ridiculously talented and not at all snooty Charlotte Dujardin. She’s going to win us at least one gold medal in the next week. Glory. Get a piece of it. Tune in. And if you’ve already enjoyed it, tell your friends.