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Per Request: Books on Dressage
Riderone’s request for information about books on dressage comes at a good time, because I’ve been thinking about this topic lately. I actually don’t own any instructional horse books. I don’t know why I don’t, and lately I’ve been pondering the same question: what books to buy first?
Funny but true: the only instructional horse book I’ve ever owned was called Judging Hunt Seat Equitation or something like that, and it was given to me for Christmas when I was a teen. I promptly “lost” the book, because I was certain my mother and my trainer were plotting some devious scheme to make me actually judge a local schooling show (one the older teens put on every year for the young kids). It never occured to me that my trainer might have recommended the book simply because it was a good overview of what judges look for in equitation. Boy, talk about distrustful teens!
Anyway. Dressage books.
Fortunately, I have a solution for us both. I lurk (and sometimes post) on the Chronicle of the Horse bulletin board. In the dressage forum, someone else recently started a post called “If you could recommend ONE dressage book…“. The votes for books (and some of the comments as to why) are:
- Dressage in Harmony (Zettl)—5 votes
- Podhajsky—; 5 votes (not everyone gave a book title, but his name comes up several times)
- The Principles of Riding (Handbook from the German National Equestrian Federation)—3 votes
- Dressage with Kyra (or similar title, by Kyra Kirkland)—2 votes
- The Dressage Manual (by Benjt Ljundquist)—2 votes (“understandable”)
- Riding Logic (Museler)—2 votes (and one poster who thinks some of the examples are wrong)
- Horsemanship (Suenig)—2 votes (and another poster who likes the book but wouldn’t recommend it to a beginner)
- Basic Training of the Young Horse (Klimke)—1 vote
- Dressage: A study of the finer points of riding (Henry Wynmalen)—1 vote
- The USDF Book of Dressage—1 vote
- Dressage in Lightness (Sylvia Loch)—1 vote (“some very good descriptions of how a horse interprets the aids”)
- Common Sense Dressage (Sally O’Connor)—1 vote (recc’d for the exercises)
- Dressage Forumla (Erik Heberman)—1 vote (“great concepts to take down the road”)
- Real Life Dressage (Carl Hester)—1 vote
- Riding and Jumping
Personally, I lean towards Podhajsky and Zettle, as these are the names I see most frequently in “recommended reading” discussions (in addition to this thread).
(And if I somehow got the vote count wrong, forgive me. I’ve been known to count my fingers and get eleven, sometimes.)
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On Oct 18, 2006, RiderOne said:
Thanks!