The picture of elegance, originally uploaded by Aunt Christina.

One of the more than 50 competitors in the dressage portion of the three-day eventing held this weekend at Rolex Kentucky, at the Kentucky Horse park in Lexington (one of my all time favorite places!). I was lucky enough to hitch a ride down there for 2 of the three events, with two good "horsey" friends of mine. We had a wonderful time; they go every year but this was my first Rolex, and I soaked it all in. The dressage, for those who are scratching their heads, is a competition of grace and control--the rider has to put the horse through a set series of "exercises" if you will, where they do different paces like extended trot or canter, in a set pattern in a fenced-in ring. The movements are the basics of what you may have seen Lippizaner horses perform--this test doesn't have all that fancy "airs above the ground," but similar side movements and the graceful "dancing" of the hooves in patterns. I'm no good at describing it, it just sounds flat. You have to see it to appreciate it, especially when you can see many entrants and see how they compare. A trio of judges watches the performance and submits their scores, and they're added up for a total. You want to get a low score, because the scores are given for faults (hesitated, or did not perform movement well, or switched at wrong time, etc, as well as purely subjective things like how well they flow together). If you watch the summer Olympics this year you'll see world class dressage in action. This was Olympic-caliber, because this event is used as a qualifier for olympic team riders. It was really really neat.