Menorcan dressage
Menorcan dressage has inherited the millenary spirit of Menorca’s patron saint festivities.
Menorcan dressage is a different variety of styles of dressage, which is recognized as a sports discipline by the Equestrian Federation of the Balearic Islands.
Sports discipline
As it is just another sports discipline, it has specific regulations to regulate sports competitions developed under this modality. It is a modality of riding the jineta, which is characterized by holding the reins only with the left hand, which is called in Menorca anar de brilla, and by the characteristic clothing and equipment of the horse and the rider.
It is a style of riding reduced to disciplines with a strong tradition, such as Menorcan dressage itself or cowboy dressage.Its garnishes are: the saddle, with its bridle and bit (Menorcan cowboy), plus the typical Menorcan petral breast.
Menorcan dressage can be understood from different areas: walk, party, carousel and competition. Menorcan dressage has created an aesthetic and a style of riding, for the clothing of the knights and ornaments of the horses, as well as for the way of using the aids to carry the horse. In Menorcan Dressage as a discipline, in addition to all the natural airs of the horse (step, trot and gallop), as well as a series of characteristic figures of this equestrian discipline such as the bot (jumping), the goat, the elevation of the horse on the hind legs and the Menorcan movements, rotating in that position. The most characteristic movements of the Menorcan riding style in the field of festivals are:
- Trot curt, short and gathered trot with the reins held in the left hand
- Reverse pirouette, spinning the horse with the hind legs
- Direct pirouette
- Pas de costat
- Pas-trot-pas transition
- Pas-rec-pas transition
- Diagonal sideways
- Passage
- Piaf
- Cessió to bed
- Bot, elevation of the anterior third on the hind legs, maintaining the position of the head and neck
Most horses are tamed at first with two hands, so that they achieve the necessary curvature in the exercises on the track. And then you switch to a single one, which makes it more difficult to execute them with maximum precision. Therefore, the rider, according to the regulations, is authorized to correct the reins whenever required, with his right hand.
The horse that shines with its own light for the practice of Menorcan Dressage is the purebred Menorcan. Although the competitions and demonstrations are filled with Purebred Spanish horses, crossbred and Menorcan horses.
Origin of Menorcan Dressage
Menorcan dressage is a form of dressage that began in Ferreries, in the seventies of the twentieth century, when regular regulated competitions began to be developed, ordered and organized. It was all thanks to people who knew how to identify the main elements of the relationship between horse and rider: riding, driving, driving the animal, creation and creativity in the middle of the party. little by little it has been transformed into a normativized and regulated sports practice.
It has its origins in the traditional festivals of Menorca, and began to be worked on and exhibited publicly outside the festive environment in the twentieth century, since the seventies. And it was officially regulated in the eighties when its first regulations were drafted and the first competitions were held.