Culver Academies joins select group of high schools that compete in dressage

Imagine mounting a horse you’ve never ridden before and having two minutes to be coached on a horse you have never ridden and then using your hands, legs and seat -- not making any noises -- to prompt the horse to perform a series of complicated moves and then being graded on how you do.

Welcome to the world of Interscholastic Equestrian Association Dressage.

Culver Academies, known for its Black Horse Troop and Equestriennes, this school year has joined a select group of American high schools that field dressage teams.

Juan Urruela ’25 said he likes dressage because it deepens the connections riders have with horses.

“You have to find a way to communicate with the horse in a different way that makes us better as a person to learn other ways to communicate. It helps with other people as well. Sometimes we don’t know the same language,” he said.

Neenah Marano ’26 considers dressage to be a bit like yoga for horse riders.

“It helps you focus more on your body position and your communication with your horse because you aren’t going over jumps, seeing how high you can jump or how fast you can go,” she said. “It’s all about your body, your position and how you communicate with the horse.”

Dressage, often referred to as “horse dancing,” involves riders directing their horses to perform a series of moves. At the Olympics, riders and horses perform at the grand prix level. That involves a six-minute freestyle event where the rider prompts the horse to perform complex explosive and elegant athletic movements in all paces all choreographed to perfection.

At the high school level, riders and horses are asked to perform at training level, meaning a rider must sit with the correct posture and alignment and show correct mechanics in walking, trotting and cantering. The rider and horse are supposed to work together seamlessly to perform movements that appear effortless and that flow gracefully from one step to the next. The rider must demonstrate perfect classical fundamentals to have control of the horse’s body at every footfall.

“Each competitor has to learn a test relative to their skill level for competition,” said Jill Strange, Culver’s dressage coach.

Varsity open riders have a test of 18 synchronous movements they must learn, memorize and perform in front of a judge. An example of a movement would be: "MXK (directions to go in the riding ring) change rein, lengthen stride in trot, working trot."

They also must ride the perfect geometry of a 20-meter circle and a 15-meter circle, and there are no marks on the ground to guide them. This has to be done with the horse engaged and in “a frame,” where the horse’s hind end is engaged allowing the nose to be vertical to the ground.

Strange said she’s wanted to start a dressage team ever since she started coaching at Culver in 2016. She said Capt. Sean “Skip” Nicholls, Culver’s director of horsemanship, agreed last year that the school should field a team and students began practicing.

Nicholls, who took over Culver’s horsemanship program three years ago, said he always wondered why Culver didn’t already have a dressage team. He said the Equestriennes were originally formed as a dressage unit but didn’t compete. He said now that Culver is competing in the IEA it made sense to start a dressage team.

“We have a western team and we have a jump team so it made sense that we have a dressage team because those are the three core elements of the IEA world,” Nicholls said. “And dressage is the forerunner of everything we do on horses because everything we do on horses comes from dressage initially.”

 

Culver briefly had a dressage team during the 1994-95 school year, but it was discontinued when the coach left the school. There have been numerous dressage exhibitions at Culver over the years. Most notably, Col. Isaac “Len” Kitts, who won a bronze medal as a member of the U.S. dressage team in the 1936 Olympics, gave dressage exhibitions on his horse, American Lady. Kitts was Culver’s director of horsemanship from 1948-53 and revitalized the school’s jumping team. In 2023, Jolene Simons-Bester, U.S. Dressage Federation silver medalist, was invited to host a dressage clinic for the team in May which was a great preparation for the team this year.

Strange said dressage has always been the basis of what Culver has always been, classical riding. Classical riding is based on the idea that the horse and rider should communicate quietly through partnership, rather than the rider controlling the horse.

The team now has eight girls and three boys. The team is capped at 12 riders for training purposes, but each participant can only go to five shows. Culver’s team of eight just competed in their fifth show, which means they can’t compete again this year except for at zones and nationals. But three riders who were added can compete in other shows.

This year Culver began competing in the IEA and has been quite successful, finishing with three championships, four reserve championships and one fourth-place finish out of their eight competitions.  The dressage team earned 39 total points to qualify them for zone competition.

The team is waiting to see if they will be invited to zones on Feb. 22-23 at Otterbein in Westerville, Ohio. If they do well enough there, they could be invited to nationals on April 24-27 at The National Equestrian Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Strange said dressage teaches riders humility. 

“Sometimes communication isn’t a verbal conversation.  It’s about asking the right questions through our body and aids, then allowing your horse to answer,” she said. “If the horse answers incorrectly, we must assume as the rider we didn’t ask correctly, adjust and try again.”

Marano said dressage is physically demanding.

“It’s very tough because you are always engaging every part of your body: your legs, your core, your arms. After practice some days I get off and I almost collapse because my legs hurt so bad,” she said. “It takes a lot of athleticism.”

Urruela said it also teaches riders the importance of having a good attitude.

“If you are angry or agitated and if you go next to a horse you can see the horse changes his mood because are very sensitive. They feel how the rider is feeling,” he said. “When you are riding and are stressed, the horse is going to be stressed as well. It teaches you to be relaxed and mindful of what you are doing.”

Strange said, with only one senior and one junior competing this year, the team is very young and will continue to grow.