Riders score highly in world dressage challenge

One after the other the supple horses strutted to the 60 by 20 metres flat arena with utmost precision under the guidance of their riders. It was the annual World Dressage Challenge, taking place at the Jamuhuri Showground in Nairobi. Dressage is a method of training a horse to perform tricks in response to the rider’s body signals. Twenty horses to out do each other in elegance under the watchful eyes of the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) judges Hans-Christian Mattiesen from Denmark and Belgian Freddy Leyman.  The World Dressage Challenge is the only competition where riders in Kenya get an international assessment of their performance and ranking by FEI and the International Horse Federation. For 20 years, the FEI has run development programmes in emerging equestrian countries — that is, where horseback riding is practised. Kenya has benefited from this programme since 2000, as various experts from FEI have trained riders and also helped to establish the Horse Association of Kenya (HAK). read on: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/Kenyan+riders+score+highly+in+world+dressage+challenge++/-/434746/1256408/-/7c4t5sz/-/