The attire worn at dressage shows is traditional and dates back many years, and the outfit usually contains white breeches, a show shirt with a white collar and cuffs, a stock tie and a blazer or tailcoat. Find out how dressage show attire differs from everyday dressage riding attire with helpful advice in this video on horse training and dressage.
So one of the really unique things about our sport in dressage is our dress at horse shows. And it's very traditional, it dates back many years. And a lot of people recognize dressage as- recognizes in this dress, because it is very unique. So some of the attire that we have to wear for the show ring are white breeches, so instead of your everyday color breeches, you would wear a nice white pair like this. Then of course you would have your show shirt, which you wear underneath your jackets. This is- well it can be any color, but what's most important is that you have a white collar at the top. And it can be short sleeved, it can be long sleeved, as long as the collar and the cuffs are white, because you will not see the actual color of the shirt once you're wearing your riding coat. We then have a stock tie which goes on top of the collar, which goes around your neck like this, and looks very elegant under the jacket. You can pick any pin you would like, fancy, plain, whichever you prefer, it's very individual. And then at the lower levels of dressage when you're starting out, you have a nice, short coat blazer that you wear over top of your show shirt, and your stock tie goes right here on your neck piece and once you progress to the higher levels, you then wear what is called a tailcoat. And you can see that the tailcoat has tails, it's longer, it's very elegant when you're sitting on the horse, and it also has- this is called a shadbelly, so you've got little unique yellow pieces here. And I know that they are now actually having a new rule that most countries can have a colored collar, and also a colored shadbelly here, which is kind of fun, and it comes in only navy blue and black, so it's very important to know that those colors are pretty traditional, the actual coat. Then we have white gloves, which unlike our everyday riding we wear white gloves which goes with the white breaches and the white stock tie. And then of course to top it off you wear the top hat at the higher level, so this is only for when you reach basically the Prix St.George, Grand Prix level. All of junior riders should continue to wear their helmets and it definitely goes more with the tail coat, but this is more for the experts of the sport at the higher level.
