Trainer: Michel Assouline
Length: 10:44 Minutes
In this video, USEF Head of Para-Equestrian Coach Development and High Performance Consultant Michel Assouline discusses the Paralympic sport of para-equestrian dressage (also know as para dressage). The "para" part of this demanding sport's name refers to its being parallel to the sport of able-bodied dressage.
“It’s really a sport,” Assouline says of para dressage. “It’s the next transition up towards competitive sport, and that means you are basically competing as you would be as an able-bodied rider. You just have to learn how to deal with your disability on the horse.”
Top U.S. para dressage competitors Sydney Collier, Bea de Lavalette, Rebecca Hart, Kate Shoemaker, Cindy Screnci, and Roxanne Trunnell demonstrate some of the technical requirements of the sport's levels as Assouline covers such topics as how the sport functions; the Grades system, which the sport employs to regulate how athletes compete against each other, in terms of their disabilities; the dressage skills required in each Grade level; coaching; and some of the attributes horses must have to be competitive in para dressage.
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Key Principles:
Horses Coaches Grade I Grade II Grade III Grade IV Grade V