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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Across 25 qualifiers this year, the top dressage horses and riders competing in the US ride for points and a spot at the $200,000 US Equestrian Open of Dressage Final, held this November at Desert International Horse Park in Thermal, California. Every combination rides the same Grand Prix test, then choreographs those same movements to music in the Grand Prix Freestyle, where it can start to look a lot like dancing. If you have ever watched and wondered what the announcer means by "piaffe," or why one trot looks nothing like the next, this guide will clear it up.</p>
<h2 style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 28px 0 12px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Basics</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dressage has its own language, and most of it describes one of two things: gaits or movements.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">gait</strong> is how the horse is traveling. There are three: walk, trot and canter. Each has its own rhythm and footfall, from the four-beat walk to the rolling three-beat canter. Speed within a gait can change too, which we'll get into in a minute.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">movement</strong> is a specific, trained exercise the horse performs inside a gait. A half pass is a movement. So is a pirouette. The Grand Prix test is a fixed sequence of these, ridden in a set order, each one scored on its own. In the Freestyle, riders have a prescribed list of movements they must ride, but they can choreograph them however they like.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One more word you will hear constantly: <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">the hindquarters.</strong> The back end. The engine. Almost everything good in dressage starts there.</p>
<h2 style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 28px 0 12px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Collection</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If there is one idea that separates Grand Prix dressage from a horse trotting around in a field, it is <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">collection</strong>.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As a horse becomes more trained, it learns to carry more of its weight on its hind legs. The hind joints bend, the back end lowers, and the front end lifts and lightens. Instead of relying on the rider for support, the horse learns to hold itself in what is called <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">self-carriage</strong>. This way of going dramatically improves the quality of the gait and makes the horse more adjustable and responsive to subtle cues. Collection is behind every difficult movement in the sport. A horse cannot trot on the spot or skip across the arena in tempi changes without it.</p>
<h2 style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 28px 0 12px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Collected vs. Extended</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is where newcomers, and plenty of regulars too, get tangled up. Collection, the state above, is not the same thing as the collected gaits, even though they share the word.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Picture the hindquarters as a coiled spring. Collection is the act of compressing it: the horse bends its hind joints and shifts its weight back to load the spring. What the rider does with that loaded spring decides the gait.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In a <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">collected trot or canter</strong>, the rider keeps the spring compressed and lets the energy go up. The steps get higher, shorter and bouncier. The horse covers less ground, with more lift.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In an <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">extended trot or canter</strong>, the rider releases that same spring forward. The frame lengthens and the legs reach for maximum ground cover, while the weight stays back over the hindquarters, where the engine lives.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The key: a real extension is collection released forward, not the horse simply running faster. Without collection first, the extension falls apart one of two ways. The horse gets quick and flat and falls onto its forehand, or it flings its front legs out for show while the hind legs trail behind doing none of the work. The flashy reach always comes from the rear-wheel drive.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are gears in between, too. "Medium" trot, for example, sits between collected and extended, though that version of the gait isn't seen at the highest level.</p>
<h2 style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 28px 0 12px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Half-Halt</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So how does a rider ask a 1,000-pound prey animal to shift its weight backwards and load that spring? A tiny little crucially important tool called a <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">half-halt</strong>.</p>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A half-halt is a quick, near-invisible rebalancing. For a moment the rider's seat, leg and hand ask the horse to shift its weight back and gather itself, without actually slowing down. If you have ever driven a manual car, it is the friction point: the moment you let the clutch up just enough to engage the gear and feel the power connect, before you actually accelerate. You collect the energy instead of letting it spill forward. Watch a top rider and you will rarely catch it happening. You only see the result: a perfectly executed movement.</p>
<h2 style="font-size: 18px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 28px 0 12px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Movements</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 18px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Load the spring, balance it with the half-halt, and the horse can do the cool, flashy things that make a Grand Prix test so fascinating to watch. Here are the ones you will see most.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Half Pass</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The horse travels forward and sideways at once, crossing the arena on a diagonal while bent in the direction it is going. The legs cross over, the body stays roughly parallel to the long side, and it should look smooth and uphill. Not to be confused with the leg yield, a more basic version taught early on, where the horse moves sideways while bent away from the direction of travel. The half pass is the grown-up cousin: more bend, more collection, more expression.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Zig-Zag</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This one happens only at the canter. String several half passes together, switching direction, and you get the zig-zag. The horse half-passes one way, throws in a flying change, then half-passes the other, repeating in a counted, symmetrical pattern down the centerline. It looks like a skier carving linked turns through a slalom, and it tests balance and obedience as much as sideways reach.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Flying Change</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At the canter, one front leg always leads. A flying change is the horse swapping which leg leads in mid-air, in the split second all four feet are off the ground. A clean single change looks effortless. It is also the building block for the showpiece below.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tempi Changes</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now do those changes in a row, on a set count. Every fourth stride is a four-tempi, every third a three, every second a two, and every single stride a <strong style="color: #001c54; font-weight: bold;">one-tempi</strong>, or "ones." At the Grand Prix level the test calls for fifteen one-tempis in a row. The ones are the crowd favorite. Done well, a line of them looks like the horse is skipping across the arena. And set to music? They will put a smile on your face.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Piaffe</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A trot on the spot. The horse trots with full cadence and elevation while staying more or less in one place. This is collection taken to the limit: nearly all the weight loaded onto the hindquarters, the spring fully compressed and held rather than released. One of the hardest things a horse can be asked to do, and a centerpiece of the Grand Prix.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Passage</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A trot in slow motion. The horse moves forward, but with huge elevation and a long, floating moment of suspension where it seems to hang in the air between steps, kind of like the airwalk or slickback dance move. If piaffe is the spring held in place, passage is that same power rolled forward into something that looks weightless.</p>
<h3 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; margin: 22px 0 8px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pirouette</h3>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 14px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A turn on the spot. In a canter pirouette, the horse keeps cantering while its hind legs stay almost planted and the front end circles around them, through a full 360 degrees. Think of a figure skater pulling into a spin, the hindquarters as the axis. It takes serious collection to hold a clean canter rhythm while turning that tight.</p>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">That is what the horses are doing. What it is worth is another question. Next time we will get into how the judges turn all of this into a number: the marks out of ten, the movements that count double, the collective marks, and what "degree of difficulty" really means once the music starts.</p>
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<div style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.3; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maryland and the Numbers Game</div>
<div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bellissimo and Pamukcu hunt points as the top of the table tightens.</div>
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<div style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.3; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">USA Second in Rotterdam</div>
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<div style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.3; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holzer Leads into the Break</div>
<div style="font-size: 12px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.4; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Six points cover the top five, with two qualifiers still to run.</div>
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Marcos Orlob and Jane in extended trot in a dressage test

Piaffe, Passage and Pirouette: A Beginner's Guide to Grand Prix Dressage Movements 

Marilyn Little on the Open Weekly Graphic

The Open Weekly: Maryland, Rotterdam & Holzer Holds

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<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #83b1d6; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">#1</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">US Equestrian Open of Dressage leaderboard</div>
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<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">75.010%</div>
<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Best qualifying score this season</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11px; color: #6b7280; line-height: 1.35; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Best result at a Series qualifier</div>
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<div style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: 800; color: #001c54; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 4px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4/4</div>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Ashley Holzer</strong> sits at the top of the US Equestrian Open of Dressage leaderboard through four qualifiers, her consistency built around a partnership that did not come easy. In the latest episode of the US Equestrian Open Podcast, she spoke with host Annie about her mare <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Hawtins San Floriana</strong>, the freestyle that carries a personal story, and what keeps her competing at the highest level. Below are some of the highlights, but the full conversation is worth your time.</p>

<h2 style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; color: #001c54; margin: 24px 0 10px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Mare</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holzer acquired <strong style="font-weight: 600; color: #001c54;">Hawtins San Floriana</strong>, known at home as Flo, from Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin. She was expecting a smooth transition. That is not what she got. The mare tested her patience, challenged her horsemanship, and, by Holzer's own account, made her a better rider. The connection that exists today was earned over time.</p>

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<div style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 16px;">&ldquo;She put me in my place a few times. I really learned a lot from this horse. I think I became a better rider because of the horse.&rdquo;</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #83b1d6;">Ashley Holzer on Hawtins San Floriana</div>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holzer described the difference between geldings and mares with characteristic candor: with a mare, she said, you do not just ask. You ask, then ask again with a please, then send flowers. The approach paid off. She now hacks Flo through the English countryside at Carl Hester's yard and describes the partnership as one she feels genuine joy in every day.</p>

<h2 style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; color: #001c54; margin: 24px 0 10px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Freestyle</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The music is Neil Diamond's "Coming to America." Holzer, originally Canadian with Scottish-born parents, immigrated to the United States and built her life here. The song maps onto that journey in a way that is deeply personal. New York, Los Angeles, blue jeans and horses. She worked the choreography with Tom Hunt, who built in audio cues so she knows, without counting, when the next movement is coming.</p>

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<div style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.4; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 14px;">&ldquo;A lot of the music really resonates with me. That's why I chose it. And I think that's where it just makes it even more special to ride it because I have fun riding it.&rdquo;</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #83b1d6;">Ashley Holzer on her freestyle music choice</div>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She also made a point about what the freestyle is technically, for anyone who has not ridden one: you are not just performing movements, you are synchronising yourself to music in real time, adjusting when you get behind it or ahead of it, deciding in the moment whether to use your joker line if something goes wrong. The joker line is a pre-planned optional sequence that lets a rider repeat a difficult movement, such as flying changes, if the first attempt fails. Choosing not to include one raises the degree of difficulty score, but removes the safety net entirely. In a freestyle, the margin for error is less forgiving than a standard test.</p>

<h2 style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; color: #001c54; margin: 24px 0 10px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Why the Series Matters</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holzer was direct about what the US Equestrian Open provides for horses and riders at this level: atmosphere, repetition, and pressure that is not team-selection pressure. Going into a ring with lights and a crowd and music requires a horse to be genuinely comfortable there. The Series builds that, qualifier by qualifier. Flo was nervous in the main ring at the start of the season. That has since changed.</p>

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<div style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 16px;">&ldquo;To feel her sort of relax into that as the season went along was pretty wonderful.&rdquo;</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #83b1d6;">Ashley Holzer on Hawtins San Floriana's progression through the Series</div>
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<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">She also spoke about what made her fall into the sport in the first place: a book her father gave her, cousins on ponies in Scotland, a phone call she made to a local riding stable without her parents knowing, and a deal she brokered to get three other kids to sign up so the lesson numbers worked. All four went. Only one stayed.</p>

<h2 style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; color: #001c54; margin: 24px 0 10px 0; padding-bottom: 6px; border-bottom: 1px solid #eef0f5; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Consistency and Patience</h2>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.72; color: #1a1a2e; margin: 0 0 16px 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Holzer closed with something she said she tells students regularly. If you are patient, clear, kind, and consistent with a horse, the partnership comes. It might take a week. It might take two years. But it comes.</p>

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<div style="font-size: 22px; font-weight: 800; line-height: 1.35; color: #001c54; margin-bottom: 16px;">&ldquo;You've just gotta believe in the process, work with your coach, work with your animal, and be patient. But it will happen.&rdquo;</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #83b1d6;">Ashley Holzer</div>
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<div style="font-size: 11px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.16em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #83b1d6; margin-bottom: 8px;">Listen to the Full Episode</div>
<p style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.65; color: rgba(255,255,255,0.85); margin: 0 0 16px 0;">The full conversation covers Ashley's origin story, her career path from eventing to dressage, what keeps her competing at this stage of her career, and more from her time at Carl Hester's yard.</p>
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<p style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.7; color: rgba(255,255,255,0.85); margin: 0; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The mission of the US Equestrian Open is to grow and foster a deeper connection to equestrian sport by delivering a premier, unified championship series that engages a broader fanbase through top-level competition, storytelling, and a dynamic, entertaining experience.</p>
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Ashley Holzer on Flo, Neil Diamond, and What the Series Is For

Can anyone catch Tamie Smith?

The 2026 Finals

Wellington CSI5* Grand Prix

Morven Park CCI4*‑L

Desert CDI5* Freestyle

5 Things to Follow at Maryland International

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5 Things to Follow at Maryland International

Piaffe, Passage and Pirouette: A Beginner's Guide to Grand Prix Dressage Movements

The Open Weekly: Maryland, Rotterdam & Holzer Holds

Ashley Holzer on Flo, Neil Diamond, and What the Series Is For

Can anyone catch Tamie Smith?

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