THE COWBOY DRESSAGE COURTS
“Dressage is just a French word for training. We can dressage a parrot, dressage a cat, dressage a monkey. Don’t be worried about the word ‘dressage.’ Just ride your horse.” 
In Cowboy Dressage, we have three “Courts,” 20 by 40 meters, that we ride in competition settings: the Cowboy Dressage Court, the Cowboy Dressage Challenge Court, and the Partnership Court. Each of the three Courts has a specific purpose in training our horses from the ground up. All three of the Courts are designed to be user-friendly for optimum success and accuracy in riding. A big part of building softness and responsiveness in our horses is the ability to softly guide them through the Court with accuracy. The Cowboy Dressage Courts give us a framework for building that accuracy.
The Cowboy Dressage Court is the same size as the traditional small dressage arena but has the added benefit of having a marker every 5 meters all the way around. This makes the entire Court able to be read and ridden on a simple 5-meter grid pattern. Once a rider is familiar with the concept of the 5-meter grid, riding maneuvers and patterns become much simpler, taking the guesswork out of the ride and allowing horse and rider to focus on softness, partnership, and harmony. Cowboy Dressage added four letters to the traditional Court that mark the quarter lines: Q and Y at the C end of the Court, and J and N at the A end of the Court.
Familiarizing yourself with the lay of the land and the seemingly random assortment of alphabet soup that is the Cowboy Dressage Court is essential when you begin to use the Court to school your horse and ride tests. Going through the steps of setting up your Court at home can be a great way to learn where the letters are and how they are paired on the Court in the common maneuvers.
Read more: Dressage the Cowboy Way
http://cowboydressage.com/storefront.html.
After you master the Cowboy Dressage & the Cowboy Dressage Challenge Courts Set-up, you can mark the location of all your cones, ground poles, the octagon and the rest of the court with Whisker Markers.
You will need 46 x 6in long Whiskers, 46 #14 x 4 & 3/4in long Construction Screws, hammer,
#3 x 6 in long Philips Screwdriver, and plier wrench.
Hammer a pilot hole with your #3 screwdriver 6in deep. Squeeze the metal ring of the whisker around the #14 screw with your plier and insert them inside the hole (hammer or screw them) using the same # 3 screwdriver. Leave between 2in to 3in whiskers above the ground depends on the depth of your drag.
“The Cowboy Dressage Court is our classroom and our playground. We use the Court to educate our horses and build partnership to help our horses and ourselves be the very best we can be”.
