Ride it the way the horse already knows how.

Watch a stallion in the paddock when something catches his eye. He rounds his back, sits on his hocks and dances on the spot. Nobody taught him piaffe. He was born with it.

For more than two thousand years, the best horsemen have tried to keep that freedom under the saddle. Xenophon, writing in ancient Greece, put it simply:

"What the horse does under compulsion … is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer."Xenophon, On Horsemanship, translated by Morgan

The great riding masters who followed built a whole art on that idea: training should leave a horse stronger, straighter and happier, never smaller.

Somewhere along the way, the sport drifted. Studies of top-level Grand Prix tests show that riding with the horse's nose behind the vertical became far more common between the 1990s and the 2000s, and that competition scoring tends to reward a deeper frame more than the rules intend. The FEI is now reviewing how harmony is scored, because riders, vets and the public have noticed. See the studies.

At CENTERLINE, we believe the rulebook already got it right. The FEI's own rules say the object of dressage is "a happy athlete". We take those words at face value.

So we're building a test caller that teaches every movement to the standard the rulebook describes. Every test is called on time, every line is mapped on the arena, and every tip puts the horse's body first. Our aim is the top of the scale, reached with nothing but the horse's natural ability, while keeping a healthy, happy horse that is never harmed on the way there. From your first Preparatory test to the Grand Prix, we're here to bring dressage back to the centre line.

What we stand for

1. Pure gaits. A clear four-beat walk, two-beat trot and three-beat canter at every level. Collection never at the cost of rhythm.
2. Correct biomechanics. Poll the highest point, nose on or just in front of the vertical, a horse that carries itself from behind.
3. The handbook as the bar. We teach what judges are asked to reward, movement by movement.
4. The horse's side. If a shortcut would win a mark but cost the horse, we don't teach it.
5. Honest claims. We only say a tool works once we've tested it, and we show how we tested it.

Who we are