How many dressage riders in the US? And at what level are they riding?

[Badger]

I know the stats for eventing from a column Denny did a couple years ago (25K eventers competing both recognized and unrecognized; less than 1% compete at advanced, 3% at intermediate, 7% at prelim, 15% at training, 75% at novice and below).

What are the stats for dressage? Someone asked me this weekend, and I couldn't find it out via googling. I couldn't even find out how many USDF members there are by going to the website.

[Dressage Art]

http://www.usdf.org/press/facts-stats/index.asp

USDF Membership:

304 Business Memberships
20,177 Participating Memberships
15,214 Group Member Organization Memberships
129 Affiliated Group Member Organizations
37 Intercollegiate/Interscholastic Member Organizations
850 Recognized Competitions


The federation currently has more than 35,000 members:

90% are adults
96% are female
66% are over the age of 41 years of age
96% own at least one horse
87% compete at least one horse
37% own at least five acres of land
70% have an income of $75,000 and above

Competitive Dressage Horses:

High insured values
Large investment and long-term relationship between horse and rider
Average competitive life is ten years
Peak performance age average is twelve years
Average age at which a horse is USDF lifetime registered is 7.5 years
13,666 new horses have been registered since 2005
92% increase in the horses competing at USDF recognized shows

[merrygoround]

I'd almost be willing to wager that at least 75% are Training Level or First.

[Speedy]

I'd almost be willing to wager that at least 75% are Training Level or First.

I think that's probably about right, too. It's not surprising in eventing or dressage - not everyone plays in the MBA either.

[poltroon]

If you look up the report that the Nerd Herd did for the Qualification Standards Proposal, you'll get a very good snapshot of the relative attendance at each level.

[Badger]

Good idea, Poltroon! I just went to the report and found this:

"Today, the number of entries decreases by 30% to 40% at each major step between Training/First level, Second/Third level, Fourth, PSG, Intermediate, and GP. There were 24,619 rides at Training and First verses 648 at Grand Prix. This produces a ration of about 40 Training/First rides for every GP ride."

However, since a rider is more likely to ride multiple test in a day at Training than at Grand Prix, the number of rides doesn't exactly represent the ratio. And a portion of those Training rides may be Grand Prix riders on green horses, so separating them out from the strictly training level riders would also change the ratio a bit.

There is a table on page 9 of the summary that shows the breakdown of "# of rides" a bit further:

http://www.pvda.org/Lists/Articles/Attachments/36/Statistical%20Analysis%20of%20USDF%202008%20Compet ition%20Data-Summary.pdf

Again, this is "rides" not "riders," but I figured out the percentages from their chart and got the following:

Training 30% of rides
First 26%
Second 15%
Third 12%
Fourth 8%
PSG 4.5%
Int 2.5%
GP 1.5%

So: 70% of rides are at second and below; fewer than 8.5% are at FEI.

Would love to know how this changes if the we are talking "riders" instead of test rides.

[Dressage Art]

So it's 1.5 GP riders on every 100 riders? Strange, I know local barns with multiple GP riders... I wonder in % will be higher if statistics are covering 20-40 year period?

[FriesianX]

So it's 1.5 GP riders on every 100 riders? Strange, I know local barns with multiple GP riders... I wonder in % will be higher if statistics are covering 20-40 year period?

Actually, it makes a lot of sense, because there are many, many barns without a single FEI rider! Including the resident trainer. In fact, many don't have a single rider who has ventured out of 2nd level. Yeah, I can think of a few barns with several GP riders too (probably some of the same barns you are thinking of DA), but I can think of many more that have no FEI riders.

AND, I'd venture a bit further. The geek squad analyzed USDF shows - those are the people who feel far enough along to show at a rated show. If you could gather schooling show data, people who are not bothering with rated shows, you'd probably see even more people in the Intro through 2nd Level. They are still dressage riders, still a core part of our community:yes:

[carovet]

So it's 1.5 GP riders on every 100 riders? Strange, I know local barns with multiple GP riders... I wonder in % will be higher if statistics are covering 20-40 year period?

i bet i know more places with more local barns with no one over 1st level than you do multiple barns with multiple gp riders outside of wellington and sandiego

:)

[Badger]

So it's 1.5 GP riders on every 100 riders? Strange, I know local barns with multiple GP riders... I wonder in % will be higher if statistics are covering 20-40 year period?

NO.

It's 1.5 Grand Prix test rides out of every 100 tests ridden in recognized shows during the sample period.

The stats I'd like to find are for riders, but I haven't found those. I don't know how the percentages will change between rides vs. riders. There are several issues that would affect this:

(1) dressage riders who compete only at unrecognized shows weren't included in the ride sample
(2) riders should be counted only at their highest level, i.e. if someone is showing GP on one horse and first level on a green horse, they should be considered a GP rider—so the lower level numbers would need to have the upper level riders sorted out.
(3) at the lower levels, multiple tests are more likely to be ridden...so one training level rider might ride 8 tests in a show weekend, whereas a GP rider might ride only one or two. That's four to eight times as many tests, but the same number of riders, so the proportions of "tests" vs "riders" can't be considered equal.
(4) there may be more people "dabbling" at the lower levels than at the upper levels...at training and first, riders who do one or two shows a year whereas someone with a competing Grand Prix horse may be more likely to be a pro who spends a lot of time going to shows. So in that regard, "X" number of GP riders may well show more often than the same number of lower level riders.
(5) it may or may not be the case that riders who have reached the upper level more often are competing more than one horse at that level (whether they own both horses or are riding for other owners), whereas a greater percentage of riders with single mounts are still at the lower levels.

All these factors could affect whether or not the ratio of "tests ridden" is the same as the ratio for "rider level."

Do you think theses factors probably balance out so the "tests ridden" ratio is a decent predictor of "rider level"?

[slc2]

somewhere I read that 92% of dressage rides in the US (test rides) are at training level. That includes eventing dressage.

I don't think you can go by the one or two big coast shows that has a lot of FEI riders.

I think there are very many more riders at Training Level than any other level. There are multiple huge classes at most shows every day for training level. The numbers at the other levels just aren't there.

Too, one has to consider, that without any qualification to ride at any level, what test people enter at a USEF show may not really indicate what level they are good or competent at.

[Dressage Art]

There is no way to count riders for schooling shows - most of them are held/organized privately. Levels will be easier, and from my experience lots of Intro Levels, as much as 4 and 1/2 hours of Intro Level at one schooling show I judged. + some fun dressage classes like dressage for trail riders, lead rope class, prix caprilli... Many of those riders are not members of USDF/USEF/GMO and I personally think they ARE the true grass roots of US dressage.

Then there are even more riders who ride dressage, but never showed for various reasons. How do you count them?

The depressing side effect from this statistics is that we all have a whooping 1.5% in riding a GP test… What are the odds for Lottery? I wonder how many COTH posters rode recognized GP test in their life?

[karin o]

Hi , does anyone have the time to fit all these details and stats above into one document that could be compiled and added to as more information is gathered ? Maybe Coth would give us a static thread that wouldn't slide away. Maybe Theo could chime in and tell us about Holland so we could look for similar growing trends. I'd like to hear about Germany too..Barnmice ? .actually, everywhere..... it will show us having multiple competitions every week, in every area actually grows the sports. We would need to ask these private competitions to share their info on the riders and rides. Maybe the Chronicle would help. Perhaps we could use this thread as a place for the unrecognized shows to deposit data to answer these questions. Is this a useful idea ?
ko

[freestyle2music]

Dutch info can be found at :

http://www.knhs.nl//objects/00010404.pdf

Details discussed can be found at :

www.topdressage.tv/KNHS-Details-01.jpg