About Cowboy Dressage

"When dressage suits your needs, but a stetson suits your livestyle."

Born in the USA, growing in Europe

The birth of Cowboy Dressage® has been a lifetime journey. Starting as a dream of a young Shepard boy, tending a flock of sheep and goats in the hills of Jerusalem, to the famed and accomplished U.S. horseman he is today has been an adventure to say the least. The life of this celebrated horseman reads like a real-life adventure series.

If anything Eitan’s life has taught him it is that he wished to find a better way to train horses. 
With all the success and failures along the way he found one thing to be the most important, kindness. Kindness combined with patience, respect and understanding was the key to good horsemanship. Without these key ingredients, horse training is just a vocation, not an art and Eitan Beth-Halachmy if anything is an artist.

From these years of thought and experience Cowboy Dressage® was born.  
At first it defined Eitan’s style and the look of his saddle horses. Now it is one of the fastest growing western equestrian disciplines the US and abroad. Combining classical dressage training principles with the horsemanship skills of the old West. It is this new and very popular discipline that Eitan gives and leaves the best of himself for others to learn and grow from. He hopes that Cowboy Dressage® will create better horseman and happier horses for the future.

In the USA Cowboy Dressage® has already developed into a well know equestrian discipline, with several clinics, playdays and gatherings in most States. In Europe more and more people are getting aware of its existence.

In Cowboy Dressage® we find the bases of training our self and our horses for Trail riding, all the Western Riding disciplines, Working Equitation (WE), Technique de Randonnée Equestre de Compétition (TREC), but also our regular 'European' dressage and jumping competitions. But Cowboy Dressage® adds to this training our self and our horses with Soft Feel and Partnership, and puts this above everything else.

In order to make sure that you are getting the right information, staying true and pure to the concept of Cowboy Dressage®, Eitan and Debbie Beth-Halachmy registered Cowboy Dressage® as a trademark in 1994, and 'Cowboy Dressage® World' (CDW) was set up. CDW manages the structure of Cowboy Dressage®. They are the ones who as a group write the rules, tests and general criteria. They manage the judging school and horse shows.
Their job is huge and daunting. This is a tight knit group who are dedicated to each other and all who support Cowboy Dressage®.
Cowboy Dressage® World makes Cowboy Dressage® happen!

All Cowboy Dressage® clinicians and ambassadors must adhere to the requirements set by CDW.  Only those recognised by CDW, and therefor published at their website, are official Cowboy Dressage® representatives. They are all part of the Cowboy Dressage® World Professional Association (CDWPA).
With Cowboy Dressage®World Europe (CDW-E) we hope to help you too get started on your own Cowboy Dressage® journey. Even though we are united by one central website, every country with an active Cowboy Dressage® community may get its own national page within the European website.
Just contact us.


Cowboy Dressage® Scotland, Gathering 2019

Brochure 2019/2020

Cowboy Dressage's full history

Visit
the home of
Cowboy Dressage®:
Wolf Creek
 

Soft Feel

  What is Soft Feel?
CDW Mision &Vision statement.
 
 

Cowboy Dressage World (CDW)

the official website:

 

Cowboy Dressage in a nut-shell

8 questions, answered by Dr. Jenni Grimmit, explain in a nut shell what Cowboy Dressage® is about.

Cowboy Dressage
'Riding, Training, and Competing with Kindness as the Goal and Guiding Principle.'
Coauthered by Eitan Beth-Halachmy, first published in 2015

 
Dressage
'The Cowboy Way'
Coauthered by Eitan Beth-Halachmy, first published in 2018