DefinitelyDressage.com

Hi guys,

I just discovered Google Trends and of course the first thing I looked at was dressage. In a nutshell, interest in dressage has been on a slow decline since 2004. There have been peaks around the olympics, of course.

Also interesting, New Zealand had the highest per capita searches for dressage over that time. Followed by the UK, France, Australia, and Belgium.

Here's the link. Check it out - the visualizations are much better than my poor description:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dressage

Also, here's the link for the comparison of dressage, eventing, and show jumping:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=dressage,show%20jumping,eventing

If you find any cool trends, share them here.

Have fun.

Well that shows why dressage in Zambia was so complicated lmao

LOL. Chisamba that's pretty funny.

I thought this was super cool - maybe that's the geek in me but I spent about an hour on google trends looking at interest in all the different horse sports, in different animals, in stuff related to my work. I was quite surprised that there's been declining interest in dressage. I can't figure out why that is - I would think it would be increasing. Anyone have any theories as to why it would be decreasing? Or maybe I'm the only one here who likes to geek out over stuff like this.

Thanks for pointing this out, Rosie. I've been looking over various work-related topics. It does seem very news-related to me when spikes occur.

Rosie, my two quick thoughts about an apparent decline are, on the professional side, the cost and the lack of prize money from competitions (I'm gobsmacked at the dollars available to the assorted jumping world); and on the lower level side, the difficulty in mastering the sport. Me? I like a challenge, but at my age and with my other interests, I just use it for training and creating a more fit horse. I'm not leaving my property any more in any attempt to test my progress.

I wonder if people are becoming more specific in their searches? I rarely put the word 'dressage' in my searches, it's more specific. Just a thought?