The Manège

Manège is the name for the arena or school in which lessons and exercises are taken. It can also be spelt 'manage'.

It is traditionally marked with lettered points around the perimeter as shown below. As to why the letters are laid out in such an odd fasion I've no idea - if you can shed light on this please let me know.

A competition dressage arena works on a similar layout except it is 60m in length and has extra lettered points.

Here are some of the basic terms used to describe parts of the manège.

The centreline line runs from A to C.
The quarterlines or ¾ lines run halfway between the centreline and the wall or rails.
The midline is the short centre line from B to E
The diagonals are described as long if they are ridden from corner to corner (in this example from M to K) or short if from a corner to a centre point E or B.

In the How To section is an extensive listing of how to use the full extent of the manege in schooling the horse.

Next - circles.