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2005 USDF National Symposium by Klaus Balkenhol and Gerd Heuschmann, DVM The horse’s nose must remain in front of the vertical. If the nose is behind the vertical, it must be addressed. If the nose is behind the vertical on a loose rein, then it means that the horse must have been ridden behind the vertical for quite some time and has grown comfortable with it—then the training program needs to be examined. Open in the neck is correct. Problems with behind the vertical can be addressed with elevation relative to the horse’s build, asking the horse to stretch forward to the hand, stretching forward to the bit in continuous contact, remaining in light connection, and working over the back, taking the rider along. In between movements, bring the horse a little more forward and then a little more back to increase the expression. The rider must be the pilot. When there are mistakes in the flying changes, the rider should not stop the horse on the diagonal, turn and start again. This only serves to confuse the horse. The rider should continue on the diagonal in normal canter and ask themselves, “Why?” Usually mistakes are the result of lack of rider concentration, but there can also be problems from lack of concentration on the part of the horse, who does not focus properly on the rider’s aids. If the horse has not concentrated on the rider’s aids, use the short side to increase engagement and sensitivity, possibly using the whip and half halts to bring the horse back to the rider and the rider’s aids. Do not, however, punish the horse with half halts that are too strong or with excessive spur. This would cause tension and destroy needed suppleness. Do not drill flying changes until nothing works in the end, either. Instead, take a break until the horse forgets the mistakes and then return to this exercise later in the training session. MISTAKES ARE OK. We can learn from them. Horses make mistakes. Their concentration is not always what we want from them. Riders make mistakes. Our task is to make mistakes only once, if possible. We collect experience this way. Our job is to ask why the mistakes occurred. It is important that we do not keep the horse too long in the highest levels of collection in canter when schooling pirouettes. Start schooling first with a few strides of very collected canter on a large circle, then ride pirouettes once the very collected canter has been established. Don’t drill. KB had the rider ride half pass in between. The rider may need the whip in the pirouette to avoid loss of impulsion. When a rider is having trouble with changes, change the line the changes are being ridden on (i.e., M to A). If they are always ridden on the same line, the horse and rider start thinking about the mistake and the rider’s aids unconsciously get more tight, and the horse reacts, causing the mistakes to recur in the same spot. Changing the line can erase the mistake. If, in the extended canter, the horse wants to do tempi’s instead, ride a line without any change on reaching the long side (wait until A or C). If the trouble persists, ride HA or FH. Changing the line can be helpful here, as well. Riding a different line can give the horse the idea that tempi’s are not what the rider has in mind. (In this rider’s case, the extended canter had followed several lines of medium canter, and the horse had evidently decided it was time for something new—the rider was a highly skilled and elegant Olympic rider, and clearly wasn’t doing anything to ask for them). If we’re honest, when a horse makes a flying change, we tend to correct the horse too hard. What we really need to do is find another way to make the horse understand and then move on to something else. Overreaction causes tension and disturbs training. If horses didn’t make mistakes, we wouldn’t learn from the horse’s mistakes, or our own mistakes. It’s from mistakes, theirs and ours, that we learn and the horse is educated. The horse must not go shorter in the neck when he is brought back. If a horse has a tendency to go behind the vertical, he can be asked to stretch on the circle, then asked to bring his head up again without shortening the neck. The horse must be taught to half halt from the leg/seat and less from the reins so that the horse’s speed is rated without coming behind the bit. There is an art to keeping the frame from closing too much, and balancing the driving and restraining aids, with some horses too tight in the hand and not sensitive enough to the restraining aids. From youth, horses must be taught to yield to the bit by being given immediate release when they give a correct response (and if they do not, it is the rider/trainer’s responsibility to rule-out a problem with the equipment). If they do not, then the rider must correct failure to respond due to stubbornness with a strong half halt but then return to giving sensitive aids. Some horses are naturally sensitive while others are naturally dull. Sometimes strong half halts are necessary to make a horse sensitive again. If a horse does not respond, the rider must give a strong aid, but the strong aid must NOT become a normal way of riding. The rider must demand success and get a positive outcome so that the horse learns that if he responds, the rider will leave him alone again. In this way, he will learn to be more sensitive. KB told of a horse that had trouble with resistance, stopping and turning frequently. Klaus looked into the situation and found that the horse had trouble with his bits. Always, when a horse has problems, particularly new problems, the rider must look for a correctable cause, particularly with bits and saddle fit. The painted horse returned… this time, Lombardi, ridden by Steffen Peters at Grand Prix, to demonstrate the articulation of the cervical spine and pelvis/haunches in the upper level movements/collection, and also the nuchal ligament function in collection. There was a clear lowering of the haunches in passage, and even more for piaffe, with the pelvis clearly rotating from roughly horizontal towards vertical. We also saw that when the hind legs were too close to the front legs, it was harder for the horse to go out of piaffe into passage, whether it was because the hine legs were too forward or the front legs were too far back. Guenter Seidel rode an exhibition freestyle on Aragon, after which KB worked with him on a few elements of the test. KB and GH discussed the Grand Prix Freestyle Test and said how important they felt it was that the basic gaits be shown, and that their purity be maintained. They felt that the halt should not be eliminated, and that the scoring must remain clear for purity, particularly in the extended walk and extended trot. They said that the extended walk should remain, or else that we would be leaving the classical training philosophy altogether. The afternoon was spent with Grand Prix horses. In piaffe, the rein affects the diagonal hind leg. In piaffe, the whip should NOT be used for impulsion, or else the horse will become dependent on it and then the rider will be in trouble in a test. If the horse loses impulsion, the rider should freshen the impulsion in canter, and then return to piaffe. (A little use of the whip to help the rhythm is acceptable, but not more.) Care should be taken that the horse is not made tired in these difficult exercises—give the horse frequent rest breaks. Also, break up the work with less challenging exercises. The aim is to get the horse to respond to light aids so that the horse does the work almost on his own. It is important to keep checking that the basic foundation is in order, even in the Grand Prix horse. On the day before or the day of a test, the rider may not ride any movements at all but only work on the basic foundation and acceptance of the aids. Tension will cause irregularity in passage. This can be addressed with walk in between schooling, letting the horse stretch more with an allowing hand. The quality of the passage will then improve. When schooling, educating is the #1 priority—NOT making the horse tired. If the rider becomes unsure in passage, the rider should ride forward. It is important to maintain the contact—in most cases, what is missing is the hand softly on the horse’s mouth. Balanced driving/restraining aids, with contact lightly on the horse’s mouth is the secret to passage. The walk is important. Stay connected, while the horse is asked to step through. The horse’s steps are not allowed to shorten—should not be allowed to shorten, even on a hack. The rider must pay attention to the length of stride, and the quality of a gait, even on a hack. Horses are bored with walk—we cannot make it better, but we cannot allow it to get worse. The rider must keep the leg on, but not pinching. Klaus would like to see the Grand Prix test changed so that the changes are ridden in medium canter again, and so that the halt, reinback, walk forward, reinback, and then forward again is returned. Both demand correct basics and suppleness from the horse. Piaffe is problematic for some horses, causing them to lose impulsion and their hindlegs to come together. In a horse with this problem, KB had the rider think “passage on the spot” with attention towards maintenance of impulsion, tapping the croup if needed. The horse had rubber doughnuts on the pasterns to prevent injury—it was important to prevent pain during the exercises, particularly since the horse was close behind during the piaffe. Half pass was used in between the periods of piaffe work to increase impulsion/expression. Important to work on tempi’s in relaxation. Making the horse tense when you work on changes will not result in success. The correct training program will result in systematic gymnasticizing of the horse according to classical training principles. It has been established over centuries and will not change in the next 20 years. KB and GH said we need brave judges who aren’t afraid to judge what they see. Riders ride what judges want to see. If judges judge what they see irrespective of rider, we’ll be back on the right track. Good horses are not necessarily expensive horses. KB had the right horses (and right human teachers) to learn from prior to Goldstern (who was NOT expensive), and then had the right coach and adequate time to bring Goldstern along to make him his Olympic partner. Only riders that can accept critique can turn it into a positive and improve. |
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