tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86843483025272532732024-02-20T15:52:47.746-05:00Dressage for the Western RiderThis is the diary of a journey. It begins at a small dusty horse show with a chestnut horse under western tack that is my forever image of HORSE. 40 years of riding, training and studying dressage followed and then a friend who said "my trainer might be willing to start your mustang if you give him dressage lessons." So now I'm teaching cowboys how straight and through can help work a cow and I'm having more fun than I've had in years.Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-20903426091994062532011-07-28T10:14:00.001-04:002011-07-28T10:21:16.962-04:00Temper or Pain?Sometimes we have to keep learning the same lesson over and over. Two horses in the past month have knocked me on the head and said listen up. No, make that three.<br />
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The first was Gambler, the mustang. He had reached a plateau in his training. No matter what tactics were used, under saddle he bolted, bucked and was unpredictable. I gave up any idea of ever being able to ride him, and Trent cut his work back to two times a week- sorta we're gonna ride you but we aren't expecting change. I began long lining him and he made rapid progress, was calm, receptive and seemed to enjoy the attention. Then on one of my twice a week visits to the barn I went into the stall to give him a little attention, and looked at his back. Maybe the light was different. Maybe he had lost a few more pounds. Whatever, his roach back dropping into deep shoulder pockets jumped out at me. I wondered how any saddle could fit such a conformation. Maybe no saddle would. I went home and ordered an expensive bridge pad, and the next time I came out I asked if Trent had one. Sure enough, Scott came up with one. I got Trent to check out the saddle they were using and how it would work with the pad. Some experimentation later and Gambler declared his approval. The next ride there was no bucking and bolting. It may not all be over, but now we're listening. So we tried the pad on another horse that had been grumpy lately. Again a change in attitude. <br />
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Then there is Remi, the Appaloosa mare I'm working. I'd already changed saddles with her because of her broad round back, but she was still a little tight and sometimes took a long warmup. I used that saddle at Trent's and it didn't get back to my barn, so I dug out an ancient saddle we bought for a walking couch of a horse. Remi declared her preference for this immediately. Either it really fits her better, or she knows that its old super flat close contact design is bruising for the rider and it's payback time. Actually I didn't notice the stirrup bars digging into my leg on her, so maybe we'll both be happy!<br />
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Saddle fit is not a new thing for me. I've had my english saddles reflocked to fit specific horses, checked every students tack, helped clients find new saddles when problems were found. The lesson here is ALWAYS look for physical problems with a horse that behaves normally on the ground and with its herd mates. The problem may be with the rider or with the training techniques, but start with tack that fits and is comfortable for the horse!<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-12223856783331461782011-07-09T08:33:00.000-04:002011-07-09T08:33:48.336-04:00Hard to believe it's been over a month since my last blog post. It's time to check in with the group that started this whole venture. There have been some changes. Trent is no longer riding Penny in the lessons. He bought a foundation bred filly, Hannah, and she is now his project. So here are some pictures and a bit of commentary.<br />
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The first picture is from a very early lesson with Penny. The tension in this mare is evident not only from her facial expression, but also in the muscles of the neck. Notice how the bottom muscles appear heavy and the top muscles undefined. There is no clear definition of the throat. Though not visable, this tension is held all the way through this mare's back, preventing her from engaging her hind legs. The result is that this mare is "cold backed" and if this tension is not addressed early in the ride she requires an hour or more of work before she let's go and begins to swing through her back. Trying to force a soft poll does nothing to help that tension. We'll have some more pictures of her in another blog about warming up the horse.<br />
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The second picture is of Hannah, Trent's new 3 yr old filly. Here Trent is starting with a fresh slate. This horse has no history to overcome. She is comfortable with the bit, accepting light contact without tension. Note the muscling of the neck, the clear definition of the throat latch. If you track the footfall you can tell that unlike Penny, the hind foot is going to step into the hoof print of the forefoot when it hits the ground. BTW, note Trent's leg position. He's riding without stirrups here. Like the horse, he is relaxed. Check the position of the upper arm, relaxed and hanging by his side, then compare the upper arm on Penny, where he is trying to be soft and instead is creating tension in his shoulders by hold the arms in front of his body. With less than 30 rides, this mare is already well on her way to a good basic education. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-71832695897208467212011-05-27T22:52:00.001-04:002011-05-27T23:00:07.728-04:00California Dreamin'I just spent a week in Lake County, CA with an old friend who is very interested in participating in Western Dressage. We spent our first day watching Jack Brainard teach a WD clinic. This was disappointing because it was so cold that we couldn't really get where we could hear everything Jack was saying, and the format of the clinic was sort of watch me, now you give it a try, but not a lot of detail. Of course we missed the first day, and it rained Sunday. My friend had separated ribs and would have been miserable in cold and rain, so we didn't get back, so I can't say much about what was taught at the clinic except that Lynne and I kept remarking that Jack really needed to take some time to help the rider of an Arabian that was trapped behind such short contact that it was bucking every time it was asked to go forward. The rider had a good seat and didn't seem disturbed by the giant kicking out, but he also didn't give the horse an inch more rein. Much to our delight after lunch Jack sent the pair into the round pen and made the young man ride the horse without touching the reins. In short order the horse, free at last to use it's head and neck, gave up the displays and began to work through all the transitions with no resistance.<br />
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I did have a chance to talk with Jack after the clinic was over. He was very gracious, but also very firm that this organization was for western riders and western horses. I got the impression that he was worried that it would be taken over by people who put dressage first, western second, with no real training in any of the western disciplines or the vaquero traditions. I can understand his concern. Personally I have great interest in biomechanics, what was California Reining when I started my professional career, and how dressage can be used to make more athletic horse, but I haven't trained a reiner or a western cow horse, so even though I've been asked by western trainers to help them with their horses and teach them how to apply dressage, I don't quite fit.<br />
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This left a big question. How many western trainers have the depth of understanding of the biomechanics of how dressage works to teach "western dressage?" How many dressage instructors have western backgrounds? Understanding the biomechanics is important, because work done wrong can cause serious damage to the joints of the horse. Understanding western work is crucial because of the goal to work on the curb alone.<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-6696710442541104962011-05-01T09:13:00.002-04:002011-05-08T22:53:21.772-04:00Contact VS Lightness in the mouth - it is really one or the other?I've sort of gotten off track on the terminology thread. Let's address one of the big differences between western and dressage interpretations. Contact. This one is so difficult if one hasn't ridden a fully trained western horse or a fully trained dressage horse. The first thing I hear from dressage people is that it isn't possible to get a horse to collect or more accurately, work through the topline, without contact. When you ask the average western trainer about contact, they talk about how dressage horses lean on the reins.<br />
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So what is contact? How does it affect the way the horse performs, and what happens if the horse never is trained to accept it?<br />
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For the dressage rider, contact is the connection between the horse's mouth and the rider's hand. Through contact, the rider holds a continuous conversation. What makes it work is the relaxation of the horse's jaw. When the jaw is relaxed, the horse can feel the slightest movement of the rider's hand and accept half halts softly, allowing leg to change body position which changes the feel in the mouth which causes the horse to give in the rib cage and allows the hind legs to swing under more which changes body position in a circle of reactions that allows the rider to shift weight to the rear, determine where the feet land on the ground, and ask for relaxation and suppleness throughout the horse's body.<br />
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With contact, the rider can create a horse that can lengthen and shorten through the topline and use the abdominal muscles to lift the back. For the western rider, translate the entire horse becomes soft and responsive to the rider and the horse will stretch out or collect without resistance.<br />
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I've always wished I had had a video of a student riding Commander. She wanted dressage lessons,but she was very concerned about having to hold the horse in with all that heavy contact. After her first lesson I had her go on a circle. We started on loose rein, took up a light contact, and stage by stage shortened the reins, asking the horse to come under more and more behind until he was doing a collected trot. While she was collected, I asked her "do you feel anymore pressure now that you did when you first took up contact?" The answer of course, was no. The feel of the mouth was the same. <br />
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What happens when the horse is worked from day one to not take contact but to stay behind the bit or bend the neck at the third vertebrae to avoid it? What I'm seeing are horses that don't work through the topline and are what my reining trainer calls "hard." They bend in the neck, they do lateral work all day long, but the circle of energy is blocked. There is no impression of willingness to round and lift the back combined with swing of the hindquarters. Often they don't really collect but just shorten the stride. They may do piaffe and canter backwards, but they lack the quality the very top reining horses show of ability to lengthen and shorten, bend through the body and yet stay loose. <br />
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Now here's the part that is so hard to explain. I've ridden western horses that where trained to "carry the bit." and work on "no contact" that were soft, supple and through. These horses shared one characteristic. When I took up my regular feel of the mouth, they quickly accepted it and worked to it just like my dressage horses. OTOH I've ridden horses that were scared to take contact and it was almost impossible to supple these horse because there was no way to "shape" the body. So contact isn't about how much pressure is felt through the reins. It's about having enough feel so the horse reacts to the changes of pressure in it's mouth. Acceptance of the bit means that when it feels changes in pressure, it doesn't brace or just react in the neck, but follows the guidance of the pressure to change the stride and reshape the entire body. The trainer can get there by insisting on balance and light feel from day one, or by asking for energy and engagement to create balance change over time, but the end result is a "light" AND "soft" horse.<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-87520495838679404102011-04-24T09:01:00.003-04:002011-05-27T07:44:15.099-04:00Preconceptions Make Translation Even More Difficult.This week has been one in which I've had to step back and acknowledge that my own preconceptions are part of the problem in the dialog between dressage and western terminology. I've had a hard time translating the focus of both the reining trainer and the "foundation" trainer on the shoulders of the horse, and as a result have had some preconceived ideas about what they were doing that were just - well, wrong.<br />
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In all work we do with horses there are two factors involved in any signal we send to a horse - how strong, and how long. This can vary widely depending on the horse and the desired result. Demonstrations in the hundreds of training videos often exaggerate actions to make a point to the viewer without ever showing the "real" thing because it might be invisible or completely unnecessary at the moment the demonstrator wants to show it. So that is what I was seeing when I was told the horse had to lower the neck and get an arc in it's back or allow the rider to bring it's head around to perform a one rein stop. Exaggerations multiplied by hundreds of examples of poor copies. <br />
So here's a picture of Trent on Gambler. Yes he did occasionally ask for more bend than this - but it was momentary.<br />
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Then there was Rod's description of lowering the neck to move the balance point forward. I have a hard time with that description, but when we got on the phone and watched NRBC reining he and I were in total agreement about what we were seeing. I still reference the rear end, but I now know what he is talking about when he says "softness in the shoulders." In dressage we have to steal a German term - losgelassenheit. The relaxation of the back muscles and strength of the abdominals that allows energy to flow through the horse instead of being blocked by bracing whether it be neck, shoulders or haunches. Losgelassenheit is a combination of the ability to collect, suppleness, relaxation and submissiveness. It's a quality a tense, resistant or stiff horse can't have. I can't really show you a picture, because it isn't about the position of the horse's neck. It's a dynamic quality that is expressed when the horse is in motion. I might find videos that give a hint, especially in the reining where lack of it results in visibly poor stops and spins. <br />
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Does this mean that everything different is really just a question of language or ultimate use? No. There's still going to be a lot of discussion about different ways to get to a similar place. For the western rider coming into WDAA and dressage judges being asked to judge it there are very real, very wide gaps in expectation.<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-47322520837886585362011-04-16T12:53:00.002-04:002011-04-24T09:15:56.201-04:00Put into practiceIn my introduction I mention that this is a journey and the kick off was when I decided to trade dressage lessons for starting a mustang under saddle. So from here on out I plan to alternate the discussion from western and dressage and the WDAA with post on the progress of my "cowboys" and the horse in training. <br />
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So here's the cast of characters.<br />
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Gambler - an 8 year old mustang. He was adopted from the BLM, moved to a rescue when he killed a goat. Rescue sent him to a trainer who sent him back because he freaked when a saddle with a dummy tied to it was put on him. Came to me and got basic ground work, learned to carry a saddle and bit, but didn't get consistent work and never lost his wariness. I didn't have the money to send him to another trainer until last year, when he had 30 days with Brock Griffith. Brock did a good job, but because of a bad winter he couldn't be ridden to consolidate the training and I didn't have the facility. Trent has dropped back to focus on the confidence issues and will be putting miles on him. <br />
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Trent Benton - has a good reputation for starting horses and is getting more WBs and dressage prospects. He is riding Penny, a very athletic little QH he uses for ranch sorting and would like to prepare for working cow horse, but she gets very tense, fighting the bit, shortening her stride and anticipating every move. The horse is very very reactive and sensitive. Trent's concern is that she will never relax enough to use as his lesson horse for dressage. <br />
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Scott - a very relaxed rider who asks excellent questions. He doesn't have the experience or "book knowledge" Trent has but is riding most of the young horses after Trent got injured last year. The horse is Copperhead. Copperhead came to Trent because he bucked so strongly they considered selling him to a rodeo string. Scott has been trail riding him. The result is a big, powerful, supple horse who puts out as little energy as possible. No more buck, but very practical, energy conserving critter. I'd love to have him as an event prospect.<br />
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Pat Benton - Pat has the horse she and Trent think will be the one for Western Dressage. He's a nice black QH who loves games but gets bored with rail work. Pat sees WDAA tests as challenging without having to do speed work and thinks this will be her event. Casper, like Copperhead, has found out how to make life as low energy as possible but has more training. At this point this means he can find more ways to evade.<br />
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The First Month. (pictures to follow)<br />
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The first issue was straight. All the horses had been trained using indirect rein and an overbent neck to "pick up the shoulders." So the first goal was to get all the horses moving straight out through the bridle and redirect attention to control of the hind legs. For Penny there was also a quick fix in contact, ( fixed vs following hand) and a change in bits.<br />
Over the month Penny began to achieve a steadier rhythm and with that more relaxation and a quiet acceptance of the bit.<br />
"Snake" (Copperhead) began to be more prompt in his transitions and show a super forward trot. The next step for him is a return to contact. (For several lessons he has been worked in a bosal.)<br />
Pat has begun to be able to direct Casper and keep him from drifting. With basic control established she too is ready to start asking for acceptance of the bit and working from back to front. <div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-3467661520319441662011-04-12T12:23:00.009-04:002011-04-24T09:23:47.834-04:00Blow by Blow ComparisonIt's been a busy week. I've been in correspondence with Rod Miller and we've had some great conversations. Like me he is trying to build a reference tool that can help riders bridge the language gap between the western terms and dressage speak.<br />
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Several clinicians are giving clinics on cues and aids for Western Dressage. Now remember, the competitions are going to be judged by Dressage judges. So I think it will be a good exercise to go through some of the things said in these clinics and compare them with how that dressage judge is trained to judge. <br />
<a name='more'></a> "My legs don't say to go forward, my seat does that." The clinician then demonstrates leg being used to ask the horse to "come off the bit" and bring it's face to the vertical at the halt. <br />
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Oh dear. So many disconnects here I hardly know where to start. Please understand this isn't about whether the cues are right or wrong. This is about will the judge and competitor be speaking the same language. <br />
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First your dressage judge will want the horse to go instantly forward from the leg. Some dressage trainers want to horse to go forward even before the leg is used - they want the horse to feel when they start to take if off the horse and go forward then. This use of the leg is debatable but I'll leave that for the Dressage Forum on COTH. Yes, seat is used FIRST, a split second before the leg, but forward from leg is bible. True, if the horse goes forward correctly, the dressage judge is going to assume correct use of the aids no matter what the rider actually does. The problem is that a horse that drops behind the bit in response to the leg is going to lose points every time the leg is used. <br />
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The term "off the bit" is never good from a dressage judge. The horse should seek contact. Now this contact can be so light it's the weight of the rein, which is why reiners and especially vaquero horsemen use heavy reins. See Eitan's comment about the weight of a running martingale providing a constant contact for the horse. <u>What is most important to the dressage judge is that the horse be willing at any time to telescope its neck and stretch through the topline to find the contact</u>. As a test of this there are movements in regular dressage tests that ask the horse to stretch the reins out longer in lower level tests, then come back to a more upright carriage without losing balance or impulsion or changing tempo. This same horse can be perfectly happy working on a totally loose rein. It will not dive its nose into the ground looking for the bit. The rider establishes a connection and the horse partners to keep it.<br />
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Here's a full description with a good picture. http://tackandtalk.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/building-a-better-equine-athlete-3/<br />
The horse should stretch through his whole topline and reach down and out with the nose, not curl down and in. So bringing the nose in in response to the leg is going to make it hard to show what the dressage judge wants to see. <br />
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And let's get it over with now. For your dressage judge the near vertical head position is a result of collection, not a trained response to the bit, and they can tell the difference. When the muscles around the poll and jaw are relaxed the horse will softly chew the bit when asked for more impulsion by the legs and seat and the head hangs off the atlas vertebrae like wet laundry on a clothesline. As the neck and shoulder elevate as the horse becomes more collected, the weight of the head brings it more in line with the vertical, but the nose should always be slightly in front of the vertical. Holding the head in by use of muscles in the neck is the result of unnecessary tension. Muscles have to be contracted to do it that aren't being used for anything else or need to be relaxed so other muscles can work to best advantage. Do winning Grand Prix horses pull the nose in too much? Often. Do they lose points for too short a neck or coming behind the vertical - yes. You don't see any 100's in the scores, even of the best horses. In dressage good work can erase bad moments in a test. That doesn't mean that the judges of these horses aren't marking down tension or coming behind the bit.<br />
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BTW, when a dressage rider takes up contact and gently asks for the horse to come onto the bit before moving off, the result should be that the horse relaxes the muscles around the poll and softly moves the bit in its mouth. In a Grand Prix horse prepared to leave the halt with full impulsion that relaxation may bring it close to the vertical. In a young horse simply chewing the bit softly is enough. Either way the poll should remain higher than any vertebrae behind it and the horse should never duck its head and come behind the bit. The crest of the horse isn't the reference point. It's the three vertebrae right behind the poll. If our Western Dressage rider goes up the center line, halts, and the horse goes behind the vertical the dressage judge is going to show it in the scores. <br />
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So already our poor dressage judge is looking for a different response and we haven't even started moving yet. I'd welcome comment from other trainers out there. <br />
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Still to come.<br />
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Turn to say go<br />
leg to move shoulders<br />
lean to weight seat bone<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-90639680011840799772011-04-04T12:48:00.002-04:002011-04-09T12:15:23.673-04:00Will western dressage speak the same language? Part 1I mentioned in my first post that I was giving dressage lessons to a western trainer. I knew going in, and so did he, that one problem we were going to have was language. Dressage has centuries of written and verbal tradition. Western riding has about 100 years, enough to develop it's own terms, and even more difficult, enough time to borrow words and assign different meanings to them. The biggest problem with both is that they are attempts to describe sensations. <br />
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For me at first reading books and articles by many of the western trainers was like reading a foreign language. Ed Connell I found easy to understand. Oddly enough he said his goal was to write so his fellow cowboys would find him easy reading. Listening to today's trainers I find very confusing. <br />
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The hardest terms to understand are the one's borrowed from dressage. Let's start with collection.<br />
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Dressage - the shifting of the weight of the horse so that more is carried over the rear legs <u>resulting in increased bending of the joints of the hind limbs</u>. The result of this is that energy pushes the body of the horse UP rather than forward and the haunches are lowered. The tempo, (speed of foot fall) remains the same but the horse covers less distance.<br />
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<b>"</b>Collection is not a shorter stride or a slower stride it is a more compressed stride <u>with the hind quarters reaching deeper under the horse </u>and the back rounds by the horse breaking at the withers and the hips, the <u>shoulders do not actually raise but the hocks drive deeper with a compressed frame</u>, this actually lowers the horses hind quarters thus the shoulders are elevated over the hind quarters." - Rod Miller [underling mine]<br />
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I also frequently hear collection defined as going slower, or as simply taking shorter strides. <br />
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What this feels like.<br />
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Collection in dressage - the horse feels like it is springing rather than stepping, It is easy to sit, yet the rider is full conscious of the energy in the horse. It feels like the horse is barely hitting the ground and yet it is pushing off very powerfully.The rear of the horse feels lower than the front, a sensation of riding slightly uphill because the horse raises it's neck and the spine is lifted between the shoulder blades. <br />
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What I see when many trainers ask for collection within a gait: <br />
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Little or no increased bending of the hocks<br />
Horse goes slower as the horse takes shorter steps. <br />
The spine remains in the same relationship to the shoulders as before.<br />
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I've asked western judges what they mean when they say a horse is collected and been given the definition given above by Rod Miller. Since stepping too far under with the foot landing closer to the girth is a fault in a dressage horse, this is very, very confusing. In dressage, a collected horse steps under the haunches. The sit comes from the bend in the joints.<br />
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So here's a practical illustration. A very well known and very correct dressage judge recently noted that she grew up with vaquero reining, and that the horses doing reining then collected, ie had bend in the joints of the hind legs, and that the sliding stops were much longer than what she saw today, The difference, she said, was that the horses she sees today slide with a straight hind leg and sit by placing the hind feet forward under the body. The result is propping in the front, which shortens the slide. I would find it very interesting to see some video to back this up. I know the films existed. I saw movies Ed Connell's niece had in the early 70's. ;<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-12434527750231723712011-03-30T19:01:00.003-04:002011-04-02T09:39:47.680-04:00Western Dressage - What's Old, What's NewHaving now spent way too many hours searching Google, I'm going to fall back on my faulty memory.<br />
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What's Old: dressage and western riding sprang from the same roots and then occasionally held hands. The Spanish system of training went to the Southwest with the missionaries and continued in what is now known as the Vaquero tradition. The same horses and systems went to Europe - records in Vienna refer to a Spanish Riding School in 1572. The Spanish rode light, agile horses that could move fast on the battlefield and heavy horses were becoming obsolete. Later artillery would make the highly trained Spanish horses useless and their flashier moves would become only for the parade grounds and for exhibitions, but the horses of the Moors were battle horses. Today dressage still looks to the Spanish Riding School of Vienna as the caretaker of classical dressage. In the Western Hemisphere the vaqueros continued to pass on the system and apply it to ranch work. In Europe the same thing happened in Spain and Portugal. The ranch horses trained in these traditions look very similar, but not at all like the western horse in breed shows today. <br />
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In the late 1800s the flood of untrained men and horses needed to move cattle first to the big slaughter houses and then to rail depots diluted the training of the ranch horse and introduced many shortcuts. They are still common today. This was followed by the move in the early 1930s to forward seat riding in Italy which was adopted by the Cavalry for field maneuvers. While the Cavalry kept many basic dressage concepts, including collection, the forward seat system threw out collection entirely, leading to the flat top line found in western and hunters today. Hunters rediscovered collection because it led to sucessful jumping. Western riders have also rediscovered collection, but tried to keep the flat top line by breeding horses with low head sets. <br />
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The horse, however, is still and always will be a horse. His muscles and mind remain the same, even if "bred for purpose." In the cavalry schools, dressage was divided into levels. The most basic level was needed for control and could be attained very quickly by a skilled trainer. The "Field" level required the ability to collect and accurately place the body so muscle building exercises could be effective and horse was athletic. After this the horse specialized. It was fully realized that specific activities required skills training and the moves would be different from the arena exercises which addressed the strength and suppleness of the whole horse. Dressage exercises were continued to maintain general fitness, but skills training became the focus. This is important to understand when talking about dressage for the western horse.<br />
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(From here on I'm gong to use the term field dressage to separate it from dressage exercises performed to prepare the horse for upper level dressage competition.) <br />
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So what is old is the need to stay balanced, upright and supple, responsive to the rider, work off seat more than rein, all based on progressive training that uses the horse's natural responses to encourage correct responses and block incorrect ones. Go down either path and by the end of "Field School" the horse is light, responsive and can work in a curb.<br />
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What's New: In the last 20 years there has been a huge resurgence in interest in how we train horses. Trainers and scientists look at all disciplines to study the way the horse moves and responds to training. Most important of all, every rider has access to every sort of training idea just by going to Google. And surprise,surprise, all the disciplines began to explore their roots. Dressage trainers got hired to put polish on Big Eq Hunt Seat Equitation horses. Handling techniques from the vaqueros and the big ranches moved out to everyone as Natural Horsemanship. And suddenly the Bridle Horse got back into the picture.<br />
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This has created much cross pollination. However when it comes to Dressage and Western, most seem to think that specialization starts from the moment the horse is mounted and this will continue to lead to much confusion as trainers and riders from the two traditions try to talk to each other. <br />
And now we have a proposed competition - Western Dressage. Which won't have the same requirements as Dressage competitions because the western horse moves differently. Which translated seems to mean that western dressage horses, like the 16th Century Spanish horses in Vienna, will not be asked to do extended gaits.<br />
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We also have ranch work turned into sport - reining, cutting, working cow horse. To excel these trainers have developed specialized cues and many have tapped dressage for exercises to increase balance and suppleness.<br />
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So what is new is the beginnings of a common language to talk about the physical development of the horse and a huge surge in interest in how to apply that knowledge. I come from a dressage perspective but not as a specialist. I've used dressage to improve event horses, jumpers, field hunters, Pasos and western pleasure horses as well as horses with dressage careers. The journey continues.<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8684348302527253273.post-15750104508510208552011-03-27T22:04:00.003-04:002011-03-28T13:03:53.646-04:00The "Next Big Thing"For years I've had the line under my signature "dressage for the performance horse" hoping to pick up the occasional western rider who took to heart Lynn Palm and others who talked about the need for basics. It didn't work. Then I was looking for someone with more glue and less age than I had to restart my mustang, who had a bit too long vacation after his first 30 days. My choice was a trainer nearby who is known for doing lots of preliminary groundwork because this is where I felt the holes were in the horse's preparation and I didn't have a pen to work him in. To my surprise the trainer was looking for someone to give him dressage lessons. It seems he had been to an expo, seen the demos by Etian, and met Dr. Robert Miller. He liked what he saw, but he was even more impressed when Dr. Miller told him if he wanted to know what the next BIG THING in the horse world was going to be it was "Western Dressage."<br />
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So the lessons have begun. More about that later. First I had to find out what "Western Dressage" was. It isn't just a movement to do dressage moves on a horse with western tack. Dr. Miller, Etian and Jack Brainard want a competition with an organization behind it like the USDF or the NRHA. The first step was to get rules, tests and judges, which they mostly borrowed from the USEF. Then they got the classes recognized for Morgans by the USEF. Now they are starting a publicity campaign to encourage people to use the tests at dressage shows, breed shows, wherever a USEF dressage judge might already be on the grounds. This is all a bit different from what I had envisioned.<br />
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If you do a search on YouTube there are several good and not so good videos. There is a thread on the Chronicle of the Horse Dressage Forum that has several interesting points of view. However for better or for worse, I think this will take off. The romance of the cowboy life will blend with the classical ideal of the willing dance partner into a dream of the best of both worlds.<br />
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Like most innovations, it's so old it's new again. <br />
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Next: What's old, what's new, and where do we begin.<br />
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For more information about Western Dressage go to http://www.westerndressageassociation.com<div class="blogger-post-footer">" To Show the Horse the Way "</div>Barbara Longhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237817548323066409noreply@blogger.com0