It makes me sick to hear people praising Anky Van Grunsven and the like for doing so well. Anky, for the record has just won her 9th Dressage World Cup Title. This despite the fact that her horses will never be Durchlaessig in the slightest. "Amazing", "Brilliant", "On Top form", "Certain to win the Olympic Gold after this" That's just some of the comments I have heard over the past few days. Not even from her supporters either. Most of those comments come from dressage riders and trainers too scared to admit that our sport is being corrupted by those whose sole aim is the pursuit of money and glory. They will rally round someone like Anky, good looking, says all the right things, and place her out of reach on a pedastal (the same with Isobel Werth) and proclaim her the saviour of dressage.
This woman has done nothing but further her own interests from day one. She wanted to be the best in dressage, but she didn't want to spend years and years bringing on horses, so she and her trainer decided on a short cut - hyperflexion. When the issue blew up on a massive scale they got their vets to say that it didn't harm the horses in any way (of course a vet will say that when there's the threat of losing a few grands worth of custom each year and being given the sort of reputation that would end their career. Animal welfare takes a back seat then). The vets said that there was no pressure on the nerves of the horse.

Wait a second, the vet only mentioned about the nerves not the muscular structure or the pressure on the oesophagus or trachea. So, what about those areas of the horse? Presumably, given the way that the nerve evidence was enough to convince the FEI, the vets could leave that bit out.
Think I'm wrong? Exercise for you: Bend your head forwards so that your chin is pressing into your chest. Hold it there for as long as is bearable.
Not long really is it? Not the 30 minutes advocates of hyperflexion keep their horses in that postition for. How do they keep the horse in that postition? Simple, the muscles at the base of the jaw are not the strongest. It is the spine and the muscular structure at the side that keeps the head in place.
Think of the biting force of a crocodile - it can crush bones with one bite. only problem. The strongest muscles are used to close the mouth. Thos it uses to open them are so weak that it is possible for a person to hold the mouth of a crocodile closed.
The same principle applies to the horse, the "lift up" muscles are the same as those used for chewing and swallowing - weak in comparison to those protecting the spine. It is perfectly easy to hold a horse with it's head against it's chest for at least 30 minutes and there's nothing the horse can do about it.
In that postition, the trachea and oesophaegus get pushed up against the spine. Remember, the back of the trachea is soft and springy, the oesophaegus is muscular and the spine is bone, what is going to be very hard to do? It is hard to swallow because your oesophaegus is squashed between the trachea and spine, so the saliva that you would normally swallow without a second thought has nowhere to go. It is also hard to breathe normally and you take in much less oxygen than normal because of the compressed space in the trachea.
So, if any hyperflexion lovers read this, don't waste your time defending the method, just try that exercise on your self and remember, you don't have someone holding your head in that position, you have the option to lift your head when it gets unbearable, the horse doesn't.

So, continuing on from the last post, which got me into this situation, because I can never keep my thoughts to myself: Relaxing the horse and further training of both horse and rider.
One must remember at all times that the horse can only ever be as good as the rider on it's back. Therefore, a bad rider equates a bad horse. This is not always the case, but we can assume that in some cases, bad results reflect more on the riding than the horse. If, for example, Satchmo finishes 10th in a competition with Isabell Werth, this does not mean that Satchmo is no good, it is just that some of Isabel's riding and the interpretation of the aids let them down. It happens to everyone, use too much leg when asking for extended trot and you can end up in canter. Horses at the top level of dressage are highly sensitive to the slightest aid from hand, seat, or leg. These 3 aids are ideally used in conjuction with each other and it is the interpretation of each aid by the horse that produces the movement.
So, as a rider it is our job to be as good as we can, to have our postition as good as can be so that we can best help the horse to carry out its work almost flawlessly. We all have our weaknesses as riders, mine is a not always secure lower leg, some have problems sitting tall in the saddle, others are over relient on the hands. Each can be remedied over time, but it takes a lot of effort from the rider and it is more often the case that some riders spend more time on the horse than they ever do on their own riding.

One of the most dreaded exercises of all for a rider is working without stirrups. But, it is one of the most helpful exercises for fixing problems with the lower leg and getting a rider to sit up straight. Ideally the lower leg should be wrapped round the horse at the girth, holding the horse together in the collected movements and supporting and balancing during the more open paces. Used in conjunction with a secure, light seat (where the rider takes their weight off the horse's back while still seated) a beautiful, light piaffe and passage can be produced. In these movements, done correctly and effectively, the horse will almost appear to be "dancing" trough the air, hardly touching the ground. A light passage and piaffe is infinately more beautiful and pleasing to look at than some of the heavier ones that are sometimes seen, where the rider doesn't seem to be helping the horse at all.

So, how to cure over relience on hands? Try riding without the reins. This is also effective at stopping horses "leaning" on the bit for support. A heavy contact in the hand is a sure sign that the horse is relying on you to hold it up. It is to be avoided at all costs. A horse that is heavy in the hands is not carrying itself correctly.

Remember, you should at all times be riding leg to hand. Not hand to leg. the horse should be going forwards into a light, elastic contact with the legs supporting at the centre of gravity and the seat light to help the horse lift itself. We are looking at all times for elevation of the shoulder and the forehand and a lowering of the hindquarters, never the opposite.

Using lateral work (leg yield on a circle line and also down the long side of the arena) helps to lift the shoulders and engage the hindquarters. Transitions within the paces (collected trot to medium or extended trot) and also "direct" transitions (halt to trot to halt) further engage the hindquarters and get the horse infront of the leg and working forwards into the hand. The idea of training is to get the horse forward away from the leg, while keeping relaxation. It takes a lot of time, but the effort is well worth it. Training this way may never get you to the Olympics, but you will have a correct, happy horse and the respect of your peers. That is worth infinately more to a true horseman/woman than any number of gold medals.

So, we come to the point of covering exactly where so many people in dressage go wrong in training: Durchlaessigkeit.
Never has any one subject caused so many problems with people. Most riders will spend much time on getting their position correct, and then fail miserably to get the horse just as good, because it takes far too long to achieve this one simple thing.
As I mentioned in my last post, Durchlaessigkeit, or Durchlaessig translates simply as "through" or "letting the aids through", but it means so much more than this. Durchlaessigkeit is submissiveness and the result of all the points of the training scale. Only when a horse has achieved all 6 points of the aforementioned scale can it be truley durchlaessig.
So, how do we achieve this? First the horse must be what is known as Losegelassen and willing to co-operate - the aim of the first 3 points of the training scale. Losegelassen literally means "loose", with regards to the horse it will be further translated as "supple".

A horse must be supple through the body in order to carry out the work it is asked to do. In order to supple the horse, we first must ask it to relax fully though the body and also mentally. A horse that is not mentally relaxed will be busy thinking of something completely different and thus find it hard to concentrate on what it is being asked to do.

The best way to relax a horse, I find is to start right from the begining of any session. Asking the horse to work on a long rein, stretching the head and neck down and forwards, without constant nagging from the rider to go forwards, helps the horse to find it's own rhythm. Circle work, figure of 8's are the most basic movements you can do, but incorporating them into a warm up keeps the horse concentrating on the rider, not on the scenery. Transitions through the paces aswell as within each pace help the horse to further use it's muscles. Trot work at this stage should be ridden rising as opposed to sitting so that the horse is fully able to stretch over the back and bring the hind quarters through. Once you have started to work with a shorter rein, introducing leg-yield helps to "lift" the shoulder, further engaging the hindquarters. A good warm-up should not be rushed, and I would normally spend around 20 minutes on this. By the end of the warm-up you should have a horse that is supple, fully engaged from the hindquarters, uphill and willing to co-operate.

So how to spot a horse that is not durchlaessig?
Tension is the main key to a lack of durchlaessigkeit.
Tension expresses itself in many different ways: a wildly swishing tail, very stiffly pricked ears, holding the breath and grunting, kicking up behind, dropping of hunching the back, uneven steps behind, parading steps in front, an open mouth (openly refusing to take the bit) or a hollow back.
Tension is the horse's way of saying that it doesn't want to work for it's rider, that it has no trust in the person on it's back.
The negative influence of tension results in over exagerated movement which the crowds love and applaud.
So, next time you watch a dressage competition, before you applaud the extravagant horse, think for a moment whether or not those movements were the result of tension.

To start to understand dressage fully and what the problems are with the sport, we have to go back to the very basics.
What we see in the arena and what is really happening are sometimes 2 very different things.

Here we see Chacomo in extended trot.

So, which is the better horse? Today most would reply without hesitation, Salinero. It is not hard to see why, he looks like he's really covering the ground, whereas Chacomo just looks very extravagant, but not really gaining ground.
The answer lies in the head carriage of the 2 horses. Look again at the picture of Chacomo and note that the nose is what is known as slightly in front of the verticle - where it should be. When you look at Salinero, the nose doesn't appear to be in front of the verticle, rather it is pointing towards the chest. Remember - a horse can not place his foot in front of it's nose, so the length of stride is restricted by where the nose is.
So, the better horse is Chacomo, yes, it looks extravagant, but he is covering more ground. Salinero, by comparison, only looks to be covering more ground.
Also, still loking at the head carriage, we see a big difference. Chacomo holds his head higher than Salinero. This is not build or genetics, it is training. Chacomo is elevated in the front end, allowing his hind legs to power through the stride. by comparison, Salinero has more weight over his front legs, and is not bringing his hind legs through.

The reason for these differences is one word: Duchlaessigkeit.

Translated simply, this means "through" or "letting the aids through". A horse is Durchlaessig when:

It is listening to the rider, waiting for the aids and willing and able to obey them.

It accepts the contact without resistance and goes forward and sideways on the aids without hesitation.

The rider han condense the outline from behind into the had, so that both hind legs push straight forward and underneath the horse's centre of gravity.

There is no resistance and no delay, the horse responds immediately and submits willingly, getting lighter in front, and going over the back (rounding and arching the swinging back).
I will cover more on this term in my next post.

Hi. This is my first ever post on this blog. I have felt for a long time that there are problems in dressage that too many people involved with the sport are reluctant to try and solve. This is because the same people are benefitting from these problems. The sport is almost run by the top riders and their whims. Take the rollkur issue: Despite all the evidence to the contrary, because ruling against the exercise penalised Anky Van Grunsven, amongst others, it was decided that there is nothing wrong with using the exercise.
You may wonder what this has to do with the ordinary public. Well, the fact is, the people who do not understand the truth about the training techniques used in dressage, think that horses like Salinero are amazing to watch. The truth is that Salinero is never relaxed in his performances, he is tense, unwilling to co-operate. He only does the movements out of habit, because it is what he has been trained to do - obey the rider at all times. He has no trust in his rider what-so-ever and has run away with her many times, refusing to listen to her despite her hauling on the reins.
What I am going to try and do in my blog is to strip away the illusion of "beautiful" dressage and show the reality.