Becky Moody Freestyle

scats said:
I really thought we were passed this ridiculous type of comment.
A world where you can only have an opinion if you are at the ‘top’ of the sport would be a very dangerous one indeed.
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Imagine saying it about any other sport. Football but you're not allowed to say they should have passed the ball sooner unless you've done a stint in the Premier League 🙄 wouldn't pubs be quiet!
 
I was interested to see this thread as I've already seen a number of social media FaceAche posts slating BM's riding in the warm up. Certainly the images/ videos posted of that weren't overly positive. The video linked above (to my naive eye) had some nice bits and some less impressive bits but I've not seen the competition to be able to judge whether they had fewer nagging legs / bracing than others.
 
When one learns to ride as an adult, one is taught basic leg and hand cues. I rode the beginner horse in a small school for a year using those cues. Then I realised the pony was reading my thoughts and i stopped basic cues.
One was taught that it was better to ride through feel and shifts of weight. One or two of those top riders were ultra refining the positioning of cues. It didnt interest me to ride like that and in any case, I was not capable of it.
So yes, how lovely to see a top dressage test ridden with visible pony club cues.
It is a long time since I last rode as I fell on a stone Cathedral floor bashing my knee. But after watching that vid, I can't wait to get back on a horse.
 
Given that the horse appeared sound in the other trot work I suspect it was soft tissue-related, but for me he was lame RF in the piaffe every time.
 
A lot quieter in the mouth & tail / generally more harmonious looking than a very large percentage of what’s currently being presented by most riders “at the top” at the moment.

Yes the leg cues are not subtle, horse could open his frame more in the extensions and could be more “through” in the collected work (especially piaffe) as looks a bit compressed and almost on his forehand. (Although a lot of horses at last Olympics had worse looking piaffes than this)

Overall though I enjoyed that horse and rider looked like they were working with rather than against each other, horse looked as relaxed as can be expected in that environment and that a difficult floor plan was executed accurately without lots of yanking the horse about.

Could I do this? Absolutely not, even if I could ride the movements (which I can’t having never schooled a horse to that level & I never will!) I’d be lost / not with the music by about 30 seconds in!
 
I popped back to this thread to see if I was in the minority in not seeing the wonderful riding that others have seen. It's the hands that upset me the most.

palo1 said:
The test is accurate, the horses movements well co ordinated and in time to the music. Can you not see Becky M's constantly nudging and moving heels? She is wearing spurs and at times her lower leg moves back a fair way (intentionally) Watch her hands which are continually jiggling the bit in the horse's mouth. At times she leans back, clearly behind a vertical line running from ear to hip to heel. BUT, I think this is the way modern dressage is, even though I think it looks forced and tense and the rider uses their body as a pendulum/bracing force against the horse in not such an elegant, effortless way as other schools of riding. Those are probably not competitive dressage focussed but require greater stillness, softer, quieter hands and legs and a more classical position. If you think this looks lovely, I'm not taking that pleasure away from you - but I don't agree, is all
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This is better articulated than anything I could write!! but I totally agree.
 
splashgirl45 said:
How sad that people can only see the negatives of a test that was 100 times better than the normal things we have seen being marked highly . I see her test as a positive for dressage and agree she uses her legs quite a bit but I don’t see an unhappy horse which is a pleasant change for dressage ..
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We can agree it's better than what we are usually posting about but still disagree about the level of praise it deserves. If this is truly the pinnacle of modern sport dressage, all the more reason to look at the flaws. If they still exist here, does that mean they must always exist?

Life would be less sad if you could just enjoy things! But its not really living in the real world, I think. We all have blinkers on for certain things and not for others.
 
splashgirl45 said:
How sad that people can only see the negatives of a test that was 100 times better than the normal things we have seen being marked highly . I see her test as a positive for dressage and agree she uses her legs quite a bit but I don’t see an unhappy horse which is a pleasant change for dressage ..
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I think its fine that other people have negative opinions, we all have different perspectives, and I think thats very healthy. I just think its a shame that people want to share their negatives on a thread that just celebrated someone's achievement, and didnt ask for opinions.
 
Boulty said:
A lot quieter in the mouth & tail / generally more harmonious looking than a very large percentage of what’s currently being presented by most riders “at the top” at the moment.

Yes the leg cues are not subtle, horse could open his frame more in the extensions and could be more “through” in the collected work (especially piaffe) as looks a bit compressed and almost on his forehand. (Although a lot of horses at last Olympics had worse looking piaffes than this)

Overall though I enjoyed that horse and rider looked like they were working with rather than against each other, horse looked as relaxed as can be expected in that environment and that a difficult floor plan was executed accurately without lots of yanking the horse about.

Could I do this? Absolutely not, even if I could ride the movements (which I can’t having never schooled a horse to that level & I never will!) I’d be lost / not with the music by about 30 seconds in!
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Agree with you. Horse looked more relaxed and open in his frame than many international GP horses, but he did appear to require a lot of leg to stay in piaffe/passage.

Just seems that a lot of these leg-flinging warmbloods aren't particularly strong in the piaffe, so seeing riders wrestling them through it has become the norm.

Whenever you see an Iberian in international dressage, they never score all that highly compared to the top WBs but they look like they could piaffe/passage all day.
 
Caol Ila said:
Whenever you see an Iberian in international dressage, they never score all that highly compared to the top WBs but they look like they could piaffe/passage all day.
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I was on holiday in Andalusia and there was a brief sprinkle of rain - it was enough to get the horses in a local paddock in play mode and they were doing all the moves. I doubt there was a competition horse amongst them but add a bit of adrenaline and every one was showing piaffe, passage as well as all the leapy in the air stuff. They just seemed to naturally sit on their bottoms.

They also all rolled and turned themselves shades of dirt.

But then even at my lowly levels I'm told to get the marks at what we are good at and just do the best we can for stuff which is harder. A lot of the warmbloods can show ridiculous extended paces which the Iberians find harder. I would imagine Becky works very hard on that piaffe but it will never be her easy marks - he's a huge horse to collect up.
 
SEL said:
I was on holiday in Andalusia and there was a brief sprinkle of rain - it was enough to get the horses in a local paddock in play mode and they were doing all the moves. I doubt there was a competition horse amongst them but add a bit of adrenaline and every one was showing piaffe, passage as well as all the leapy in the air stuff. They just seemed to naturally sit on their bottoms.

They also all rolled and turned themselves shades of dirt.

But then even at my lowly levels I'm told to get the marks at what we are good at and just do the best we can for stuff which is harder. A lot of the warmbloods can show ridiculous extended paces which the Iberians find harder. I would imagine Becky works very hard on that piaffe but it will never be her easy marks - he's a huge horse to collect up.
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I agree and love watching the Spanish horses do dressage. They are like rubber balls. Sadly modern dressage judges don't like them.
 
daffy44 said:
I think its fine that other people have negative opinions, we all have different perspectives, and I think thats very healthy. I just think its a shame that people want to share their negatives on a thread that just celebrated someone's achievement, and didnt ask for opinions.
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I was really interested to read the thread and whilst all the early comments were positive, it wasn't particularly signalled that only positive comments were welcomed, I don't think.

I understand why people loved the test, and the music was great, as is Jagerbomb! But I feel differently to some obviously and hope I expressed that respectfully.
 
The best thing I can say about that video is that it is less unpleasant than many at that level. But it's not beautiful or even particularly pleasing to me.

This forum is - and alway has been - full of threads where people are hoping for positive comments only, but receive a mixed bag. That's the internet for you. And, I wonder, would those posters who think this thread should be immune to negativity feel the same way about a thread posted by (e.g.) a western pleasure enthusiast wishing to celebrate a better-than-most western pleasure rider whose horse looks less doped than the rest of them in that sport? Or is it just that those posters don't like what people are saying, and it makes them uncomfortable about their own views.
 
myheartinahoofbeat said:
I agree and love watching the Spanish horses do dressage. They are like rubber balls. Sadly modern dressage judges don't like them.
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The judges should be marking what they see and although Iberian horses can piaffe well (mostly) their other paces are not so good especially things like changes, they can be correct in that they have no mistakes but they don’t really cover as much ground as other breeds so may get a mark less for the overall movement. Same for their extended trot. So the other breeds struggle to do a good piaffe but maybe better on the other bits of the test … if I’m watching a whole class I try to mark each movement for every horse and it’s quite interesting to see which horse I’ve marked the highest against which horse I like the best , it’s not always the same horse
 
I like the way he surges through with power to spare at times, the second extended trot i thought was lovely and balanced coming from the back end lifting the shoulders

No not all perfect perhaps but some bits you could really like as he did not look tortured

Liked the way he got better as the test went on i thought
 
splashgirl45 said:
The judges should be marking what they see and although Iberian horses can piaffe well (mostly) their other paces are not so good especially things like changes, they can be correct in that they have no mistakes but they don’t really cover as much ground as other breeds so may get a mark less for the overall movement. Same for their extended trot. So the other breeds struggle to do a good piaffe but maybe better on the other bits of the test … if I’m watching a whole class I try to mark each movement for every horse and it’s quite interesting to see which horse I’ve marked the highest against which horse I like the best , it’s not always the same horse
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To me, this shows how arbitrary and how much of a social construct dressage is. Why is 'ground covering' scored higher than effortless high school movements, hm? Why are combinations who are light, easy, and harmonious, but not huge movers, not getting the same scores as people who have tense, wound up but massively ground-covering horses bodging unlevel piaffes?

It's no surprise that dressage is in such a state. If the winning horses have to be spectacular movers, or they stand no chance (regardless of their ability to do correct collected work or training), then people will breed for movement at the expense of everything else, and we wonder why there is so much CVSM and hypermobility about.....

The easily collected Iberian horse certainly is more practical in day-to-day life than a huge moving WB.

I may have become fed up and bitter with it back when I was showing a Shire-TBx, who was an alright mover but nothing spectacular. I realised that if I did a movement perfectly, all I was going to get was a 7, whereas a horse with amazing gaits who kind of half-arsed a leg yield was still going to get an 8. What was the point?

And that was at f** First and Second Level in the US. The equivalent of Elementary and the easier Medium tests here.
 
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