Dressage European Champs France

Nicnac said:
Becky and Bomb were fabulous and wish they'd clinched third.
Justin is incredible and has been winning in Belgium for a while. A bit worried that it's a lot for a 9yo horse but he does have a varied life and good semen! We'll see a lot of mini Zonics in a few years.
Dufours horse was trained by the Brits so good reflection on the UK.
Lots of tests on YT.
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Freestyle looks a thousand times better with CDF, except its feet perhaps.
 
Comet1 said:
I read the article (Eurodressage) about the trot-up. Sounds like it was just due to behaviour rather than being represented.
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That's called spin.

palo1 said:
I had sort of enjoyed Becky Moody's social media but just watched a test; please someone tell me why the braced, leaning back position in the extended trot is considered correct or even tolerable? It looks so awful!
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It's taken 40 odd years of development in training and saddle design to land us up here, in a dysfunctional heap. The saddles are to help the riders deal with leg movers, we seem to have a complete misunderstanding of what physical forces horse and riders have to deal with and are left with massive leverage forces placed onto the horse's back and mouth, in large part because the saddle encourages or at least allows them to do so.

nikkimariet said:
And my final thought - utterly horrific shoeing on most of these ‘top’ horses.
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Dysfunctional bodies need dysfunctional shoes.
 
sbloom said:
That's called spin.



It's taken 40 odd years of development in training and saddle design to land us up here, in a dysfunctional heap. The saddles are to help the riders deal with leg movers, we seem to have a complete misunderstanding of what physical forces horse and riders have to deal with and are left with massive leverage forces placed onto the horse's back and mouth, in large part because the saddle encourages or at least allows them to do so.



Dysfunctional bodies need dysfunctional shoes.
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True. Sadly.
 
Nicnac said:
Zonic is unshod.

@sbloom is it the really high cantled saddles that encourage the "bracing" or/and massive blocks?
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Try doing it in a flat seated jump saddle with no blocks. It's chicken and egg hence my comment that it's training and saddle fitting, but I should have included breeding.

Saddles with high cantles tend to have a rear balance point. Most British saddles (the exception was some of the Dabbs forward balance models) are mid to rear balance where we sit slightly behind the mid poing of the saddle. Anything with rear gussets that stick out behind the cantle are in order to reduce the amount the saddle can be pushed down at the back, a mild cantilever. Once you're sitting back a fraction, and more likely to be behind your feet (how many aligned classical positions do you see these days?) or pulling your feet back with heel up, you are on a harder part of the horses back for them to carry you, and for you to sit on. You have more movement, less support, more width. The spectacular movement is more likely to push the rider back even if the saddle hasn't already done so (it's not just a rear balance point that pushes a rider back, it's complex) and the further back the seat the more of it is against the cantle, translating into downward pressure onto the rear of the saddle platform, a crucial area for HQ function.

The rider leans back as they're not on a good base of support to help them resist the movement. absorb it, correctly, and the hip tries to close, the legs run forwards. The big blocks stop them doing so. Block is the appropriate word as the rider's seatbones, the cantle pressure, the gripping of knee or thigh or calf, blocks the horse's movement.

Gold standard is a more open seat that allows the pelvis to sit, at rest, in comfort and without effort/tension, in neutral and for the leg to drape under the hip with soft internal rotation. If the rider isn't automatically sitting like that in halt then it'll be hopeless in movement. This helps us better resist the accelerative, decelerative, rotational, centrifugal and vertical forces without transferring or even magnifying them (we're a metre tall lever above them after all) the forces acting onto the horse's back.

Maria Hallring on FB has a lot of posts explaining this and analysing the saddles and their influence at top level competitions (including one this morning ref the dressage).
 
sbloom said:
Try doing it in a flat seated jump saddle with no blocks. It's chicken and egg hence my comment that it's training and saddle fitting, but I should have included breeding.

Saddles with high cantles tend to have a rear balance point. Most British saddles (the exception was some of the Dabbs forward balance models) are mid to rear balance where we sit slightly behind the mid poing of the saddle. Anything with rear gussets that stick out behind the cantle are in order to reduce the amount the saddle can be pushed down at the back, a mild cantilever. Once you're sitting back a fraction, and more likely to be behind your feet (how many aligned classical positions do you see these days?) or pulling your feet back with heel up, you are on a harder part of the horses back for them to carry you, and for you to sit on. You have more movement, less support, more width. The spectacular movement is more likely to push the rider back even if the saddle hasn't already done so (it's not just a rear balance point that pushes a rider back, it's complex) and the further back the seat the more of it is against the cantle, translating into downward pressure onto the rear of the saddle platform, a crucial area for HQ function.

The rider leans back as they're not on a good base of support to help them resist the movement. absorb it, correctly, and the hip tries to close, the legs run forwards. The big blocks stop them doing so. Block is the appropriate word as the rider's seatbones, the cantle pressure, the gripping of knee or thigh or calf, blocks the horse's movement.

Gold standard is a more open seat that allows the pelvis to sit, at rest, in comfort and without effort/tension, in neutral and for the leg to drape under the hip with soft internal rotation. If the rider isn't automatically sitting like that in halt then it'll be hopeless in movement. This helps us better resist the accelerative, decelerative, rotational, centrifugal and vertical forces without transferring or even magnifying them (we're a metre tall lever above them after all) the forces acting onto the horse's back.

Maria Hallring on FB has a lot of posts explaining this and analysing the saddles and their influence at top level competitions (including one this morning ref the dressage).
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This one?
https://www.facebook.com/maria.hallring/posts/pfbid0rrdjrRCaRaP9UaoN5M3oGfzKXp3y4WUMbySdEtWyoCWnv7sxnScPhbGt3iip5Liel

At my much less exalted level, having ridden on a couple of occasions a horse that genuinely suited me physically along with a saddle that allowed me to sit well, I would not want to sit on anything else and that was part of the reason I fell out of love with riding - once I realised that those things made me 10x better as a rider (ie 10x easier for the horse to carry and understand) I did not want to sit on a horse/saddle combination that didn't work for me. And they are hard to find/afford even if you're in a position to buy what you want! I'm not grossly deformed but not a great rider shape and there are many people worse off than me conformationally and who perhaps ride relatively few horses, have maybe not had this experience and don't know what a huge difference it makes.
 
Burnttoast said:
This one?
https://www.facebook.com/maria.hallring/posts/pfbid0rrdjrRCaRaP9UaoN5M3oGfzKXp3y4WUMbySdEtWyoCWnv7sxnScPhbGt3iip5Liel

At my much less exalted level, having ridden on a couple of occasions a horse that genuinely suited me physically along with a saddle that allowed me to sit well, I would not want to sit on anything else and that was part of the reason I fell out of love with riding - once I realised that those things made me 10x better as a rider (ie 10x easier for the horse to carry and understand) I did not want to sit on a horse/saddle combination that didn't work for me. And they are hard to find/afford even if you're in a position to buy what you want! I'm not grossly deformed but not a great rider shape and there are many people worse off than me conformationally and who perhaps ride relatively few horses, have maybe not had this experience and don't know what a huge difference it makes.
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Exactly. I'm biting my tongue at the moment not to respond to a rider physio bod who makes some really "interesting" posts, with some gems in, but some misinformation. If the saddle fitting the rider benefits the horse why would we want to bang on about it all being the rider's responsibility, when their hard work is mainly about compensating for a saddle they're fighting?! I'd be too heavy now for the saddle that I sat in, about 4 years ago, that was an utter lightbulb moment, like night and day compared to the saddles I had when I was riding. It's transformative. I now stock different saddles and think I'd be better able to find something to suit, but very unlikely to ever have a horse again.
 
sbloom said:
Exactly. I'm biting my tongue at the moment not to respond to a rider physio bod who makes some really "interesting" posts, with some gems in, but some misinformation. If the saddle fitting the rider benefits the horse why would we want to bang on about it all being the rider's responsibility, when their hard work is mainly about compensating for a saddle they're fighting?! I'd be too heavy now for the saddle that I sat in, about 4 years ago, that was an utter lightbulb moment, like night and day compared to the saddles I had when I was riding. It's transformative. I now stock different saddles and think I'd be better able to find something to suit, but very unlikely to ever have a horse again.
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Thinking of Maria Hallring's post, many of the rider faults in those photos are ones I would not personally want on public display so it does make me wonder what drives them as competitors.

ETA well obviously it's competitive success, rather than excellence on an objective scale but still...!
 
millitiger said:
Ingrid Klimke was still in her usual flat seated, un-blocky saddle but was possibly in a minority of one!
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Which is always a good start, it's not enough for a good fit for the rider but massively reduces the ability to cause harm to the horse's way of going. I'm still so disappointed overall in how her horses go though, compared to her father's.
 
It is all rather sad to me. I used to love and be inspired by the top dressage riders (Reine Klimke's generation) and then excited to see young women pursuing it (CDJ). It all now feels very sour and impossible to relate to as I try to navigate the riding that looks so 'hard' to me, yet continues to be rewarded and the absolute disillusionment with sport horse breeding and production which I have seen in person - ever more exaggerated movement and ever more wastage of horses. It's nice to hear more harmonious looking partnerships are being rewarded but I still have a sense of the huge dressage machine grinding away. It's horrible and shameful to me in some ways.
 
Justin was brilliant and he clearly loves his horse.

I can't bring myself to support Werth. I think Wendy is funny moving. On Friday she had one leg that just kept flapping around everywhere. I didn't watch her yesterday.
I just wonder what goes on behind the scenes with the rollkur queen.

I enjoy seeing relatively normal people excelling. Justin struggled to find a warmblood within budget until he found Zonik. He isn't in a dynasty or funded by the mega rich like many of them. Becky Moody is relatable. I enjoy seeing people who love their horse, who aren't just paid to jockey them, who show that harmony dressage is supposed to promote.
 
sbloom said:
Which is always a good start, it's not enough for a good fit for the rider but massively reduces the ability to cause harm to the horse's way of going. I'm still so disappointed overall in how her horses go though, compared to her father's.
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When she evented her horses always went well, the latest horse is Heigstrand trained and is showing the tension I would expect, Wendy also is a product of his so called training so will have been used to forceful riding and Isabel is pretty good at that , her grip on the reins is constant and Wendy’s mouth was open most of the tests although not quite so bad in the music, I have suspicions that the noseband might have been tight, I didn’t see hers being checked but saw most of the others ..her groom was very quick to get to her head, just saying 😊
 
millitiger said:
Carl's test was really harmonious. Sometimes Fame is a bit tight or deep but Carl rides with such poise and a light touch. His pirouettes were beautiful, like he had all the time in the world.

Freestyle looked lovely and working very within herself so was comfortable to watch.

Perhaps unpopular opinion but watching Isabell Werth now and it's bloody ugly and forceful riding.
I don't understand why it scores so well.
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I admit to sometimes really liking Isabell Werth's rides. I saw her one GP ride (not the freestyle) from this competition and I really didn't like it. She looked like she didn't have as much control over her own body as usual, tipping forward and back. Not a harmonious picture at all.
 
splashgirl45 said:
When she evented her horses always went well, the latest horse is Heigstrand trained and is showing the tension I would expect, Wendy also is a product of his so called training so will have been used to forceful riding and Isabel is pretty good at that , her grip on the reins is constant and Wendy’s mouth was open most of the tests although not quite so bad in the music, I have suspicions that the noseband might have been tight, I didn’t see hers being checked but saw most of the others ..her groom was very quick to get to her head, just saying 😊
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Actually I thought Ingrid's statement after the first test alluded to his prior training and undoing some of it. I think she tactfully phrased it something like 'he's still getting used to my riding and bodyweight' which I read between the lines as getting used to being ridden with less force.
 
Well I think it's up to the rider to ride considerately

All this this saddle and that saddle. I hate saddles I can't move in to where i want to sit, to help the horse carry me by not tipping backwards and forwards and sitting like a sack of spuds
 
millitiger said:
Actually I thought Ingrid's statement after the first test alluded to his prior training and undoing some of it. I think she tactfully phrased it something like 'he's still getting used to my riding and bodyweight' which I read between the lines as getting used to being ridden with less force.
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Might be better for the long-term future of horse sport if she was less tactful.
 
millitiger said:
Actually I thought Ingrid's statement after the first test alluded to his prior training and undoing some of it. I think she tactfully phrased it something like 'he's still getting used to my riding and bodyweight' which I read between the lines as getting used to being ridden with less force.
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I didn’t see her quote but I would imagine it will take a while for the horse to relax, he always looks scared to me and that’s no surprise . At least he now has a chance of being ridden sympathetically, I’ve always rated Ingrid’s riding even though she scared me with her gung ho cross country
 
daffy44 said:
Vayron was ridden by Daniel Bachman Anderson before Ingrid, I'm not sure, but I dont think he ever trained with Helgstrand. Wendy was certainly trained/ridden by Helgstrand and looks like a different horse with Isabell.
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Heigstrand was involved at some time ,
 

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He may have been involved at some point, I did say I wasnt sure, but I dont think he was a long term influence.

eta: I forgot, either way, Daniel only had Vayron for a couple of years, Helen Langehaneberg produced the horse, probably why the owners felt the horse would adapt well to being ridden again by a female rider, after the very tall Daniel.
 
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