Dressage Interesting Article Written by a Retired International Judge on Whether Potential/Paces Should be Rewarded Over Correctness

[shortstuff99]

I read this on Eurodressage and thought it was very interesting. Especially about whether at international Grand Prix should potential and good paces 'make up' for a lack of technical completion of a Grand Prix move. For me I don't think it should, as being flashy to cover training mistakes would lead to shortcuts in training by just breeding bigger moving horses. What are others views?

Article here https://eurodressage.com/2022/06/25/angelika-fromming-win-or-not-win-question

 

[stangs]

Horses are to be marked on:

• The freedom and regularity of the paces.
• The harmony, lightness and ease of the movements.
• The lightness of the forehand and the engagement of the hindquarters, originating from a lively impulsion.
• The acceptance of the bit, with submissiveness/throughness without any tension or resistance

Where in this list does it say "big and flashy movement"?

A Shetland whose extended trot stride is a third of a WB's ought to receive higher marks than the WB, if the Shetland is moving correctly and extending comparative to his regular stride, whilst the WB is trotting along all wonky and not using his hind, but with big movement. Is that not the basis of dressage - improving any horse? Giving horses with flashy places higher marks is how you end up with horses being bred for movement that isn't sustainable, affecting the long-term welfare of the animal (not to mention the issues with collection you get from breeding like that). If you're marking a half-pass, you're supposed to be marking how well the half-pass is done, not how good the animal's genes are.

Imo this is part of the issue of serious judging bias in the sport too.
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[milliepops]

I mean. that horse is something else. I actually could watch him all day i think, i didn't see the test referred to but have watched others and his trotwork in particular, but also the canter, gives the same spine tingling feeling that previous dressage megahorses have elicited. And so young. Lets hope he stays sound and we can see the polished tests to come in the future too

I'm a bit perplexed by the article because she says should that *win*? but winning a class or not is entirely dependent on the qualities of the other entrants. You can't not win just because your horse makes a mistake, it's not like showing where they can hand out a second place and not a first. perhaps she didn't want to start getting into whether x judge was wrong or y horse deserved a higher score

I don't think extravagant movement should allow riders or judges to paper over mistakes or inadequate training. I think that goes without saying really, if you put it like that no one would think it correct. But there are few absolutes in dressage scoring and a lot to balance up in those few seconds for each movement. from my own POV i would never want natural flair to overshadow correct training. For most horses there's a bit of both and each compensate for little holes in the other.

this horse has masses of flair (and also, clearly a lot of training). i don't think his piaffe would look so limited from a horse with less wow movement., probably on a limited horse people would say, well it's on the spot and regular, 6.5. looking at the individual scores from Aachen he seems to hoover up the marks you'd expect and drip them away on the piaffes and tempis... seems right to me?

 

[Caol Ila]

Do you think Eurodressage has openings for an editor? I know English isn’t the first language of some of its contributors but as a vaguely professional publication, it could do with some rough edges smoothed out. That particular article was hard going.

 

[milliepops]

Do you think Eurodressage has openings for an editor? I know English isn’t the first language of some of its contributors but as a vaguely professional publication, it could do with some rough edges smoothed out. That particular article was hard going.

Please volunteer! I couldn't agree more.

 

[ycbm]

Do you think Eurodressage has openings for an editor? I know English isn’t the first language of some of its contributors but as a vaguely professional publication, it could do with some rough edges smoothed out. That particular article was hard going.

I assumed it was a machine translation from German.
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[ycbm]

I read this on Eurodressage and thought it was very interesting. Especially about whether at international Grand Prix should potential and good paces 'make up' for a lack of technical completion of a Grand Prix move. For me I don't think it should, as being flashy to cover training mistakes would lead to shortcuts in training by just breeding bigger moving horses. What are others views?

Article here https://eurodressage.com/2022/06/25/angelika-fromming-win-or-not-win-question

I think dressage has been breeding"flash" to win over pure technical competence for a long time now. I looked up this recent video of Jovian, the horse the article is about, and shook my head in despair about where dressage horse breeding and competition is heading. Am I the only one who thinks this is a travesty of how a horse, any horse, is meant to look and move, or am I just getting too old?

 

[CanteringCarrot]

There are some dressage horses out there that give me an excited feeling, a good feeling and he is not one of them.

I'm not too keen to get into this type of conversation again because last time it just ended with the Warmblood being the appropriate tool for the job, to sum it up. Which to some isn't wrong, but there's also a lot wrong with that at the same time.

I've been forever saying that on my average moving Iberian I have to be very accurate in my test riding because I have to scrounge together every last point to be competitive. Whereas (and I've actually seen this in person here, and others have noted it as well, so I'm not talking out of my ar*e) the big moving flashy WB horses can make more errors, be less accurate, and still get a good or better score. Some of this (here, where I am) is also at the lower levels (below Advanced Medium) where individual movements aren't scored on your test sheet, you just get some comments and a final score, which I don't necessarily like and I think gives more leeway for scoring issues.

I know if I still owned/rode/and competed my WB my competition experience would be different here, especially when you're in a class of 30 and every horse but yours is a WB so you already feel like the odd man out, a bit. I'm sure there's more diversity elsewhere.

I don't meant to be rude when I say this, but based off of posts and video that I've seen on here and on FB, at the lower levels, many BD competitions are extremely liberal/forgiving/and generous with their scoring. Like tests with major errors scoring mid to upper 60's whereas here you'd be lucky to break 58% So I wonder if that sets some people up poorly as they climb the levels, but maybe not.

But honestly, especially with my pending move kicking me out of the dressage realm anyway, I've given up on caring all that much about the sport. We've had some great success, but I'm not all that passionate about it anymore.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Just going to leave this here...

 

[sbloom]

I think dressage has been breeding"flash" to win over pure technical competence for a long time now. I looked up this recent video of Jovian, the horse the article is about, and shook my head in despair about where dressage horse breeding and competition is heading. Am I the only one who thinks this is a travesty of how a horse, any horse, is meant to look and move, or am I just getting too old?

I think many of us are "getting old". We have long bred horses well beyond what their connective tissue was "designed" for, and now this, then we train for over tracking, range of movement, "over the back" (whatever that means) when what these poor horses need is stability. But the system doesn't reward stability, not the slower training needed, not the purity of paces (DAP still strikes me as unhealthy and, by the laws of physics, on the forehand), partnership not submission and not the smaller amount of money that could be made from such horses.

I see everyone sucked into breeding for elasticity and the wow factor and it makes me really sad.

 

[milliepops]

if you were a breeder of competition horses though, a really serious moneymaking operation not just a hobby breeder, i can't see why anyone would choose to go against the grain here. why would you choose to produce a horse without bigger movement and more elasticity? you'd go out of business. top class competition dressage is not the same sport that most of us actually participate in because of this.

 

[sbloom]

if you were a breeder of competition horses though, a really serious moneymaking operation not just a hobby breeder, i can't see why anyone would choose to go against the grain here. why would you choose to produce a horse without bigger movement and more elasticity? you'd go out of business. top class competition dressage is not the same sport that most of us actually participate in because of this.

I know, I completely see it. I just think it's really sad especially as it percolates down and affects leisure horses, both in the breeding and training.

 

[ycbm]

if you were a breeder of competition horses though, a really serious moneymaking operation not just a hobby breeder, i can't see why anyone would choose to go against the grain here. why would you choose to produce a horse without bigger movement and more elasticity? you'd go out of business. top class competition dressage is not the same sport that most of us actually participate in because of this.

Of course you make that choice. Just like bulldog breeders make the choice to breed pups who can't breathe because they win competitions. I think dressage has fallen down the same dark sinkhole.
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[milliepops]

Pure curiosity, as i am kind of hoping the thread won't steer into the ditch that CC hinted at, but when do people think dressage was in its halcyon days? are we talking BT (Before Totilas), before the war... I think there have been "problems" and trends all along, whether that was stiff backs or overbent horses or leg flingers or whatever, what period are people harking back to? I mean competition dressage, for clarity, not Nuno riding round his arena at home

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Well yeah, if you're in it for making money then of course you're going to go with the trend and/or take the most profitable route. That's general business sense. It doesn't mean that it's right, and sometimes it's not wrong. However, it's a justification that could easily lead us into disregarding animal welfare (well, we're already there, basically) and doesn't really bode well for the sport.

Sure it's more interesting to watch "dancing" horses for those that aren't horsey, perhaps, but for those who are, they should know that this kind of breeding (for extremes) is not without consequences. If you're ok with that, then whatever. If you're in it for the money and have a large scale operation, it probably doesn't matter so much.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Pure curiosity, as i am kind of hoping the thread won't steer into the ditch that CC hinted at, but when do people think dressage was in its halcyon days? are we talking BT (Before Totilas), before the war... I think there have been "problems" and trends all along, whether that was stiff backs or overbent horses or leg flingers or whatever, what period are people harking back to? I mean competition dressage, for clarity, not Nuno riding round his arena at home

Yes, there have always been problems, but that doesn't justify today's problems. I don't know when dressage had it's halcyon days, personally, if ever. I don't know that people are necessarily harking back to anything. You don't have to do that in order to dislike the current direction it's heading in.

The easiest thing is to just say "well there have always been problems, and I suppose there always will be" but it sounds kind of...lame.

I have no idea how to fix dressage or what exactly it should be, I'd have to think on that, and I'd probably have to care more.

Then again, with a lot of equestrian sport, is it really even about the horses?

 

[ycbm]

Pure curiosity, as i am kind of hoping the thread won't steer into the ditch that CC hinted at, but when do people think dressage was in its halcyon days? are we talking BT (Before Totilas), before the war... I think there have been "problems" and trends all along, whether that was stiff backs or overbent horses or leg flingers or whatever, what period are people harking back to? I mean competition dressage, for clarity, not Nuno riding round his arena at home

From the point of view of horse welfare, I think for me it was when an elite level dressage horse in a field with its mates was pretty much impossible to distinguish from the majority of the other horses around it, and became "special" only with the right rider on it.
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[milliepops]

From the point of view of horse welfare, I think for me it was when an elite level dressage horse in a field with its mates was pretty much impossible to distinguish from the majority of the other horses around it, and became "special" only with the right rider on it.
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OK so are we talking Valegro? they did a fair few demos with him showing an ordinary trot that was transformed through training into a Dressage Trot?

 

[sbloom]

Pure curiosity, as i am kind of hoping the thread won't steer into the ditch that CC hinted at, but when do people think dressage was in its halcyon days? are we talking BT (Before Totilas), before the war... I think there have been "problems" and trends all along, whether that was stiff backs or overbent horses or leg flingers or whatever, what period are people harking back to? I mean competition dressage, for clarity, not Nuno riding round his arena at home

I'm not a close follower of competitive dressage and think that, sadly and ultimately, that keeping dressage as a competitive sport is always going to have issues, especially with it being in the Olympics. Nicole Uphoff-Becker and Rembrandt, mid 80s, would be a big landmark for when dressage started to go in this direction. Before that horses of all sorts of breeding, many were converted to dressage later and could win, and most riders had trained with a school that had classical roots, in depth. I would also guess that there were no young horse classes or junior internationals back then but I'd have to look it up. All these developments have chipped away.

 

[milliepops]

Yes, there have always been problems, but that doesn't justify today's problems. I don't know when dressage had it's halcyon days, personally, if ever. I don't know that people are necessarily harking back to anything. You don't have to do that in order to dislike the current direction it's heading in.

The easiest thing is to just say "well there have always been problems, and I suppose there always will be" but it sounds kind of...lame.

I have no idea how to fix dressage or what exactly it should be, I'd have to think on that, and I'd probably have to care more.

Then again, with a lot of equestrian sport, is it really even about the horses?

I'm not being dismissive of any of it nor trying to be provocative or lame but i find it hard to understand where people are coming from when complaining about the way dressage is going, because it does suggest it started from somewhere *better* in order to be going down the pan now. if it was always going in a bad direction then i don't understand why anyone would be drawn to the sport in the first place as a competitive discipline rather than academic passtime.
that's what i was trying to explore but it feels like even that is going to end up being too prickly

i'm not defending anything, fwiw, i don't want to see horses being disposable (see first comment about wanting to see this horse remain in the sport until it produces a polished GP rather than a scrappy 8yo version). that would require immense attention to its welfare along the way.

 

[ycbm]

OK so are we talking Valegro? they did a fair few demos with him showing an ordinary trot that was transformed through training into a Dressage Trot?

I doubt if he did an ordinary trot messing around with his mates in the field, the elevation will always have been there, it will be why he was selected for the training in the first place, I reckon.
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[CanteringCarrot]

I'm not being dismissive of any of it nor trying to be provocative or lame but i find it hard to understand where people are coming from when complaining about the way dressage is going, because it does suggest it started from somewhere *better* in order to be going down the pan now. if it was always going in a bad direction then i don't understand why anyone would be drawn to the sport in the first place as a competitive discipline rather than academic passtime.
that's what i was trying to explore but it feels like even that is going to end up being too prickly

i'm not defending anything, fwiw, i don't want to see horses being disposable (see first comment about wanting to see this horse remain in the sport until it produces a polished GP rather than a scrappy 8yo version). that would require immense attention to its welfare along the way.

You can complain about the direction dressage is going because there are so many pieces to dressage. It might have gone better in respect to horses being infront (rather than very behind) the vertical at one point, but it might be better in another respect at present than in the past.

Also the term "welfare" is really broad and varies, IMO.

Right, well, as I remember we are very far apart on this matter, and I wouldn't want to be to "prickly" so I'll refrain from further comment.

Edit: it can be a productive and worthwhile discussion, don't get me wrong, and it's no one's fault that I'm a prickly pear, but I think it's best for me to sit on the sidelines this time

 

[milliepops]

i really don't think we are far apart at all tbh particularly coming into a sport with non standard horses and being interested in correct training of them but i am also going to step away to avoid another 20 page thread going in circles

ycbm i think Valegro always had that loose engaged quality but the trot they showed as a young horse was correct but not elevated imo. Ordinary in a nice quality way, for me.

 

[sbloom]

That loose quality is the elasticity which is what they need, and a horse that doesn't "max it up" as a youngster at liberty will probably stay sounder for longer, so it's a no brainer for a top competitor I would imagine. But the elasticity is what is needed, and what is the problem for long term soundness ultimately, it was just lucky that he kept the power under wraps. Just my take on it.

 

[LEC]

I hated watching Bonfire and Cocktail - I think the relaxation is better now. How can we moan about the current Olympic champion? It’s has flair and is fairly correct. I find watching Alerich boring now. It’s very correct sure, but dull. Even watching Mistral Horis looks slightly outdated. I am watching Glamourdale with interest as think he looks the best of the lot especially over Everdale who looks hot.

 

[sbloom]

I don't disagree that the current Olympic champion isn't as "bad" as many in the terms we're looking at here. However, Celeste, whose groundwork programme I recommend and who is a bodyworker, says that the GP dressage horses she works on are the most dysfunctional by far and she works on all sorts of top sports horses as well as ordinary and problem horses. I'm sure this would be widespread amongst bodyworkers who look at tensegrity, fascia, posture, compensation.

Jane Clothier of The Horse's Back Blog says that the pelvises in advanced horses are the most distorted of any (can't remember whether that's all disciplines or just dressage) and top riders also often have the worst dysfunction and pain.

I think that says it all and I don't care if things look boring, though I'd say give me Anja Beran or similar and it's absolutely beautiful and shouldn't bore anyone.

 

[Goldenstar]

I doubt if he did an ordinary trot messing around with his mates in the field, the elevation will always have been there, it will be why he was selected for the training in the first place, I reckon.
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I think he was probably chosen for his extraordinary canter which was always out of the ordinary and his price he was an economic choice .

 

[YorkshireLady]

agree that valegro it was the canter....and remember he was not a horse winning huge in YH classes etc

I do think that horses that are not always correct are rewarded....and that horses are being bred too uphill and looking like a dressage horse and then have no strength to carry themselves etc and so break far more easily...as opposed to the training and development building the muscle and structure to create the frame.

 

[ycbm]

I do think that horses that are not always correct are rewarded....and that horses are being bred too uphill and looking like a dressage horse and then have no strength to carry themselves etc and so break far more easily...as opposed to the training and development building the muscle and structure to create the frame.

I agree and there are many times, for me, in the video I pointed to where the horse is so uphill that he looks like a cut and shut of two completely different sized horses.
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[Leandy]

Huge caveat - I haven't read the article! I will try and do that later. So apologies if I'm off point.

I don't think an incorrectly trained horse that shows badly executed movements but has extravagant, flashy movement should score higher than a correctly trained horse with modest paces, showing correctly executed movements. However it is not usually that simple. I don't think I have come across a judge who would say that they mark potential. They will say that they mark what they see in front of them. Sometimes that means they put up a horse with significant natural ability which makes a few mistakes over a horse with more limited natural ability but which is correctly trained and does a mistake free test. Likely here the more naturally talented horse will achieve higher marks for the correctly executed movements scoring more highly than the less naturally talented horse by virtue of the greater degree of swing through the back and elasticity and adjustability of the paces and often associated balance that it is showing. Where it makes mistakes these will be marked down but, in doing so, the more talented horse will be marked down from a higher mark than the less naturally talented horse would be. Overall, across the test, it may be that the aggregate scores means that the extravagant horse with mistakes beats the less talented horse with no mistakes, notwithstanding that the work the less talented horse is showing is correct and to the extremes of its ability but limited by its conformation and the elasticity and adaptability of its paces. So the less extravagant horse working to its full capabilities can still be beaten by the more extravagant horse which still has more to give. This does not mean judges are marking potential per se but that the less extravagant horse has hit the ceiling on the marks it can obtain but the more extravagant one has not, yet still, overall is deserving of higher marks. To work out what judges are rewarding and not, it is essential to look at the actual breakdown of marks across the movements, not the overall aggregate. Dressage judges are marking the objective picture in front of them and not the amount of training which has needed to go into the horse to achieve that. There are no bonus marks for horses with physical limitations nor handicap for those with precocious natural talent and conformational advantages.