New trainer in action.....

She has a great position and looks strong rider she is clear in her demands and looks competent .
But.. I must join the group who dislike seeing this horse rushed forward onto his forehand this is a big change of approach to brown boots ( sighs ) I don't understand how this going to reduce Armas desire to evade by going behind the contact .
 
I'm going to reiterate what I have just said on FB. I do NOT like the way the horse is going in this video, BUT... I think everyone needs to understand that this is not an easy horse - I'd go so far as to say that he is difficult to a degree that is beyond the comprehension of many people who have not experienced a truly hot horse. He is sharp. clever, and constantly challenging his rider. His chosen method of evasion is to put pedal to the metal and stick his nose on his chest and horses like this are damnably difficult to ride.

Having seen this girl ride him initially (when he went very sweetly) I thought she was a very nice rider, and I stand by that. I can see the principle behind what she's trying to achieve, and if they keep on at it, once the horse accepts it and shuts up a bit, I think we'll see a very different picture. Incidentally - what you are seeing is not Rollkur - she isn't asking him for it - he is simply presenting her with an evasion. Rollkur is more than just a horse that is severely behind the vertical. You need to ask for it in a very specific way - this is not what is happening here.

The way he's going isn't pretty,and I don't like it, but I also think that a horse this tricky, at such an early stage in their partnership , isn't going to be pretty. He was similar with the Spanish rider at first, and as their understanding of each other grew, the work improved. I hope this will happen here as well.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. I feel that some slack should be cut until this pair have had a chance to reach an understanding
 
Goldenstar said:
She has a great position and looks strong rider she is clear in her demands and looks competent .
But.. I must join the group who dislike seeing this horse rushed forward onto his forehand this is a big change of approach to brown boots ( sighs ) I don't understand how this going to reduce Armas desire to evade by going behind the contact .
Click to expand...

As I said, I am going to give her some time and see how things go its very difficult to tell in one or two sessions.
I have told her what I want and that is to get him working through his back properly and to get him to stretch. If that does not happen then I will be going back to the drawing board.

However I have met and watched a number of trainers of late trying to find the best to help us. The decision to chose this trainer was taken upon careful advisement.
 
Genuinely interested as to what you are aiming Armas at?
Before I got the impression that you had your horse to enjoy and hack ect. And that he was a very beautiful leisure horse

Now he is being put through all this training, is it towards a bigger competitive goal?
 
What is going on with her diagonals, they are all over the place, maybe she cant keep up with the horse or something but it just looks all wrong.


I dont know anything about your horse nor a whole lot about dressage so I wouldnt be inclined to comment on his way of going even though there is a lot I want to say
 
Billie1007 said:
Really? Because you seemed to see it as a real plus point earlier and were using it as an argument for having this rider involved.....

I wonder if the well respected HHo'er would endorse the rider now they have seen her ride? Just saying! and they may well be willing to, i am sure that person has far more experience than I do.

Look I CLEARLY don't know everything. Heck for the last 6 months I've been far too fat to ride my own bloody horse BUT - I see what I see.
Click to expand...

I believe that Armas is referring (somewhat misguidedly) to me. And I've explained my thoughts as clearly as I can in my previous post.
 
Buds_mum said:
Genuinely interested as to what you are aiming Armas at?
Before I got the impression that you had your horse to enjoy and hack ect. And that he was a very beautiful leisure horse

Now he is being put through all this training, is it towards a bigger competitive goal?
Click to expand...

I enjoy all aspects of riding I am a happy hacker and enjoy dressage and jumping.
 
Buds_mum said:
Genuinely interested as to what you are aiming Armas at?
Before I got the impression that you had your horse to enjoy and hack ect. And that he was a very beautiful leisure horse

Now he is being put through all this training, is it towards a bigger competitive goal?
Click to expand...

Auslander said:
I believe that Armas is referring (somewhat misguidedly) to me. And I've explained my thoughts as clearly as I can in my previous post.
Click to expand...

Auslander I was not going to drag you in to this hence I did not reference your user name. I appreciate your advice and knowledge and I stand by that.
 
Buds_mum said:
Genuinely interested as to what you are aiming Armas at?
Before I got the impression that you had your horse to enjoy and hack ect. And that he was a very beautiful leisure horse

Now he is being put through all this training, is it towards a bigger competitive goal?
Click to expand...

A horse does not need a competitive goal to be "put through "training personally I spend a great deal of time training my horses and don't really complete at all . I enjoy training them and enjoy them learning and developing.

I agree with Auslander this is not rolkur the horse takes the rider into the very L and D position that's his thing to evade working more through his back .
Armas I am not in any way giving you a hard time about this, being involved with horses is a journey with many turns and you learn and develop as you go along.
I am a bit of a natural horse rusher myself I have to be strict with myself about it.
Ps I did not jump on mr brown boots except well in my mind er you know ...slinks off cheeks getting pink.
 
Armas, I'm another one who hasn't commented on any of your threads before, but I watched most of the videos from when Brown Boots was training him.
IIRC, you paid him (quite a lot of money) to give your lovely Spanish horse a 'classical' Spanish education, and you were pleased with the results, from what I remember.

Now you're using a trainer whose style of riding is much more geared toward modern competition dressage and therefore probably more suited to big warmbloods, and who trains with a pretty controversial individual, so the way she rides will be very different to BB.:o

I think that's quite unfair and confusing for Armas, who will suddenly be asked completely different questions, and seems to make all those weeks spent with Brown Boots a bit of a waste of time. :confused:

Couldn't you have found someone who is more classically orientated to continue Armas' education in the same vein as it was started?
 
Ok, prepare to be shot down!
I don't think that the rider has particularly good poise and balance, she has that not sure whether she is rising or sitting type position in the trot, prob because she rides with a too longer stirrup.
Anyway. That's all on her position.

With regards to how she is riding the horse, I can see what she is trying to achieve , my horse had a terrible problem with dropping behind the vertical and being incorrect in his neck. He was never on a tru contact. Many trainers kept telling me I needed to 'get his neck out ' so I spent many months riding him on a wishy washy contact trying to do just that.
Trouble was , he was never going to get his neck out or stretch down into a rounder longer frame as he was never actually on the end of the rein!
I then got a new trainer who told me not to worry about him coming short in the neck or over bent, just make sure he is always to the contact,this often resulted in a picture similar to what you are seeing there, wherever he out his neck and however short he came I just shortened back and put him straight back to the contact. Many people watching would have wondered what I was doing and whether I had become a fan of rollkur! Not at all , I just needed to connect him to the bit.

Once he realised that wherever and when ever he attempted to duck behind me my hands followed and I put him straight back to a connection he stopped doing it. Once he was securely in the rein, albeit, similar to the video, I could then start to push his neck out.
He is now able to be ridden deep and round, long and low or up and out in all three paces, he is always connected and secure in the rein and no longer hides behind the contact.

As some one said, sometimes you have to go through a period of bloody ugly to get a better result.

The only thing I will say is that when I was taught to ride mine like this I was told to slow him down to let him balance himself.
 
I also have a horse with a spectacularly incorrect neck he does not take a contact and would appear to be in rolkur most of the time if you left him too it .
He was driven until he was ten and this has made him a thorny difficult project the worst thing you can do to him is rush him ,its completely counterproductive .
 
Forest Fox said:
He is OVER-BENT and obviously unhappy and yes it does smack of Rollkur.
Poor horse, obviously his owner puts showy appearance before the comfort of his horse :mad:
Click to expand...

The horse is extremely behind the vertical. Rollkur is a training technique, and is asked for in a very specific way. This is not nice to look at, but it is not Rollkur.

Your second comment is just ignorant and unkind, bearing in id the lengths that James goes to to do right by this horse.

You seem to be taking this as an opportunity to get a few nasty digs in, without having anything of value to contribute - ever seen that scene from Bambi?
 
charlie76 said:
Ok, prepare to be shot down!
I don't think that the rider has particularly good poise and balance, she has that not sure whether she is rising or sitting type position in the trot, prob because she rides with a too longer stirrup.
Anyway. That's all on her position.

With regards to how she is riding the horse, I can see what she is trying to achieve , my horse had a terrible problem with dropping behind the vertical and being incorrect in his neck. He was never on a tru contact. Many trainers kept telling me I needed to 'get his neck out ' so I spent many months riding him on a wishy washy contact trying to do just that.
Trouble was , he was never going to get his neck out or stretch down into a rounder longer frame as he was never actually on the end of the rein!
I then got a new trainer who told me not to worry about him coming short in the neck or over bent, just make sure he is always to the contact,this often resulted in a picture similar to what you are seeing there, wherever he out his neck and however short he came I just shortened back and put him straight back to the contact. Many people watching would have wondered what I was doing and whether I had become a fan of rollkur! Not at all , I just needed to connect him to the bit.

Once he realised that wherever and when ever he attempted to duck behind me my hands followed and I put him straight back to a connection he stopped doing it. Once he was securely in the rein, albeit, similar to the video, I could then start to push his neck out.
He is now able to be ridden deep and round, long and low or up and out in all three paces, he is always connected and secure in the rein and no longer hides behind the contact.

As some one said, sometimes you have to go through a period of bloody ugly to get a better result.

The only thing I will say is that when I was taught to ride mine like this I was told to slow him down to let him balance himself.
Click to expand...

This is what I would have liked to have said this is exactly what my boy is trying to do and what we are trying to get him out of the habit.. In fact a friend watched the video today. She is a lady in her 80s and used to judge and compete at a good level she started riding at he age of 8. She knows my boy vey well her comments were much the same as what you have said.

We are doing another session on Tuesday and I will again ask my trainer about the pace.
 
Lovely horse. I watched the video thinking of how I would be ALL OVER the place if I tried to ride him!

Good luck with him Armas, I hope your new trainer works out for you both. :)
 
*sigh* that wasn't pretty Armas. In fact it was really awful to watch.
Though having read Auslanders reply, I'd be interested to see another video in a few weeks to see the improvement.
 
This is one of those times when an open mind is needed.

I'm no expert by any stretch, BUT there are a few assumptions being made here that are just incorrect.

Firstly Armas is not being ridden in Rollkur. Yes, he is severely behind the vertical, but he is not being pulled there and forces into that position by the rider. He is putting himself there. That said, the rider is not allowing him to come out of it and is at times harder with the hand than I would be comfortable with if he were my horse. I would much rather see the rider maintain the contact through stead hands and when Armas tries to take the contact forward, which he does a number of times, it would be nice to see the rider allow this, not necessarily going soft, but actually allowing her hands to move forward with Armas taking the contact out a bit. Instead, I saw a good few examples of Armas trying to take the contact forward and come up in his contact and the riders hands physically play him to prevent that happening. Not pulling so not rollkur, but failing to allow for any improvement offered by Armas.

The riders position could look quite braced in some of the work and if you watch carefully, that is when she also blocks an attempt by Armas to bring the contact up. Other than that, try not to be too harsh on her...he looks like a very hot horse and if you haven't tried to school a horse like this, you have no idea how hard they are to sit on and maintain any form of balance. Horses like this move so much beneath you that when you attempt sitting trot, you get literally thrown out of the saddle with any degree of speed in the gait. Also, when you try to rise to the trot, it doesn't ever really look like you are as the horse moves so big underneath, you actually never get that far out of the saddle.

As for the speed, I absolutely agree that it is just too much. There is a clear benefit to using changes in the gait to improve a horses way of going. That is pretty basic transition work. Opening up the gait as this rider is is ok at times, but mostly it is just too too fast. It has gone beyond the point at which Armas can balance himself and this is not a good thing IMO.
My reason for that is that when you are using an exercise to try and teach a horse that no matter how much he tries to evade a contact, you are going to maintain it...pushing that horse to the point of lacking balance makes it impossible for him to be independent enough to achieve self carriage. It can't be done as it needs self balance. Instead, the horse uses the rein to help himself balance and unfortunately, when Armas does this in this video, he is then given a pulling hand or two in correction do he is damed if he does and damned if he doesn't so is pushed to break to canter momentarily in order to regain a little balance.

The lateral work is what I found the hardest to watch to be honest. It is so hard to see Armas genuinely trying really really hard top please the rider, but he is being given rushed aids in a too fast gait and the aids are also confused to begin with. It is far better to start small, reward and increase the movement than go for something big and end up overcompensating. It's like driving a car...you're going too fast around a corner, try to correct yourself but make the correction too big, car swings, you over correct again and end up with a major wobble and half the car seat up your bum :eek:

I would prefer to see the rider break it down a bit more for Armas, especially as this is early days with him. They have to create a language between each other again and in this video, I see a lot more talking to than listening to from the rider. I would like to see her listen to Armas. She missed so many opportunities to improve. He was practically begging to be allowed a stretch at one point and it seemed the rider mistook this for tension. Had she allowed a stretch and done it properly, she would not have lost any contact at all, but she would have felt what is being hoped for...real swinging through the back as Armas relaxes into the movement.

Canter work seemed tense, but with a trot and movement like his, this is probably due to nerves on the part of the rider.

In summary, a beautiful horse in fantastic condition that is extremely willing to work but is as demanding as the rider if not more. He does not look to be an easy ride. He looks like my ideal horse to be honest, these are my favourite types to train, unlike the very laid back girls that I have. Hot horses have so much to give but if you pi$$ them off, you'll be paying for it for a long time.

The rider is training with someone I have zero respect for, but that doesn't automatically make her bad. I have trained with riders like that, so feel qualified to judge as I have first hand experience of it. I don't like those methods, but I won't lie...I learned a few things that I have kept going, rollkur not being one of those thing!

I think this rider deserves a chance, but I think OP that it would be very worth your while sitting down with her before she rides next time and pointing out where Armas could be given a chance to improve. He won't let her refuse those chances for ling and if he is as hot as he looks, he will eventually throw a strop and they are usually done in spectacular fashion :eek:

Please do post videos of the next few session she has with him as it will be very interesting to see how she continues this.

Just please remember that if YOU are wanting Armas to be more relaxed, swinging and using his back better, this rider needs to learn to listen to him...not judge him based on other horses.

My method for horses like Armas is very simple and it involves listening to them above any of my own ideas or wants. Literally riding neutrally until the horse forces me into doing something. What that is depends on the horse and what he is saying...but it means you can react and in this video it is a one way conversation.

Lots to work on and I would be watching her like a hawk BUT...lots of potential for some really wonderful things from this horse.

I will say, I have never seen any other videos of this horse so have no idea how he went under the former rider...BUT...that is not a bad thing. Armas has to start over with this rider, so a perspective that is not swayed by what has gone before can sometimes be a good thing. Judge what is happening now, don't compare it to what has gone before..,it won't help the horse.

OP, just bear in mind if the style of riding is that different that Armas will take a while to learn the new language so don't expect too much too soon...though I don't think you are.

So there...my non expert opinion just because I have nothing better to do :D
 
Armas said:
The rider competes at a high level and trains under Adelinde Cornelissen on a monthly basis. So I am sure she knows her stuff.
However I have an open mind and will give her time with us.
Click to expand...

You say this ^^^^^ like its a good thing Armas :(
I see a lovely horse pushed out of his natural rhythm, i see what shes trying to do with the contact, but dont see it working in this case, at times he looks pinned by her :confused: Armas just looks rushed, tense and unhappy :( at the end of the day hes your horse but the video wasnt inspiring to me, if it doesnt work, why dont you contact Sylvia Loch on the classical riding club website or fb page and see if she can recommend someone who knows the iberian horse And its training
 
I haven't seen you ride him, so I don't know if she gets more from him than you do, but I agree it looked very rushy.
 
Auslander said:
I'd go so far as to say that he is difficult to a degree that is beyond the comprehension of many people who have not experienced a truly hot horse. He is sharp. clever, and constantly challenging his rider.
Click to expand...


Oh trust me, I do :o In fact Armas looks much more forgiving than mine, if I take up a contact that is either too strong, or not supported by enough leg, he goes straight up. I learnt pretty swiftly to be giving with my hands. Would make my life easier if he curled, at least that gives you something to ride into.

I think perhaps she is just not a sympathetic rider, and if I was paying someone to ride my horse, that is what I would want. But again, each to their own, and although he is overbent it is not quite hyperflexion, so I wouldn't say she is a cruel rider. Perhaps just not the right one for him?
 
I don't really like commenting on such stuff (and haven't read all the posts,just the first and last pages) but on a basic level, I think she looks too crude and/or unsympathetic rider for Armas. He looks like he would be more responsive to someone more subtle and 'quiet',not someone who razzes him up even more. That's it,I'm off now...don't want to upset anyone and Armas looks gorgeous as ever...I like your posts & vids:)
 
Venevidivici said:
I don't really like commenting on such stuff (and haven't read all the posts,just the first and last pages) but on a basic level, I think she looks too crude and/or unsympathetic rider for Armas. He looks like he would be more responsive to someone more subtle and 'quiet',not someone who razzes him up even more. That's it,I'm off now...don't want to upset anyone and Armas looks gorgeous as ever...I like your posts & vids:)
Click to expand...

I don't normally either, quite surprised with the size of my post when I submitted it, lol.
 
As Pigeon says I haven't seen you ride him and would be really interested to see how he goes for you.
When I watched the video I saw him coming behind the vertical as an evasion rather than him being asked to do so and I see a horse that gets faster rather than using his hindquarters when asked. I have a very hot horse who rushes more when unbalanced and it is very difficult to get a hot horse to use it's back end correctly. As I've always been taught to push a horse up into a contact I really struggled at first with how to get the horse working from behind when any leg aid just increased speed. I would have used lots of circles, shoulder in and lots of transitions to get a hot horse using it's back end without increasing speed but suspect with a horse that comes btv that these exercises would cause it come btv even more.
I tried to picture myself riding Armas for the first time and suspect I would have struggled considerably and wouldn't want to be judged on my first few rides. I had been used to bigger slower horses that needed to be ridden up into the hand before I got my hot horse and it did take a while to get the best out of her without unbalancing her more.
I know you would probably get a barrage of criticism if you did but I would really like to see how Armas goes for you on the flat and if possible how he went for you before BB and after. For me any training my horses have with other riders has to help me with how I ride them and I'd be looking at whether what the rider does helps me to work with the horse.
I really like Armas and like you I would be chatting with the rider about what I want from the horse and also would give her time to figure out how to achieve that with what looks like a far from easy ride.
 
To me she seems to be riding only with her hands.. Her seat looks insecure and so her hands (and legs) can't be quick enough to correct his running on. He is going forward so why push for faster? It seems an odd thing to do to me. It is unbalancing him more thus making it hard for him to work thru his back which would allow him to come into a much more correct outline at the front.
 
I can't really add any more to what the others have said. I do agree with them though.
1 thing I will comment on is: please please please stop her from constantly clicking at him, and tell her to use her seat and legs more, to put across what she is trying to put across by clicking at him. Tell her that if she just RIDES him then he will know what she means, no need to click at him.

He's a very clever horse and it won't take long for him to know clicking = faster. I have a horse who someone constantly clicked at rather than use their seat, and even though she has now improved a lot, she is still sensitive to it. When I first got her it was a nightmare, when people walked past us on a hack and god forbid they clicked, she'd be off, and I would be asking her not to go forwards so she would have a temper tantrum and i'd spend next 15min getting her to calm down again :rolleyes:

Plus, I've had it drilled into me since being little that you use your legs and seat to make them go forwards, and if you click then you are being lazy :o
 
Still maintain that my favourite videos of Armas are when he's at liberty and when he's being ridden by that lad who jumps him. That lad doesn't unbalance him by making him rush, or make his paces short and choppy by holding him back...He just looks like he's loving it, has a big flowy canter and looks great.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top