Promotion of Overbending in the Young Horse

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Atamekan

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The picture on www.team-teke.co.uk/miscellaneous.html has twice accompanied an article on training the young horse appearing in a nationally circulated magazine. The horse is nearly 30 degrees overbent, the consequent shortening of stride clear in the picture. Does this accurately present the current fashion for starting young horses, and if so is it correct?
 
I think this is a complicated and emotive subject these days. As such, you're going to get a lot of "opinions" but not always a lot of factual, objected study or even experience. You have only to look on this forum - lots of vitriol about rolkur etc, but then lots of photos of horses behind the vertical/hand. It's easy to say, not always so easy to put ones opinions into practice.

There are reasons a horse may be ridden in different positions - the goal of training is adjustability, after all - at differnt times and for different reasons. It's impossible to judge context from a photo.

I'm a fan of riding horses "up and out" but on the hand. But I would be lying if I said I'd never ridden a horse lower or rounder for a specific purpose.
 
It's a reference to where the hind foot is landing, well short if where the front took off, and the relative distribution of weight between front and hind legs. The horse isn't 'tracking up' and is on the forehand. Although I agree it's difficult to judge the whole from one moment in time.
 
Nice horse, pity they chose this picture as it doesn't do the horse justice, he looks quite tight in his neck. If it's to demonstrate their methods of training a young horse, well, I'd be put off, as I'd also like to see the horse stretching forward into the contact rather than well behind the vertical.
 
Also looks to have enlarged glands which I hate to see. Common outline I would say, which is considered fine so much of the time.
 
siennamum said:
Also looks to have enlarged glands which I hate to see. Common outline I would say, which is considered fine so much of the time.
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And will score far better in a prelim test than the equivalent angle of the head in the other direction, which is one reason why people do it :(

Definitely a modern phenomenon. Read Philippe Karl if you hate it.
 
I think the author is erroneous in the description of the horses action TBH. It says that the shortness of the stride can be seen by the hind foot hitting the ground 25cm short of tracking up. I don't see this. I see a nearside hind that is still firmly on the ground and has therefore not completed it's propulsion forward and an offside hind that is not yet ready to hit the ground. When the hoof hits the ground, the sole is parallel to the ground, which is not the case in this picture at all. Looking at this I would actually say that this hose will easily track up.

I'm not saying it's a pretty picture, there is plenty not to like, but I do wish horses and riders would stop being judged on a picture or judged to harshly when overbending.

When you look at almost any picture of any young or green horse, you are going to see things that are not appealing. Horses aren't born fully trained and relaxed in all of their work. Of course they will hold tension, especially when learning new things as they are on a learning curve and part of that is learning to relax. Relaxation isn't automatically just there.

I am of the school of allowing them to be more "out" in the frame because I care little for where a horses head is when they are young, but I won't judge a person when I see a young horse overbent because I know that it is very natural for young horse to do this as they figure out how to move and balance and take a contact. Of course some, in fact many riders ask for it, but not all do, so I think it's harsh to judge on a photo.
 
I think the point is that this picture was being used as an example, and presumably a good one, in more than one serious article about horse training?
 
cptrayes said:
I agree with you.
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I agree too.

I made the points I made because I could...and so will all the people (not me) that DO train young horses with this kind of frame in mind.

We have been reading articles like this for such a long time now and nothing is changing.

Instead, I would like to see articles that are scrutinising judging. Riders and trainers will continue to focus on the front, not the back of the horse for as long as judges reward this way of going.

At the very top level, thanks in great part to the likes of Valegro, we are beginning to see the correctness rewarded with wins and the better scores. This will take a long time to filter down through the levels however unless more attention is put on it.
 
cptrayes said:
And will score far better in a prelim test than the equivalent angle of the head in the other direction, which is one reason why people do it :(
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Why is that the case, though? Are there any judges on here that could comment? I'm going to assume here that the average judge isn't thick, and knows full well what a prelim outline should look like, and how to tell if a horse is on its forehand with its nose tucked in.

I think I've noticed when writing that a test with accurate transitions and constricted, cautious movements seems to get rewarded higher than a test with truer movements but less accurate transitions. Is this a feature of the way marks are allotted to the various components?
 
I think the horse in this picture is not actually young though? I read the article and this I believe is a 7/8 year old they used instead of a young horse and this section (if I remember correctly) was about stretching? I also don't get why being infront of the vertical is seen as less 'bad' then behind when surely they are equally as bad for muscle development etc?
 
shortstuff99 said:
I think the horse in this picture is not actually young though? I read the article and this I believe is a 7/8 year old they used instead of a young horse and this section (if I remember correctly) was about stretching? I also don't get why being infront of the vertical is seen as less 'bad' then behind when surely they are equally as bad for muscle development etc?
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Being in front of the verticle is the natural placement of the head for an inexperienced horse.
 
spookypony said:
Why is that the case, though? Are there any judges on here that could comment? I'm going to assume here that the average judge isn't thick, and knows full well what a prelim outline should look like, and how to tell if a horse is on its forehand with its nose tucked in.

I think I've noticed when writing that a test with accurate transitions and constricted, cautious movements seems to get rewarded higher than a test with truer movements but less accurate transitions. Is this a feature of the way marks are allotted to the various components?
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Agree would be interesting to hear a judges point of view.

I remember taking my horse to do a walk trot intro just to see how he would behave on his first outing at a competition.

The venue runs a lot of affiliated competitions and has the reputation of running the unaffiliated to similar standards.

Comments and marked down all they way through for being in front of the vertical, not on the bit etc. In the comments judge liked paces but wanted to see him in an outline.
 
cptrayes said:
Being in front of the verticle is the natural placement of the head for an inexperienced horse.
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Doesn't necessarily mean that it is better for the horse though, for carrying humans I mean. I'm sure if it lived his/her life in the wild that placement would be fine but add a human to the mix and surely having weak back muscles causes damage.
 
nikkimariet said:
Umm let me think... When horses don't have the strength or perhaps confidence to step up into the contact at all times?
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But I would then be thinking that it's the rider/contact that is incorrect, not the horse - sorry, just basically said the same thing as CPT.
 
cptrayes said:
And will score far better in a prelim test than the equivalent angle of the head in the other direction, which is one reason why people do it :(

Definitely a modern phenomenon. Read Philippe Karl if you hate it.
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Another vote here to go look at the work of Philippe Karl ...... who, by the way, is now in the final stage of doing his first teacher training course in the UK and who will be starting a new teacher training course come September ....... anyone wanting to study his work more closely can sign up to audit the teacher training course - I've been auditing the one that's about to finish and it's been very interesting (albeit his distaste of a lot of modern day dressage is very clear!!) :)
 
cptrayes said:
I don't believe so. I believe they only do that consistently when the rider places them there, and that the problem with that is that it also places them onto the forehand. Philippe Karl explains it much better than me.
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Cortez said:
But I would then be thinking that it's the rider/contact that is incorrect, not the horse - sorry, just basically said the same thing as CPT.
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Agree to disagree!!!
 
shortstuff99 said:
Doesn't necessarily mean that it is better for the horse though, for carrying humans I mean. I'm sure if it lived his/her life in the wild that placement would be fine but add a human to the mix and surely having weak back muscles causes damage.
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Does this mean you assume that a horse in front of the verticle is weak because it isn't using itself correctly? A horse can be in 'an outline' and still not be using it's back, especially if it's btv, just as a horse can be in front of the verticle and be working correctly over it's back. The point is that it shouldnt just be about the front end looking pretty but the horses movement as a whole...
 
A horse btv can be a avoiding contact just as much as a horse which is infront of vertical - i thought a lot of teaching a young horse is to accept the contact.

In front of vertical is only acceptable if working forwards and to the contact.
Strong hands can have either btv or in front depending on horse. And who knows how valegro was trained as a young horse?

Eg. Billy will, depending on his mood can resist contact by poking his nose or can equally play with the bit/roll his tounge and come behind the bit. Only now am i able to do a correct give and retake in trot and canter with him staying through. But he still offers moments of resistance depending on work, which i imagine all horses do. Its not always a case of only correct training - it is the correct training appropiate to what the horse offers at that moment in time!

As for the horse in the picture, i thought it looks like they are flexing horse to the inside which can distort the overall image we get. Above vertical/behind vertical is relative to each horse really! And as for a young horse on the forehand, they are still growing and finding their balance. I was always taught prelim tends to be downhill, novice is horizontal (neither down nor up) and elementary was a very small increase to uphill with the "uphillness" increased as the horse progresses up the levels!
 
Scarlett said:
Does this mean you assume that a horse in front of the verticle is weak because it isn't using itself correctly? A horse can be in 'an outline' and still not be using it's back, especially if it's btv, just as a horse can be in front of the verticle and be working correctly over it's back. The point is that it shouldnt just be about the front end looking pretty but the horses movement as a whole...
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No, but its the fact quite a few people let there horses work willy nilly and say 'its okay as he is in front of the vertical which is natural'. And that to me is just as bad as working them incorrectly BTV. If back muscles are being used correctly then that is a different story.
 
shortstuff99 said:
No, but its the fact quite a few people let there horses work willy nilly and say 'its okay as he is in front of the vertical which is natural'. And that to me is just as bad as working them incorrectly BTV. If back muscles are being used correctly then that is a different story.
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It's a heck of a lot easier to fix though. :) And these days, I'd say you have a lot more people pulling horses' noses in than letting them out.

As Scarlett pointed out though, we are having two conversations, one about head position and another about quality of contact. A horse can be temporarily btv or a bit against the hand and still be working, over all, towards correctness. Equally, a horse can be 'in the right position' and be all kinds of wrong. I agree, it's probably not possible to properly gymnasticize a horse without riding it into a yielding contact, riding from leg to hand. But I've seen more people and horses get into trouble from being behind than in front.

One key point is control. If you can't ride the horse up and out on the contact at any point, then there is at least the beginning of a problem that needs to be addressed.
 
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