Through the back.....

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littlepinkdress

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Tight over the back, not through, trans not through, not enough ground cover, needs more jump, needs to step through more from behind to lighten the front, nice steps but could be more through. Through, through, through. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

At the end of the event season I decided to do some BD with my horse over the winter and have been competing in Novices at BD. I wanted to be able to have a go at doing some tests where I could experiment a bit with the way of going and ask for a little bit more. He will do a very nice smooth obedient test at BE 90 (and prelim BD) and usually scores well. But for BD and for his progression I know he needs to develop a bigger more expressive trot and this is a work in progress which will take time. He hasn't been blessed with a natural wow trot, but he has a good walk and nice canter, and the saying "you can train a trot" is always one that rings in my mind. He schools very nicely at home and in his lessons. To get him moving this way and that, and to engage the back end and lift the front I do leg yields in walk and trot, shoulder in, renvers, alter the tempo within the pace, half halts, counter canter and he can do changes which I feel improve the canter too.

And so having had three weekends now at BD, the mind somewhat boggles. We have had some really good scores - 75% and won and then some disappointing ones when (I think) he has gone just as well. You cant win them all and I know you certainly cant please everyone but I think every sheet I have had and seen of others the words through, and jump and ground cover are a common occurrence. The last time I went out, I went for a more safe test in the first one - this lacked impulsion. So in the second test asked for more - the whole test felt more animated and I could feel a little bit of the much desired "cadence" that we all strive for. At last I thought. Sadly the person at C thought otherwise. Much of the sheet was underlined, and tense, tight and not through - the 3 T's were etched all the way down the sheet. I felt gutted for my horse more than anything as he really tried, and upon reading the sheet there was nothing at all positive to take away. His good bits were completely overshadowed. I watched others do the same test - not straight and on 3 tracks, inconsistent contact, irregular rhythm, ragged transitions down and inaccurately ridden movements - but because those horses covered more ground in the trot all was forgiven. My horse is calm, obedient and stays in a contact and a consistent rhythm, you could ask him to do on a transition on the dot, but this I think is getting overlooked because he doesn't have a big enough trot or bounding canter.

I will not lose faith and will continue working along the same lines at home as it will take time, but I wondered if any of you have had the same experience or any ideas and tips.
 
Big trot and bounding canter absolutely not required at this level. Neither of mine have this, and they both score 70s on a good day, one is a red ribbon machine at Medium and the other just smashed her qualification for winters.

If I artificially tried to create a big show trot now, I can guarantee I'd get a tense, tight horse and a rubbish score and rightly so. It can be trained but IMO this is a project for a couple of years, not a couple of months ;)

I wouldn't necessarily compare yourself against others in the same class. Who knows what else they did right or wrong - you can only judge your own performance really.

Can you feel at home when he has let go and is swinging through his back? My cob is competing nicely but only *really* swings consistently at home -and she REALLY swings, it's amazing. my project for the winter is to help her achieve this feeling at a show. While this work is ongoing, our scores go hither & thither because other elements go a bit awry - might lose her outline, might do a bad transition, but the swing is far more important for her because her paces improve, her balance improves, she has impulsion and becomes an absolute pleasure to ride. In time she will be able to do it all at once, but I'd rather start with a 'through' horse and improve the rest, than start with an accurate tense test and then try to somehow claw back throughness. (been there with another horse, not fun!)

All this to say, be patient. Concentrate on the basics and forget having a fancy trot - that will develop in time, but you can get some super results with perfectly normal paces.
 
Thank you for your reply. Yes he will swing along at home, and let go and also warming up at a show. It might even be me that gets a bit tighter when go in the arena, but next time I will go for the less is more appoach. Make sure he's all supple and not ask him to be "up" as much. All trial and error. Thank you.
 
Do you get your tests videoed at all? Sometimes it helps to let the dust settle and then watch them back, when you aren't reeling from the effort and emotion of it all. Compare against what is written on your test sheets. If your video is taken from the same perspective as the judge that helps you to see what they are seeing.

I wouldn't necessarily say less is always more ;) it's just less negative *tension* is definitely better! you still want him to be responsive, in balance etc, but without holding himself all the way round. Don't go to far in the opposite direction as that won't help you either :wink3:

Also, it's really helpful to speak to the judge if you can, if you get a result or comment you weren't expecting. I've caught them at the score board in the past (most will wander over at the end of the class to see how the scores panned out), and either I've asked them, or a couple of times they've spontaneously asked if I was the one on the 'such & such' horse & volunteered something of their opinion.
 
I know exactly how you feel!! We've just stepped up to novice and did our second competition at this level on Saturday. My horse found prelim very easy and I hoped that we would find the transition to novice fairly straight forward especially as he is consistently working at elementary at home. Unfortunately this hasn't turned out to be the case! We went out last weekend in all that wind and did what I thought were two very average tests. I was extremely nervous, especially as there were a lot of flashy warmbloods in the warm up, and this translated into tight, tense tests where I couldn't get him off my leg at all. I also got an error of course in each one! Fast forward to this weekend and I felt that we did two much more fluent tests. I was much more relaxed (but still room for improvement!) and I didn't go wrong. I was gutted to score much less than we did last week with lots of comments about lacking suppleness, ground cover, could be more through from behind etc. etc.

I also feel that when I get some things right at a competition then I lose other things. It's just trying to get everything to come together at the same time! I think the key for me is to be more prepared. To make sure that I have learnt my tests properly so I have one less thing to worry about and can concentrate on riding him, to arrive on time to I'm not rushing and to try and stay as relaxed as possible. The tension in me really affects the way he goes. I have also been doing lots of writing and have picked up loads of great tips from judges. I also found out that my judge on Saturday has a reputation for being very harsh which did make me feel a bit better. I'm not going to give up either, but I think I just need to get out there and get lots of arena exposure and try and make sense of it all!
 
Ride for rhythm. Often, when we think we're pushing for bigger what we actually do is hurry the horse forwards out of its natural pace - even if that hurried pace still feels rhythmical to ride, the judge can see it.

I sympathise; my horse's natural trot is a cross between a bad show pony and a sewing machine. It's not big, and it's definitely not pretty. He needs to be hugely relaxed before I can even *think* about asking for a larger step, otherwise he rushes and gets tense.

In a test, the judge wants to see consistency so I find I get better marks for riding a step I can maintain throughout rather than getting flashes of bigger, even though the bigger parts are actually nicer/what we're working towards. Does that make sense? I may have confused myself now :D
 
I find swinging really hard on my compact little cob. It's a bit frustrating. We do well in every other regard (accuracy is easy, rhythm, pages more generally etc). I can't really get the full swinging through his back at home either, except in the trot on occasion. We just keep trying :) We will get there eventually! (always open to tips though!)
 
I totally feel your pain, we often get the same comments. It's very much a work in progress but it's frustrating when I see her in the school like this:


where she obviously has no problem using her back when she feels like it!
 
I really find it hard to believe a BD judge would be marking horses highly purely for a flashy trot if the rest of the test was inconsistent in the contact etc - as someone else has said, dont judge other people's tests because ultimately you cannot see the comments on the other people's sheets so you dont know what the judge has scored them highly on; it might not have been the trot you are just guessing that. I always prefer to look at dressage as more of a competition against yourself, comparing yourself and your horse to others is a pointless exercise that is never going to bring you any joy nor will it help improve your marks.

I run BD shows at a competition venue at weekends, I have worked with hundreds of different judges and not a single one of them at Novice level ever scored a horse highly that had inconsistent contact and a poorly executed test, regardless of how good the trot was. All the judges I work with would much prefer an accurate test, with a steady consistent rhythm, in a consistent outline than something flashy but incorrect. Yes they will often mark a horse down because of being tight through the back; but that is mainly because the horse is tense when it goes through the transitions. Yes it may be accurate on the transitions at the marker, but if it tenses up then the swing is lost, the relaxation is lost and the picture looks tight.

They also mark down for lack of ground cover frequently - in the medium trot and medium canter 90% of horses and riders I see hurry in these movements, none are actually lengthening. They think that leg on and a speed increase = medium, whereas the judge is looking for more power from the hind legs allowing the stride to lengthen. However your medium strides at Novice are only a small element of the overall test, they are never x2 multipliers so if your horse doesnt have a great medium at the moment - dont worry about it! Dont ruin the relaxation in the rest of the test just because you are pushing too hard for the medium strides; let that come with time as your horse muscles up and develops more power. Hacking, pole work, cavaletti, lateral work into medium strides....there are plenty of exercises you can use to help the medium strides develop but ultimately it boils down to fitness and power in the hind legs. So work on that, rather than thinking 'lets practice medium now' as practicing medium wont really help make it any better, it will probably just teach him to rush and become tense.

The jump in the canter comments sounds like perhaps your horse has a slight tendency to go a bit flat/downhill at times - again someone else has said this but have you had yourself videoed? Or has your trainer watched one of your tests? Perhaps starting to work on some of the elementary moves might help, you can bring in a bit of collected work if the horse is strong enough to cope with the demands of that, and that could help lift the canter a little to add a bit more jump. I'd speak to your trainer and see what they suggest to improve the canter; I always used to like counter canter with my old novice horse as it really meant he had to balance himself and lift his big 17.3 frame otherwise he'd just fall over!

My old horse who was at Novice had a great canter, his trot was pretty mediocre - so I spent 70% of my schooling sessions on him in canter. He wasnt dressage bred, he was a big ISH hunter type but could do a nice test if he was listening to me. Carl H always advises to spend more time in the pace that best suits the horse, for Valegro he always said canter is his best pace so his sessions would focus on that as he found it easiest and enjoyed it the most, then he'd do a small amount of trot work at the end. So if your horse is better in canter focus on that; I managed to get my old horse's canter to a level where we'd easily get 8's for it, the trot may have only been a 6 (this was before half marks!) but because I got the 8's in canter it would pull my scores up.

Unless your horse is purpose bred for dressage you are not naturally going to be scoring 70-80% without trying; you have to put a bit more work in. Of course you can get those scores, I often see cobs getting 80% at Novice and Ele at my venue; but they are super accurate, super relaxed and clearly very light in the hand, they are soft and supple through the body and dont show any tension. So work with what you have; spend more time working on what your horse enjoys/finds easier so he doesnt get bored or tense through finding it difficult, and then do small amounts of the trot work at the end of a session when he is most relaxed and listening to you. Apply the same logic to your warm ups and you might find he goes into the arena less tense and more likely to be 'through' in the transitions.

And finally if you havent already, get the physio to have a look at his back - with my old Novice horse, an old injury in his leg meant he was compensating for some discomfort in the lower leg through one side of his back, so he needed a bit of work there to even him out and relax the back, helping him to be more through. I once got a really bad sheet towards the end of our time together, it was 60% and all it said was 'not through' in every comment box; got the vet out and turned out he had arthritis in his hocks so we retired him after that.

Not saying that will be the case for you - but sometimes the judges can see something we cant feel, my old horse wasnt lame and he was working fine, no signs of not wanting to work, it was just having the judge be so harsh that led me to get him checked out and turned out there was something wrong. As amateur riders our 'feel' is only as good as the horses we have ridden in the past, we've all ridden some slightly wonky horses with old injuries and probably some underlying health issues - not many of us get the opportunity to ride horses in perfect health with perfect movement so our 'feel' is a bit skewed, what we think feels good/ok could actually be something that is not at all right. Riding lots of different horses helps with this; if you have the opportunity to ride another horse or get some schoolmaster lessons that might help you learn what 'through' feels like so you can apply it to your own horse.
 
kc100 said:
I once got a really bad sheet towards the end of our time together, it was 60% and all it said was 'not through' in every comment box; got the vet out and turned out he had arthritis in his hocks so we retired him after that.
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kc, do you mind me asking why you retired the horse as soon as you got the diagnosis? Mine has been diagnosed with the same (hock already fused) but the vet has told me she can return to the level of work she was doing before, just we need to manage it carefully.
 
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