Totilas is back

shortstuff99 said:
Even when Edward rode him he was all front and no behind. And I think before we bash Rath completely it should be noted that Gal trained him in Rolkur originally! (Which everyone seems to forget and/or forgive)!
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Could not agree more!

Those who are so quick to condemn Rath should remember, Gal trained this horse using Rolkur, many of the problems Rath experienced at the beginning were because Rath does NOT use Rolkur.

The horse has always moved more in front than behind but people seem to be blaming Rath for that too. the front end has also ALWAYS been uneven (probably through tension rather than actual lameness).
 
He has always been slightly less expressive with one front leg than the other. Even with EG...

I think it was a commendable return to competition after a long break. He's a breeding stallion, and no piece of cake to ride, he's not a quiet cob who will just suck up the atmosphere and get on with the job.

Perfection it wasn't, but a damn sight better than previously. I think MR has done a decent job of getting a handle on this horse - and i hope they continue to develop as a partnership.
 
An eloquent example of "be careful what you wish for".............Mathias Rath is a nice young man, but he simply can't ride this horse.
 
Cortez said:
An eloquent example of "be careful what you wish for".............Mathias Rath is a nice young man, but he simply can't ride this horse.
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I disagree, he may not ride as 'prettily' as Gal but I feel he did a good job, even though the first halt was pretty appalling.

Poor Rath is on a hiding to nothing, he cannot win in the eyes of many, I am astounded that the very same people who condemn Patrick Kittel conveniently forget that Gal uses rolkur too, why is that?
 
Amaranta said:
Poor Rath is on a hiding to nothing, he cannot win in the eyes of many, I am astounded that the very same people who condemn Patrick Kittel conveniently forget that Gal uses rolkur too, why is that?
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This annoys me too. You can't pick and choose who to condemn and support if a group all use the same training method. Kittel, Gal, Anky etc all use rollkur so why do the same people on here detest Anky and Kittel for it but rave about how much they adored Totilas when he was trained using the method? I'm not getting into the rights and wrongs of rollkur because that's a debate which goes nowhere on here, but the double standards of forum users does annoy me in this case.
 
chestnut cob said:
I've watched about half of the test. I honestly can't understand why people are getting quite so upset as I don't think it looked half as bad as I expected. I didn't like the bit outside the ring but the test looked so much better than the first time we saw this pair together. I've never liked Totilas anyway, I dislike the way he flings his front legs around and he does nothing for me at all. However, I really didn't think this particular test was too bad. No, it's not Valegro but actually I thought he looked better behind than I've seen him before. If you freeze frame the video at various points, the angle of hind and forelegs looks generally pretty equal which I doubt he always had in the past. I do agree he doesn't look as though he enjoys his work as much as in the past, but then again if he's being used as a breeding stallion his mind is probably somewhat on other things! Plus hasn't he had a few soundness issues? So if he's not been quite right then surely this would show up in his work, especially at this level?

The rights and wrongs of rollkur aside, I remember reading somewhere that Rath does *not* train using this method. Which makes me wonder, if a horse has always been trained in this manner (ie, by Gal), then you switch to another method, could that cause some of the inconsistencies? Genuine (numpty) question!
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I agree with the majority of this.
I was always an EG and Totilas fan, I could appreciate that the spider like movement wasnt every ones cup of tea, but in the flesh they looked a happy partnership and I enjoyed watching them.

When MR took the ride it was car crash TV and I felt very sorry for the horse. This recent test is much improved, still not EG harmony but definitely on the up. I was expecting considerably worse from the comments on this thread.

And your last point - not numpty at all - I would imagine the bulk of the issues are a change of training methods on a very sensitive horse. I've experienced similar, albeit at a lower level!!
 
I'm becoming very disheartened with dressage now - I don't understand the marking or what exactly is being looked for because it's certainly not correctness !! In a correct trot the back should match the front with parallels drawn between the movements of the diagonal legs. I ain't seeing none of that here, or in fact not on many dressage horses !! Placement of the head and neck also completely incorrect and rider very heavy handed. It seems that all the value of a soft, relaxed horses moving correctly has been tossed out the window in place if this excessively flashy movement in front and I find it terribly sad and off putting for riders wishing to come up the ranks but without a horse that high-kicks it's forelegs into it's nose !!

I have spent years and hundreds of pounds training my horses for a dressage career and now I'm not even sure that I want to do it !! They are soft, willing, flexible, rhythmical, balanced and correct but because they're not flicking their toes off the planet and kneeing themselves in the face I don't fancy our chances at BD dressage !! I really desperately wish for this sport to go back to it's roots and reward and what's actually valuable, not what looks pretty but is built on a foundation of fluff !!
 
*sprinkles* said:
I'm becoming very disheartened with dressage now - I don't understand the marking or what exactly is being looked for because it's certainly not correctness !! In a correct trot the back should match the front with parallels drawn between the movements of the diagonal legs. I ain't seeing none of that here, or in fact not on many dressage horses !! Placement of the head and neck also completely incorrect and rider very heavy handed. It seems that all the value of a soft, relaxed horses moving correctly has been tossed out the window in place if this excessively flashy movement in front and I find it terribly sad and off putting for riders wishing to come up the ranks but without a horse that high-kicks it's forelegs into it's nose !!

I have spent years and hundreds of pounds training my horses for a dressage career and now I'm not even sure that I want to do it !! They are soft, willing, flexible, rhythmical, balanced and correct but because they're not flicking their toes off the planet and kneeing themselves in the face I don't fancy our chances at BD dressage !! I really desperately wish for this sport to go back to it's roots and reward and what's actually valuable, not what looks pretty but is built on a foundation of fluff !!
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I know what you mean. A very wise woman (well, OK it was my dressage trainer) said that dressage is really a way of exhibiting understanding and application of the scales of training. I am afraid you couldn't say that about this particular example - nor about some of the tests I see out and about - at UA, affiliated and top level.

P
 
Other than the odd curb angle, which I think is more to do with equipment, I can see in this horse less reliance on hand than with the previous ride. OK, so the change in training is causing some issues, confusion and mistakes, but you have to break eggs to make an omelette.
 
Partoow said:
Ok several things. There were some very good bits in the test. The piaffe and transitions were pretty balanced , regular with good height. The 2xs changes very nice( 1's not so but he often made errors there with Gal.) the half passes in trot were also very lovely as was the counter change of hand.
It's very hard to bring a horse ack to this level of competition let alone a breeding stallion, as Charlotte so rightly said in an interview stallions are a whole lot different in the arena and they do drop off the bridle when you go In the arena.( this I know from experience too)
Add to this, Toto is not the easy relaxed horse you all seem to think he is. Even with Gal he was not easy in the stable and as a younger horse Gal refused to ride him because he was so wild!
As for the front leg he's always been like that. And it is a reflection of slight tension and a common thing in a Trakhner . He has also always moved like that behind! It's just now we have seen the likes of Valegro and we have some thing to compare with where as before we didn't.
I feel for Mathias he is stuck between a rock and a hard place and he is actually a nice guy who seriously wants to work with this horse . If you look at the trot up you can clearly see he is developing a relationship with this horse who is not as straight forward as you all think. The full video of him working I. Also showed good relaxed work.
As for the judging.... Well I would love to get 78% for a GP test where I fall out of the pirouettes miss my ones and don't have enough height or regularity in my passage! Oh and before you all have a dig. I do ride at GP!
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That, with the exception of the last line.

I appreciate that people have an emotional response to the situation and it's human nature to make assumptions about people based on small pieces of knowledge. But the level of hysteria this topic provokes amazes me. He's a decent rider with a nice horse, doing his best under trying circumstances. Personally, given the pressure, I think he did well to remember to breathe and more or less do everything in the right place.

And the horse is just a horse. I don't mean that as a criticism, I just mean I think it's amazing that people who, by definition of being on here, spend their time with horse, train horses, ride horses can be so quick to apparently forget that, at the end of the day, this is just a horse and rider, doing their best like anyone else. How would any one on here like to open a forum and read these kinds of comments about their own riding and horsemanship?
 
To be honest, I imagine Totilas is happy to be in a home where is no longer trained under rollkur and where they are considerate enough to consider that the horse is rusty and they aren't going to ask for the full power that is under the bonnet.

The warm up was a bit uncomfortable to watch, agreed, but I think the guy did a pretty good job. I certainly couldn't ride that horse! I saw poorer riding at the Windsor international freestyle competition tbh.

It's easy for us to sit here and criticise when we have no idea the difficulties that rider has been through with getting on with that horse. He's hardly a push button schoolmaster, a top quality stallion like that is likely to be hugely difficult to ride and I take my hat off to the rider for refusing to continue to train him in rollkur even though that evidently has unsettled their training progress!
 
Partoow said:
Ok several things. There were some very good bits in the test. The piaffe and transitions were pretty balanced , regular with good height. The 2xs changes very nice( 1's not so but he often made errors there with Gal.) the half passes in trot were also very lovely as was the counter change of hand.
It's very hard to bring a horse ack to this level of competition let alone a breeding stallion, as Charlotte so rightly said in an interview stallions are a whole lot different in the arena and they do drop off the bridle when you go In the arena.( this I know from experience too)
Add to this, Toto is not the easy relaxed horse you all seem to think he is. Even with Gal he was not easy in the stable and as a younger horse Gal refused to ride him because he was so wild!
As for the front leg he's always been like that. And it is a reflection of slight tension and a common thing in a Trakhner . He has also always moved like that behind! It's just now we have seen the likes of Valegro and we have some thing to compare with where as before we didn't.
I feel for Mathias he is stuck between a rock and a hard place and he is actually a nice guy who seriously wants to work with this horse . If you look at the trot up you can clearly see he is developing a relationship with this horse who is not as straight forward as you all think. The full video of him working I. Also showed good relaxed work.
As for the judging.... Well I would love to get 78% for a GP test where I fall out of the pirouettes miss my ones and don't have enough height or regularity in my passage! Oh and before you all have a dig. I do ride at GP!
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Could not have said it one bit better. Agree with absolutely everything you say.
 
Can someone please explain to me exactly what was special about Ed and Totilas together? Admittedly, I'm not super dressage orientated, but I just watched both Rath and Gal with him, and the horse looked utterly miserable with both.
 
I saw this yesterday and my thoughts (before reading this thread) were:

- nothing like he was with EG, the partnership is still not working
- oddly weak behind, forget about his previous work, he just doesn't look strong behind for a GP horse
- judges seem to have been quite carried away with the marks (although I don't ride at GP or anywhere near it!!!!!!!!! :) )
 
Cortez said:
An eloquent example of "be careful what you wish for".............Mathias Rath is a nice young man, but he simply can't ride this horse.
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It's is it certainly is .
Is also a wonderful example of how partnership is so important , they simply are not a partnership.
The horse has lost muscle bulk to my eye .
 
LillyBeth said:
To be honest, I imagine Totilas is happy to be in a home where is no longer trained under rollkur and where they are considerate enough to consider that the horse is rusty and they aren't going to ask for the full power that is under the bonnet.
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Sorry but I find that to be such a weird conclusion given that the horse performed so well under EG's rollkur and seemed extremely relaxed, walking off on a long rein after the most superb freestyle at Olympia for example, while he seems very tense and difficult under MR's training regime, more so when MR seemed to be following classic German principles (the stallion show video) than since he started training with Sjev (and presumably doing more hyperflexion himself).
 
The report from Eurodressage says it all. In a non emotional way. The facts are he did a good test .Monica Theordoescu was watching and commented that he is in a better frame with a less hectic trot and even tracked up in the extension ( something he never achieved with Gal) he was better in the mouth and neck and yes he needs to be lighter on the curb but there were no resistances in the mouth . Theordoescu also commented that he was better muscled than before.
It was his first show in two years and a good solid performance so for all you ' rose tinted spectacle wearers 'those are the facts . Whether you like it or agree or not!
Personally I feel sorry for Mathias .
 
Booboos said:
Sorry but I find that to be such a weird conclusion given that the horse performed so well under EG's rollkur and seemed extremely relaxed, walking off on a long rein after the most superb freestyle at Olympia for example, while he seems very tense and difficult under MR's training regime, more so when MR seemed to be following classic German principles (the stallion show video) than since he started training with Sjev (and presumably doing more hyperflexion himself).
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Why is it a weird conclusion to assume a horse regularly subjected to rollkur is almost certainly an unhappy horse?

Tenseness and difficulty is likely to happen IMO in a horse of that calibre adjusting to coming back into competition work after a significant period out of it.

I find it a weird conclusion that you would condone rollkur because the horse is capable of walking calmly out of an arena and performed well under it. I personally don't condone forceful, abusive methods like rollkur whether they produce a nice dressage test or not.

PS. Kimchi, the video of them warming up is lovely. You can see the difference in Totilas in the ring, he seems much calmer and happier in the warm up so maybe after a few big shows back he'll settle back in again.
 
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LillyBeth said:
Why is it a weird conclusion to assume a horse regularly subjected to rollkur is almost certainly an unhappy horse?

Tenseness and difficulty is likely to happen IMO in a horse of that calibre adjusting to coming back into competition work after a significant period out of it.

I find it a weird conclusion that you would condone rollkur because the horse is capable of walking calmly out of an arena and performed well under it. I personally don't condone forceful, abusive methods like rollkur whether they produce a nice dressage test or not.

PS. Kimchi, the video of them warming up is lovely. You can see the difference in Totilas in the ring, he seems much calmer and happier in the warm up so maybe after a few big shows back he'll settle back in again.
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My views on rollkur are fairly well known on this forum so I won't go over them again.

The weird conclusion is this: You watch a horse that appears relaxed, co-operative and working at the absolute top of its discipline but conclude it must be unhappy because it's being trained in rollkur (or hyperflexion if you want to be fair). Then you watch the same horse appearing tense, unco-operative and droping in its performance but you conclude that it is happy because it is not being worked in rollkur. Finally you see the same horse improving but not as good as before, presumably back on rollkur and conclude that it is still happy.

In the first instance you are assuming the conclusion regardless of the premises which means your argument is unfalsifiable (regardless of what the evidence is your conclusion remains the same). In the second instance you are contradicting your own conclusion.
 
Partoow said:
The report from Eurodressage says it all. In a non emotional way. The facts are he did a good test .Monica Theordoescu was watching and commented that he is in a better frame with a less hectic trot and even tracked up in the extension ( something he never achieved with Gal) he was better in the mouth and neck and yes he needs to be lighter on the curb but there were no resistances in the mouth . Theordoescu also commented that he was better muscled than before.
It was his first show in two years and a good solid performance so for all you ' rose tinted spectacle wearers 'those are the facts . Whether you like it or agree or not!
Personally I feel sorry for Mathias .
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It's a normal feature of any spectator competition that the spectators want in on the judging! We all have views on the results from the Olympics all the way through to the Intro test at the local RC. The facts, in a subjectively marked sport, will always be open to interpretation and the public will inevitably have views :)

I'm glad Monica Theordoescu liked the test but to me it looked weaker than before - but that's the fun of the sport, everyone can have a view on a test. Luckily for all involved no one is asking me be an FEI judge so we're all safe!
 
He looks stunning in the warm up video and much more even in front, can only assume that's a tension thing. It probably comes from the contact, some thing that's difficult to sort once in the arena on a hot sensitive horse.
 
charlie76 said:
He looks stunning in the warm up video and much more even in front, can only assume that's a tension thing. It probably comes from the contact, some thing that's difficult to sort once in the arena on a hot sensitive horse.
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Agreed .
He's obviously a very hot horse , and gal of course Is just amazing at riding hot horses.
 
Booboos said:
My views on rollkur are fairly well known on this forum so I won't go over them again.

The weird conclusion is this: You watch a horse that appears relaxed, co-operative and working at the absolute top of its discipline but conclude it must be unhappy because it's being trained in rollkur (or hyperflexion if you want to be fair). Then you watch the same horse appearing tense, unco-operative and droping in its performance but you conclude that it is happy because it is not being worked in rollkur. Finally you see the same horse improving but not as good as before, presumably back on rollkur and conclude that it is still happy.

In the first instance you are assuming the conclusion regardless of the premises which means your argument is unfalsifiable (regardless of what the evidence is your conclusion remains the same). In the second instance you are contradicting your own conclusion.
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I don't think I said that I reckon he's happy again now because he's on rollkur. I see no evidence to assume that he is back on it as I was under the impression his new owner was, rightly, against the use of rollkur? So I thought it fair to assume that the improvement was coming as a natural progression in their partnership and the two getting used to each other.

And I have no idea what your views on rollkur are, as you can see I am a new member. But I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree to be honest as I refuse to accept that a horse being subjected to rollkur, hyperflexion, whatever you want to call it, is a happy horse however he appears from a spectator seeing a 10 minute glimpse of his life.
 
LillyBeth said:
I don't think I said that I reckon he's happy again now because he's on rollkur. I see no evidence to assume that he is back on it as I was under the impression his new owner was, rightly, against the use of rollkur? So I thought it fair to assume that the improvement was coming as a natural progression in their partnership and the two getting used to each other.

And I have no idea what your views on rollkur are, as you can see I am a new member. But I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree to be honest as I refuse to accept that a horse being subjected to rollkur, hyperflexion, whatever you want to call it, is a happy horse however he appears from a spectator seeing a 10 minute glimpse of his life.
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MR has gone to train with Sjev (about a year ago?). While I don't know either personally or have any insight on their training sessions, Sjev talks openly about his hyperflexion training system and it is a fairly plausible assumption that this is what he is teaching MR.

For my view on rollkur see the thread "A defence of rollkur" (I think it was called, it was a while back). It discusses all the evidence againt rollkur, and shows why it's really poor.
 
Booboos said:
MR has gone to train with Sjev (about a year ago?). While I don't know either personally or have any insight on their training sessions, Sjev talks openly about his hyperflexion training system and it is a fairly plausible assumption that this is what he is teaching MR.

For my view on rollkur see the thread "A defence of rollkur" (I think it was called, it was a while back). It discusses all the evidence againt rollkur, and shows why it's really poor.
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Fair enough. I still cannot wrap my head around defending it. Will read your topic but highly doubt will change my mind on an abusive training method.
 
georgiegirl said:
I cant say Ive ever been a Totilas fan and have always found his front end movement to be very strange looking. I do however feel for the flack poor Mattias Rath (or however you spell it gets) Yes he is from a privilaged background. And yes he was bought one of the most 'sucessful' dressage horses ever for millions of euros but it certainly doesnt make him the devil or a completely crap rider! I can only imagine how hard it was to take on a world record breaking horse that had been trained practically by one rider from day dot. I for one couldnt ride one side of him!

Partnerships take time, and we dont all know the full story of whats gone on the past year or so and how much ridden work he has actually been able to have due to an injury or whatever. I really do hope they gel well together but all the critisism and negativity wont help one bit.
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martlin said:
I find it amazing that this forum crucifies Patrik Kittel (or whatever his name is) and Anky, but glorifies Edward Gal, although he does use the same training methods. Totilas was always a monkey trick with all front and no back end, I actually think he shows more freedom under Mathias, he doesn't move great, but he never did.
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The horse never looked right IMO, the front end action was always freakish and I'm sure even with Gal it was uneven.

Let's face it though, Rath hasn't just got this horse and ruined him. The damage was done a long time ago...
 
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