Dressage What does a £1.5million dressage 4 year old look like? This!

palo1 said:
I have always (well for a long time) seen it as rather odd that the modern warmblood dressage horse is a universe away from it's origins - if we accept those origins are the SRS, CN, traditional Iberian horses/training etc. Things change and move on of course but it's not as if those Lippizaners and of course fabulous Iberian horses have vanished. I wonder why that is really - is it because it is somehow much easier to have a modern warmblood to get to that level than the more old fashioned baroque horses who do need years of training and look essentially better designed for long term health and soundness as well as collection ? If extension is the focus of modern dressage then this modern sort of horse would be much better it seems but for collection, to me it seems a more difficult sort of horse...But of course, it's chicken and egg - which came first; the sport generally struggling with collection/training around collected exercises and thus making the most of extension or the horses that drove that?
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Is it a question of follow the money?
Dressage is not particularly exciting in the eyes of the general public - those who subscribe to various sports TV channels that is. The money in sport is with those TV companies.
The subscribers like the "thrilling" bits of riding - the "thrilling" bits of dressage for the average person in the street are the extensions not the collection - passage may qualify as thrilling because it's a bit dancey, they like tempis not pirouettes, true collection with a proper piaffe etc isnt as exciting, it doesnt make for good TV.
So even with the best judging we all have to pay the bills and for the sport to survive it has to be tv friendly, all the sponsors etc are paying for the publicity. On a rider level maybe social media etc is enough, but for the competition sponsors and so on they want the time on the tv.
 
DabDab said:
But that's not the original stated 'aim' (for want of a better word) of dressage. Dressage means training, not having a horse that moves in a very particular and increasingly narrowly defined way, which is more akin to a niche type of showing.
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Absolutely this.
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paddi22 said:
they had a dressage demo here with people riding various levels and Judy Reynolds commenting on them. there was an Irish draught at one of the top levels (can't remember exactly which level) doing foot perfect work with a lovely attitude. the comments from the experts were basically 'happy horse lovely movements, but will get stuck at a level of mark because it doesn't have the wow factor that pushes an 8 to a 9. I thought that was really unfair at the time but could see what they meant when the next springy elastic warmblood bounced in all with flashy movements. the draught was obedient and working hard but you could kind of see the effort going in. the next horse that came in literally bounced in like it was made of springs.
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this is where I was coming from last night.
On the face of it, yes I'd love it if my cob could score the 80% scores if she did a super correct test. However, the SPORT of dressage (as compared to the discipline) means that *wow* factor or let's say *extra*ness is relevant.

My cob might get to the point where her training is excellent (er... work in progress) but when you look at the directives on a dressage test you can see how a similarly excellently trained WB with naturally uphill loose thrusting pushing super duper paces will score more highly.
She can do her very best extension, but the WB might do the same in terms of training, but with more ground cover, more expression, more freedom, because of the natural talents its body posesses.

She can do her best correct zig zag, we might count all the steps and do all the changes and she stays as uphil as she can and as supple and obedient to the changes of direction... and the WB will come and eclipse her in the sideways-ness and elasticity. Hers might be good - the WB will be better.

Look at how Valegro came in and bagged these huge scores, but they still went away and worked on making his 1 tempis more this, more that, more amazing, more expressive, more uphill - there's always *more* to be had
 
SatansLittleHelper said:
On the subject of breeding......if we keep breeding horses for certain "x factor" characteristics such as more and more dished faces in Arabs and more extravagant movement in Warmbloods etc then the horse will simply go the way of the pedigree dog. To hell in a handbasket.
Fit for Function is the phrase bandied about in the dog show world but sadly most breeds are no longer suitable for their original purpose, you only need take a brief look at the poor Bulldog to see that. When judges reward the extra flat faces to the extreme in brachycephalic breeds people start breeds for flatter and flatter faces. When a dog is put up with an extra slopy shoulder people start breeding to emulate that. Then you just end up with a genetic and physiological mess which is, invariably, in detriment to the animal.
I personally feel alot of horses are headed this way, and in yhe long run it won't be good.
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I agree with what you're getting at... except for one thing which i think will mitigate the effect.
and that is that it takes many years of work to get even the most talented horse to GP. the horse has to stand up to that work and remain sound. so if breeding ends up just producing unsound horses, they won't get to the top levels and that approach will be shown to have failed. no one will want to firstly spend the outlay on the young horse, then keep it somewhere with a top rider with all the £££ that entails, only to have them repeatedly break down before they hit the big time.

While there might be some who are tempted to throw caution to the wind and breed more and more extravagant horses, I predict there will always be a core of breeders who have built and maintain their reputation on producing horses that are fit for sport, and they will be the ones who continue to be successful if there's a "flash in the pan" failure of over exaggerated horses.
 
I think all sports based on judging a demonstration (as opposed to a clearing a certain height or beating a clock) needs that WOW factor at the highest levels. How many gymnasts have to quit at puberty because their body shape changes. It needs to look effortless and the gymnasts need to be naturally very springy for the degree of elevation in the moves. A lot of that is just out of your control.

And even in the objectively judged sports, most swimmers now have freakishly long wingspans and high jumpers are freakishly tall and skinny. If you read Dan Coyle's The Talent Code essentially 'talent' is often largely about having the right body type for the job. It might be unfair but we are talking about top end sport. For most ordinary mortals, people can do very well with hard work and ordinary horses.

As for the horse - just wow. Personally I like watching super-horses do things that are impossible for normal ones. It's beautiful to see.
 
Ambers Echo said:
I think all sports based on judging a demonstration (as opposed to a clearing a certain height or beating a clock) needs that WOW factor at the highest levels. How many gymnasts have to quit at puberty because their body shape changes. It needs to look effortless and the gymnasts need to be naturally very springy for the degree of elevation in the moves. A lot of that is just out of your control.

And even in the objectively judged sports, most swimmers now have freakishly long wingspans and high jumpers are freakishly tall and skinny. If you read Dan Coyle's The Talent Code essentially 'talent' is often largely about having the right body type for the job. It might be unfair but we are talking about top end sport. For most ordinary mortals, people can do very well with hard work and ordinary horses.

As for the horse - just wow. Personally I like watching super-horses do things that are impossible for normal ones. It's beautiful to see.
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Imagine the uproar if it was found that any country had a breeding program to produce these 'freakish' athletes.

The lifestyle is also very often at the expensive of their health in later life. Which is fine of you are a human and can choose, but not if you are choosing to do that to an animal which can't consent.
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ycbm said:
The lifestyle is also very often at the expensive of their health in later life. Which is fine of you are a human and can choose, but not if you are choosing to do that to an animal which can't consent.
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slippery slope comment there, for me, that one unravels back to it's not fair to ride any horses at all, and yet here we all are, riding ours.
 
Ambers Echo said:
China probably does..... But that is a false equivalance. We already choose who to put our mares in foal to. We do this to suit our own ends. Where is the outrage about that? We don;t leave mares and stallions alone to choose who they fall in love with!!
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Well I accept that we probably need more research to prove it, but the harm is that animals are being bred with no regard to their longevity or long term health. As long as a small (but big enough) proportion of them can do international GP at ten and retire at 14 with worlds and Olympics under their belt, that's all that matters.

The elite athletes you refer to above, and people like ballet dancers, for example, suffer long term health problems starting very young compared to the average person. I've not met a hypermobile person who doesn't have problems with it, yet people are deliberately breeding horses with the condition.

None of this is being done for the good of the horse, it's being done for the prestige of the individuals who own them.
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DabDab said:
But shouldn't your excellent training of a cob be marked the same as someone else's excellent training of a warmblood? Or at least be closer to it? Isn't that what we are told dressage is all about?

I'm sure there is sniffyness, I would be gobsmacked if there wasn't. Very few humans who are in a position of advantage, either carved out through hard work or handed to them on a plate, are minded to give that advantage up in a flood of open-mindedness. It was ever so. But nonetheless, those championships have sprung up for a reason.
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Agree with you! Many a times we hear trainers say that this horse can walk for a 9 whereas another might only get a 7 - I haven't personally seen that as a rule in any dressage handbook, why should a horse who is perfectly on the aids and in balance get a lesser score than another because their natural stride is not as elevated as another?

Do judges get trained to score naturally gifted horses higher?
 
milliepops said:
slippery slope comment there, for me, that one unravels back to it's not fair to ride any horses at all, and yet here we all are, riding ours.
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To be honest, I think we will reach that point at some time in the far future. But we are nowhere near it now. All that's being said now is that it is unfair to be breeding to an extreme that is likely to cause issues. And with known medical issues such as hypermobility where the affect on humans is detrimental and well known. I also accept we need more research, and that the horse is beautiful.
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ycbm said:
To be honest, I think we will reach that point at some time in the far future. But we are nowhere near it now. All that's being said now is that it is unfair to be breeding to an extreme that is likely to cause issues. And with known medical issues such as hypermobility where the affect on humans is detrimental and well known. I also accept we need more research, and that the horse is beautiful.
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I'm not sure I agree about it being a matter of timing. I teeter on the edge of loving horse sport and riding, and being very unwilling to give that up, and yet feeling like I OUGHT to give it up tomorrow because the ethics of using an animal for anything are very uncomfortable for me.
On the face of it, if you have an issue with the possibility that a horse might break down from elite sport, then that same result could happen to any of us at any time with our much lower level horses, so I don't really see why it's not something that is relevant now.

IMO it's either a problem that horses break because people use them, or it's not - not sure why it's only worth worrying about if it's elite horses rather than amateur horses.
 
Wheels said:
Agree with you! Many a times we hear trainers say that this horse can walk for a 9 whereas another might only get a 7 - I haven't personally seen that as a rule in any dressage handbook, why should a horse who is perfectly on the aids and in balance get a lesser score than another because their natural stride is not as elevated as another?

Do judges get trained to score naturally gifted horses higher?
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it probably depends on what elements of the gait are natural and what elements are trainable.
I'd say there are some that are natural and then yes, the FEI judging guidelines do make reference to what a 10 walk looks like compared to a 7. some are training related (accuracy, activity, suppleness etc) and some are natural (a horse with short legs and a long back is never going to get an overtrack of "more than 3 hoof lengths" for instance.
 
I just don't get all the fuss round this thread.

Breeding has for years always been pushing the button. There are two very distinct types of horses being bred and this seems to be being completely missed - one for flash and YH classes and another for GP. The same old stallion names appear in the GP horses time and time again. Quarterback is an absolute classic in that it moved ridiculously, went into the breeding shed, produced YH winners but yet to see one make an impact at GP.

Eventing is the same at the moment - there is a vast difference between the long format horse and the short format horse. Now, eventers have two types in their barn. Chris Burton has admitted he wouldnt be sad to see long format disappear in eventing and that would then see the demise of horses needing more than 60% specific TB injected blood. The mixing in of dashes into continental warmbloods would be enough. The Olympics has further mudded the waters because its not actually the pinnancle of the sport..... yet in dressage and showjumping to some degree it is (well almost but thats a whole different debate....)

Why are you even trying to compare a cob to this horse? You are not going to see a Renault Clio take on F1 car? Yet Renault Clios have their own sections for racing and will sometimes cross over into other divisions and do well.
I also do not get the soundness argument. There is just as much damage done to a cob or an average horse being pushed to its limits on a daily basis when they were originally designed to pull carts in walk and trot. That's not being derogatory, its just fact. Is putting a cob in a dressage arena actually more harmful? Just asking the question. Interestingly I have the discussion regularly about cobs as actually they are very little messed about with in regards to breeding so they retain many of the attributes they had back in the 1930s unlike the modern TB and continental warmblood which have changed beyond recognition. A lack of pedigree can be an advantage especially in temperament and being a solid person. Just look at Jack Russells vs Parson Jack Russells.

My final thought is no sport is fair. This is a topic I feel quite strongly about. By its very inherent nature it never will be. There will always be some advantage gleaned somewhere. In horses its money, it might not be yours, but someone somewhere needs it. In Basketball its height. In rugby, its height/weight/upbringing. I can go on for hours. Even in riding you need to be a certain body type to be successful and actually the only person I know who defies the classic body shape is Isabell Werth. Yet I remember reading somewhere that her body weight on a horse was so perfect which was what made her so sublime. She is just the consummate rider.
 
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Personally think dressage, if it must be a competition, should be judged on training alone. Leave innate "quality of horse" to the show ring. It's probably not possible in practical/real terms but I think that should be the ideal. So any horse should theoretically be able to get a 10 for a walk.

We shouldn't be looking at a perfect walk from a cob and going "that would be a 10 if she was a warmblood".

I understand that that isn't how it is so I don't need that explained to me again. I just think that is how dressage should be. The only way you get there though I think is to take competition out of it completely and remove any need for wow or X-factors.
 
PapaverFollis said:
Personally think dressage, if it must be a competition, should be judged on training alone. Leave innate "quality of horse" to the show ring. It's probably not possible in practical/real terms but I think that should be the ideal. So any horse should theoretically be able to get a 10 for a walk.

We shouldn't be looking at a perfect walk from a cob and going "that would be a 10 if she was a warmblood".

I understand that that isn't how it is so I don't need that explained to me again. I just think that is how dressage should be. The only way you get there though I think is to take competition out of it completely and remove any need for wow or X-factors.
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And that is called classical dressage. You can take the purist approach and train for fun. Modern dressage is an Olympic sport with millions and millions of pounds awash in the system. If you look at any judged sport the complexity and the wow factor has gone up. What humans are capable of now in gymnastics now is very different to the 1970s. Same in Ice Dance. You cannot take out the need for wow factor. Its why the Iberian horses don't win medals.
 
PapaverFollis said:
Personally think dressage, if it must be a competition, should be judged on training alone. Leave innate "quality of horse" to the show ring. It's probably not possible in practical/real terms but I think that should be the ideal. So any horse should theoretically be able to get a 10 for a walk.

We shouldn't be looking at a perfect walk from a cob and going "that would be a 10 if she was a warmblood".

I understand that that isn't how it is so I don't need that explained to me again. I just think that is how dressage should be. The only way you get there though I think is to take competition out of it completely and remove any need for wow or X-factors.
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I'm not going to explain what the current rules say any more but I would like to know how those who advocate taking out the wow factors would do so.

if the criteria for a half pass include something like expressive, elasticity, uphill, freedom, lightness, cadence and so on (all words from the existing "10, excellent" half pass guidelines...
how do you rank 2 half passes that are both correct, yet one is more elastic, uphill, cadenced etc.

I think you're talking about a different sport that hasn't been developed yet tbh. I guess there's nothing stopping anyone from setting it up? what would the rules look like though, to decide placings? let's assume that everyone who has trained up to GP level can deliver a correct half pass, how then do you decide who wins? it's these open ended "quality" scores that make it possible to turn a performance into a competition.
 
PapaverFollis said:
AND that I'm not interested in dressage being a sport at all.
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oK, i was replying to your comment that if it had to be a competition then only training should come into it. It's not a viewpoint i can understand without examples of how that would work, that's all. you aren't the only person to have said that but no one has given any suggestions about how you could have that kind of competition.
 
Surely you just change the judging criteria and judge training to reflect the fact that the horses in front of the judge will have different innate qualities of movement. Some mental mapping of the horse's conformation compared to the movement it produces. I also said "it might not be possible" but I think it would be possible to at least tone down the requirements for big, bouncy movement.
 
So i think the removal of the collectives (except for the rider score) from FEI tests has already gone some way to removing the bias towards earthshattering paces, because those were sort of being rewarded twice before.

I guess there is still an issue because how would you know what each horse's max potential would be? my horse has learned to trot with expression that she never had before, maybe she can learn more? it wouldn't be fair to score her current trot as the finished article, the max she can give, because the chances are it's not, if only we can learn and develop a bit more.

i'm not expecting you personally to have all the answers but i just think in order to have a proper discussion about how dressage could be changed, which lots of people suggest they want, then SOME answers are needed otherwise it's a bit nonsensical.
 
PapaverFollis said:
Surely you just change the judging criteria and judge training to reflect the fact that the horses in front of the judge will have different innate qualities of movement. Some mental mapping of the horse's conformation compared to the movement it produces. I also said "it might not be possible" but I think it would be possible to at least tone down the requirements for big, bouncy movement.
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So horses are now penalised for their natural ability and conformation?

My croup high QH will never move like uphill built Neurotic TB. Both trained and ridden in similar ways. So TB shouldn't score as highly because QH is "trying" harder? QH has a good trot (jog) by his breed standard but TB floats (& would equally be outshone by a purpose bred WB and many, many others).

I dont see the purpose of what you are proposing I guess. I'm not a fan of modern dressage but I understand that people/horses compete to "crown" the best against the requirements of the test. Carl Hester on my QH isnt going to have him winning despite good training and performing accurately when a more suitable breed moves better for the job in hand. The "qualities of the movement" that you dont want judged are the crucial element of performing the movement, no?

I think OP raised a good point (I think, was a few pages ago now!) that here there is a horse with pretty excellent movement and questioned where the line is between producing horses like this and longevity.

As LEC pointed out better than I managed we could actually be doing more damage and shortening the work life by asking non purpose bred horses to train for our goals.
 
mule said:
It is dangerous to post videos of yourself riding online. I wouldn't dare! I can only imagine the responses I'd get ?
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A few years ago when I was teenager I used to put videos on YouTube. Some of the comments I got were extremely rude. I ended up deleting the whole YouTube channel. But YouTube has gotten worse it really turned into a witch hunt now.
 
If people aren't interested in dressage being a sport, then don't watch it or compete in it. Anyone, regardless of the horse or pony they have, can improve their horse with basic schooling/flatwork. I don't expect a cob to compete successfully at high level show jumping or 4/5*eventing as they are not built for it, however with correct training and a willing attitude, they can be trained to do all the GP dressage movements but won't score as highly as a horse is bred for the job (with the odd exception, thinking Mr President). TBH I find some of the comments depressingly negative. Like AE I love watching beautiful horses, I also like watching (and learning from) amateur riders training "ordinary" horses and find the whole process fascinating. We can all improve our horses with correct training, just getting them in front of the leg and on the aids make them safer and more comfortable to ride but an awful lot of people don't even bother to do that. With regard to breeding, dressage horses are athletes they are not show horses and if they don't stay sound long enough to show their talent, they won't be popular with breeders and fwiw at GP level, the flashy trot and ability to extend is of far less importance than the ability to collect and sit.
 
I think any "sport" which requires a judge's opinion is debatable as a sport. Dressage and showing come under this criteria for me personally, in the same way that people insist on calling dog showing a sport. If the results require someone's opinion rather than fact then it is simply open to interpretation. You can't argue with the stop clock or poles on the floor etc, they are solid, tangible facts....an opinion is not.

Should we ride horses..??? Probably not. But we do and therefore owe it to them to breed correctly put together animals capable of doing the job with minimum strain. We owe it to them to not push them way beyond their natural ability. We owe it to them to ride, handle and train them sympathetically.
We owe them, full stop.
 
interesting discussion - certainly I think to judge each horse on it's own potential would be extremely difficult and, as dressage comps are run at the moment, nigh on impossible. The judge would need to be able to view the horse in a non stressful ordinary situation in order to determine what that horses natural paces are like in order to be able to see what the rider can produce. But I do think at the moment the odds are too in favour of the spectacular movers and proper training is not rewarded in the same way. I certainly do see some normal horses going very well for their riders and some spectacular movers not going that well, on the forehand, overbent etc. but still scoring higher and I think that is my main annoyance. That if a horse is doing everything right and yet is still placed behind a horse who has quite a few issues that there is something wrong with the scoring.

Yes, we have all sometimes been placed above a naughty warmblood but I'm talking more subtle things here I think. That a extravagent mover can look uphill even though they are overbent or not in correct rhythm etc.
 
PapaverFollis said:
Why is a warmblood's extended trot "better" than a cob's? All other things being equal. What if the cob is beautifully trained and correctly 'through' and the warm blood is slightly hollowed, stiff and on the forehand? The warmblood will probably still look more impressive but the cob is better trained, is doing better actual dressage...
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its whether a judge can see the correctness of the first one, and the incorrectness.
of the second

the dilemma here is the the judges training, if they are capable of seeing the difference,and whether they adhere to the standards

the posture of the horse should be dictating the marks here
 
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