Bringing the FEI down from the inside?

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Have you seen the photo that the FEI have posted of the London 2012 Individual Silver Medallist’s test on their Facebook page? While it is generous of them to show such a wide audience EXACTLY why so many people think this test did not deserve to score so highly, it does beg the question as to whether the FEI’s social media staff know anything about the FEI’s own dressage rule book? Should they really be highlighting the failings of the judges in this way? And really, shouldn’t they have at least added a rose tinted filter? (Because Instagram can make even the worst “moment in time” look artistic…)

Nudge Nudge. “Dodgy judging”. Know what I mean?

And so I wonder… Is there, in fact, an insider who has posted this as a sort of secret coded message to the “true believers”? A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man, know what I mean? Nudge, nudge! 

Ok, perhaps not. Perhaps it is more evidence of delusion and incompetence… or maybe ignorance… which is less fun, but sadly seems more likely to be accurate.

The photo has generated some healthy debate on Facebook, which I truly hope causes lots of people to refresh their knowledge of dressge theory, because every dressage book I have ever read clearly states that the way this horse is going is NOT CORRECT. The quality of the extension is a direct result of the quality of the collection, and the quality of this extension clearly shows that the horse is not truly collected.

Now, this would be a different story if this rider was less experienced, perhaps just starting out in dressage and not knowing any better, but this is an elite level rider who has been at the top of the sport for years. At the Olympics. She should know better, and so, more importantly, should the judges. At lower levels judges are tasked with giving all important feedback that will help riders improve. Why is this not also the case at the Olympics?

It is also worth pointing out that the photo is not just a single, unfortunate “moment in time” either. Go through the test and you will see other obvious signs such as piaffe that is not truly piaffe, and a death grip on the reins throughout. Why has the idea of lightness, self-carriage and harmony been thrown out the window? Or, y’know, that whole bit about lowering the hindquarters and engaging the hindlegs…

23-schwerpunkt

Nobody is perfect, not even in a drawing, but we can all strive to improve. For this to happen, we need good feedback, including judges who know what is and is not true collection when they see it…

I have tried to see it from other perspectives… I mean, perhaps someone boobytrapped Parzival, and the bomb would have gone off if she had anything less than half her bodyweight leaning back against his mouth?? “If I soften these reins WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Perhaps she saved the lives of thousands… No? Sorry, gone a little off track there again. Note to self, the dressage world is not like a bad Hollywood movie. *cough cough* No really. (Speed 3: Parzival??) Continue reading →

Interesting Recent Horsey Research

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Where do racehorses get their speed? How can we reduce the spread of bacterial infections among hospitalised horses and the staff who care for them? Are bog spavins much of a problem among Clydesdales?

Three recently published studies delve into these questions:

1. Thoroughbred racing – Can the genetic basis of speed in racehorses be pinpointed? 

European researchers have found that one variation of a gene that plays a key role in muscle development originated in a mare who lived in Great Britain about three hundred years ago. The gene is a variation of the myostatin gene “MSTN”, and remained rare in the population until the 1960s when the stallion Northern Dancer, by Nearctic, began passing it on to his offspring. It appears that this may have played a key role in Northern Dancer becoming one of the most influential Thoroughbred sires in the twentieth century. (Read the abstract of the study here) 

Hyperion (1930-1960)
Hyperion, damsire of Nearctic. Did he have the “speed gene”?

It has always fascinated me how random events, such as the mutation of genes to form new variations, can alter the course of an entire breed’s history. For example, what would Thoroughbred racing have been like today if that mare had never had a single foal?

Would it have made much of a difference? Have other “speed genes” been lost due to the random nature of life and genetics?

Continue reading →

The Spanish Riding School and Art in Equestrian Sport

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The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is on the “I simply have to go there one day” section of my travel wishlist. The main attraction for me is of course the rich history of horsemanship, despite the fact that the beautiful buildings with amazing features such as chandeliers in the riding arena, are just about enough to warrant a visit on their own.

Maestoso Basowizza & Oberbereiter Hausberger

Previously, I had read many interesting things about the Spanish Riding School, but I have just had a fantastic refresher course on the classical principles that are the heart and soul of their work. It has been a great opportunity to reflect on how much this faraway place has influenced my mental approach to riding and training. In one of those serendipitous moments that I love the internet for, this refresher course came in the form of a randomly stumbled upon youtube video, which you can see here, and part 2 here.

The truly heartening thing to see from this video on the Spanish Riding School is that good horse sense and horsemanship run through everything they do. Although the riders may dress in uniforms from a bygone era, it is difficult to spot anything about their practices that is so old fashioned that it should be left to the history books. Much has been made of the gap between classical dressage and competition dressage of today, but from this video I see much that can be learnt from the past and applied to the competition arena.  Continue reading →

The problem with really good riders…

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Watching other riders is a great way to learn. In fact it’s pretty much how I got started. When I was first bitten by the bug, I spent a lot more time hanging around watching my friends ride at riding schools and pony clubs than I did riding. I went to any horse show I could, and was happy to just sit and watch for hours. Even my horsey friends thought I was a bit mad… but I definitely benefited from learning some things from the ground. From the very beginning I had my heels down automatically, knew how to sit and hold the reins, and could recognise key basics such as trot diagonals and canter leads. I was told I was “a natural”, but I think my physical ability was strongly related to a strong mental preparation.

These days when I watch other riders I notice a lot more than I did back then. I notice a lot more of the fine technical details, I notice more of the many different types of unsoundness and most of all I think I notice the relationship between the rider and horse.

The thing is though, that the vast majority of my learning has been from picking up mistakes made by others. You can learn many variations on how not to sit by seeing other riders falling off or just looking unbalanced. You can learn how not to use your hands by seeing (too many) horses with unhappy mouths. You can learn how not to behave around a horse by seeing the sorts of people horses aren’t keen on.

Mark Todd was one of my childhood heroes, for his lower leg that never moves... Here he is riding Regent Lad in 2010. Photo: Henry Bucklow/Lazy Photography

And this brings me to the problem with really good riders… They’re the role models we all look up to. They effortlessly achieve things with their horses that we wish we could do. Or at least it looks effortless. And that’s the thing – if they’re really good, you may not even notice why they’re so good. Everything is smooth and harmonious. The rider’s position is near faultless, hardly seeming to do a thing. The horse is at ease, with all the submission (although I prefer to call it acceptance) that you could wish for.

You just sit, and stare, and think “How do they do it?” or “I wish I could ride like that” or ” I wish my horse went like that “.

Or maybe… “I wish I had long legs”, “I wish I could afford lessons with better coaches” or “I wish I could afford to buy a better horse”.

The thing is though, that in some cases you may not even notice the really good riders at all. They’re so good that they know better than to try and push the horse beyond what it can mentally and physically cope with. So they accept what the horse gives them, even if it means being overshadowed by flashier combinations. The somewhat unfair result being that many people won’t even notice what a great thing that is, and how that calm, “boring” rider really knows their horse. Continue reading →

The Irrational Horse and the Rational Human

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“If the world was truly a rational place, men would ride sidesaddle.”

~ Rita Mae Brown

Oh dear… the rider seems to have lost her head…

People sometimes complain about how irrational horses are. I’ve noticed it’s often when they can’t get a horse to do something, and feel the need to justify the rough handling they have resorted to in frustration.

Apparently you can tell who the completely rational being is in this sort of human-horse pairing; they’re the little one who’s trying to force the big one to do something BECAUSE it doesn’t understand… Strange when it’s put like that isn’t it…. the little one tries to force the big one to do something, because who doesn’t understand…?

If you truly believe that the horse isn’t doing what you want because it can’t think rationally, then please realise that getting rougher with the horse isn’t going to magically make it understand what you want.

The ability or otherwise of horses to think rationally is too large a subject to fit in this post, so that’s a matter for another time. For now let’s focus on how we can tone down the irrational stuff in training sessions – from both horses and humans…

Let’s walk a mile…

If you step into the horse’s shoes (or bare feet) for a moment, I’m sure you will find more similarities than differences between the way a horse reacts to a confusing training session, and the way you would react to a confusing training session… We’ll put it in human terms that most people can relate to: Continue reading →

Book Review: The Zen of Horseriding by Ingrid Soren

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The Zen of Horseriding by Ingrid Soren takes a look into the mental component of horseriding from a unique perspective. The result is a book with many interesting insights into sports psychology in equestrian sports, which is sure to be of interest if you’re a thinking rider, riding coach, nervous rider or someone who likes stories of personal journeys with horses.

“How you approach the horse is a reflection of how you approach the world.”

The Zen of Horseriding follows the author as she embarks on two simultaneous journeys of discovery – one into the world of horse riding, the other into the world of Zen Buddhism. I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, as although I know quite a bit about horse riding, my experiences with Buddhism are quite limited. Continue reading →