Not necessarily. I know a bunch of - ahem - white folks from upper middle class families who were raised and still live in suburbs or sur-rural areas, who have good-paying white-collar jobs, and who rely completely on fast food because they were never taught to cook while growing up or had a cooking parent as a role model, or because they decided they don’t like cooking and it is faster and easier to just pick up something somewhere. And the advent of takeout food and pre-packaged meals that don’t require prep and can be thrown together in minutes, makes a reliance on “fast food” a phenomena that crosses all kinds of cultural lines. (Although some don’t consider pre-packaged foods to be “fast food,” those types of meals certainly aren’t the traditional “home-cooked” variety.)
As for the topic of contact - someone up thread mentioned rider timing and feel, and those concepts seem to me to be the hardest to learn, and the hardest to teach. I always had pretty good feel and would know when things felt right, but I always struggled with the timing needed to make things feel right. OTOH, I have watched other people struggle with “feel” and not really ever develop a good understanding of what they should be striving to feel.
I also thought the concept that rhythm formed the base of the training scale to be appropriate, because the horse finds relaxation in a steady tempo, and it can only find suppleness if it is relaxed. And it can only truly accept contact if it is relaxed and supple - an anxious, uptight and stiff horse is going to try to brace itself or evade a steady contact with the rider’s hand. So you establish a level of trust with the horse through allowing - “encouraging” - the horse to go forward in a regular tempo, without disturbing its balance or hanging on its face, etc., until the horse becomes relaxed enough to “accept” gentle but steady contact with the rider’s hand. And then once the circle of aids is complete and horse and rider are becoming “one,” the rider can guide the horse toward the higher levels of the training scale.
I also agree with whomever said that every horse has a strong and a weak side (or is hollow to one side and stiff to the other), but if the rider starts fussing, fussing, fussing with trying to fix those issues before the elements of trust have been established through rhythm, relaxation/suppleness, and contact, the horse is going to become a bit stuck and perhaps even resentful. The horse wants first and foremost to go forward in a regular and relaxed tempo, trusting and accepting the rider’s hand, before it is ready to tackle remedies to fix a weaker hind leg, or stiffness to one side or the other.
So that is how things were explained to me many years ago by someone who trained with the person who rewrote the German classic, Principles of Riding.
[quote=“Rosewatt, post:39, topic:785207, full:true”]
Interesting to read the conversation on the skill of a rider and buying a fully trained horse. I agree that you can’t put a totally unskilled rider on an upper level mount and have them do well with proper contact, but I have unfortunately been seeing a trend in my area where money talks. The perception of what a “good” dressage ride looks like seems to have a disconnection. We have all but 3 dressage trainers here that compete in higher levels. One is local, the rest are a 2-4 hour drive in/out. I personally know of 2 jumping instructors that bought their way into dressage “specialty” (Yes, they now refer to themselves as dressage specialists). They both bought one and done school masters and made it out like they trained the horse 
One of them got into an argument with an FEI judge at one show about how to properly ask for contact. This was based on the judge marking down for front-back riding and the instructor did not like that and argued against it. Now they came into some money and bought a fully trained 4th level horse… spurring every stride, BTB and hollowed at times. Yet, they receive a ton of praise for how good of a dressage “trainer” they are. I think this is very area-specific, but it is a trend in North America for riders to buy a horse that is “push button” and show the horse, while the trainer trains and teaches. Some are very honest about it, but I’ve come across a number who make it out to seem otherwise.
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I think we’ve already had the conversation about where you are, and it’s not Western Canada. Otherwise I had a spooky feeling you were describing actual coaches I know. We have a visiting coach whose big Claim to Fame was showing Grand Prix one summer down in the US on an older made horse recently purchased by a client. Other than that she’s mostly brought horses up to Second Level. I don’t like how her students ride. The fundamentals just aren’t there. But they do OK at the local schooling show series.
You might find this interesting
Yes we have! I am in Canada, just not the western parts; however, we no doubt have similar trends Nationally. There are quite a few lower level “dressage” coaches in my area, who are honestly just eventers trying to find a larger clientele basis. I wouldn’t say they are all horrible dressage riders, but I do see more front-back riding becoming the norm and less understanding of what a proper connection is to look like. Generally I look for engagement throughout the entire body (the head is the least of my concern as it follows), but I note people are posting/ highlighting photos where the head is tucked and the body is on the forehand/hollow. One of the things I have always loved about dressage is the technicalities. It is as much of an art as it is a sport. Unfortunately, I have really struggled finding coaches in the area that I’d consider “correct”. I make do and take as much information as I can from each coach (as well as these forums and other media), but there is so much front-back riding here and shortcuts. I do take great value in the conversations on here though as they are eye opening to topics that aren’t as heavily discussed in my area. The sad part is that when I’ve hopped on others horses, some people see it as a foreign concept when I say I am not focusing on the head “yet”, as I first need to work on the horse’s body. I only ever knew 1-3 older ladies that did so. One immigrated from germany and was a sweet 80 year old lady schooling 4th on her horse. Never touched the head until her horse was well warmed up. She was an amazing rider and I really took inspiration from her when I was younger.
Makes sense it’s eventers. What they really want to do is run hell bent over big fields, and dressage is just a box they have to check to go have fun 
But honestly there are a lot of lower level dressage-only coaches and riders that do the same around here. Dressage doesn’t have very deep roots in Canada, the British roots have given us strong jumpers. I feel Canada has exceeded expectations over the years in jumping with Ian Millers crew, but we are very far down the list in international dressage if you look at the FEi rankings. The top spots tend to be solid Germany and Northern Europe with a few Brits.
Haha yes! and our area is huge on eventing.
It’s too bad we don’t have more dressage influence here. The jumpers are pretty good! Even have known a number that have trained/worked with Ian Miller. I’m an absolute chicken jumping though haha and I don’t bounce back like I used too. I like staying on the ground. I’ve always wanted to take a trip up to Northern Europe and train dressage for a week or two. definitely on my bucket list!
I think it’s getting better. My area didn’t have a dressage society until I think 1979. I joined about 10-12 years later and they didn’t have more than 100 members. We had a couple of nationally known trainers in the area and several trying to be up and comers. Warmbloods were not common unless you meant quarter horses or the occasional Morgan or Appaloosa. There was not recognized judges training. We did still have some well balanced horses of several breeds whose ancestors had been bred to cavalry specifications and not so specialized for a specific sport. The closest organized training program was pony club which existed on the east coast. It didn’t start here until well into my middle age or later. The up and coming riders and trainers had not received organized training and did not provide it. There were more and more books and more and more magazines. For the amateurs riding our own horses with both of us starting from knowing nothing, it could be very confusing. Different trainers would sound like they were giving opposite advice. Sometimes it was opposite. Sometimes, it was just two different ways of saying the same thing. Some very good and very bad young trainers came from overseas and started training. Some clinicians were awesome and some just drove us around at a running trot with a downhill horse and a migraine from holding the horse up.
If we didn’t have a childhood near pony club or even FFA then it was a western saddle, left, right, whoa, then lots of yelling and cussing about show that horse who is boss. Later, it was hard to find a trainer who was skilled enough to realize training the rider to ride correctly would also train the horse while training the horse through the rider trained neither.
Now, there are more books and online training and fitness programs geared towards riding. Scattered though the US are a good number of stellar breeding programs of top warmbloods plus importing horses is a lot more common. That is good because the yahoo approach to riding and horse shows in every discipline has resulted in some very specialized horses instead of one you can take to a play day and try everything. Most trainers tried but without a good system and good lunge line horses. It can be hit or miss. That doesn’t take in the trainers who just wanted their students to buy a horse the trainer wanted to ride, not that the student could ride. There are some long time trainers who started out as young imports to whom a lot of people owe much for their help in getting this sport going.
