https://heelsdownmag.com/?p=12645
Interesting article by Heels Down Magazine with Bruce Davidson.
I have to say I agree with him on the travelling far when you aren’t competitive. On the smaller scale, I see riders in my area making crazy trips to big events or horse shows, when there horse has not even shown or been unsuccessful here. Makes me scratch my head.
Thoughts?
It’s amazing how many of the old-timers point out fox hunting, yet very few eventers to it these days.
Foxhunting has changed along with all the other horse sports. Back in the 80s, most of the fixtures on the local hunt’s card were within hacking distance, and if you needed to leave early, it was relatively simple to hack home on the roads. This meant that you could hunt on on Tuesday morning and still teach a full schedule of lessons in the afternoon, or get everything done on Thursday morning and still hunt Thursday afternoon.
Now, fixtures are spread far and wide, and going hunting requires hauling and an all day commitment.
And I don’t know if anyone trains horses to go calmly in company or to have good hunting manners anymore, that seems to be lost as well.
Related back to Bruce’s article, I truly don’t know how you can condition horses well without lots of open land. Lots of hills, changes in footing, etc. In theory, you can condition a horse doing trot and gallop sets in a big hay field, but in practice, I found nothing replaced actually getting out and going places - and that’s become increasingly difficult to do.
Thanks for posting this Jealoushe. I was attracted to eventing by riders like Bruce. If I were coming along in this day and age, I highly doubt I would have given it a second glance. It’s just not the same culture. The priorities are different. And that is fine for those that like the “new” eventing. But for the rest of us, this is a reminder of they way it used to be and why we chose to do it. Dressage is great and central but it was never the central component back then the way it is now.
It wasn’t until I galloped race horses that I really started to learn to ride. No, those skills cannot be taught in a dressage arena. The best riders I’ve ever known were on the backside. Damn, they were/are skilled af. And you can’t appreciate it if you haven’t done it.
Yep: “If you want to learn to gallop horses, get up early in the morning and go to the racetrack and gallop three horses for some trainer every single day or ride a race. It’s not going to be taught in the dressage ring.”
“Fifteen years ago, everybody my age usually went to Ireland before the first event of the year and went on a few fox hunts – jumping the ditches, jumping out of mud, jumping walls and banks, learning how to stay on when the horse is scrambling, etc. It tightens you up. Here people go to Palm Beach in the winter.”
I think he has some solid points.
one reason I think that has changed from then until now… the fact that he had 15 **** horses. I think a lot of riders go underprepared is because it’s their one shot and don’t know if they will ever have another 4 Star horse. Think about all the riders that had one great one that ended up being a freak and then they were done… so I think competing at Burley is more appealing then doing multiple 3 stars in the US. Just a thought.
And regards to fox hunting, would you take your six figure horse out hunting? It’s hard enough to keep them sound.
I haven’t been to Ireland (sad me) but it seems to me that if you really wanted the hunting experience, that going there and riding as a working student, not necessarily taking a horse with you, might be the way to do it now. It seems pretty challenging to get that kind of experience in the US today just because of the realities of land use etc.
I don’t think Bruce meant that they took the 4* horse out hunting necessarily – he talked about flying to Ireland and spending some time hunting so I imagine they borrowed Irish horses from the hunts.
There is a lot to be said for his comments but eventing is also very different than it used to be.
The person winning consistently these days is MJ and his system is very, very different than the one Bruce describes.
This.
There’s a lot that plays into why Americans aren’t competitive.
My frank opinion is that the older event days were “easier” - not in a physical way, as they were arguably harder and required much more conditioning and blood, but the horses did not have to be dressage specialists. They had to steeple chase, and jump fast and clean XC – and that is a very different type of horse than the horse seen today. They were horses that lived for the long format and fought you every step of the way back from the cooling-down area, and still had enough rally in them at the end of the course for more. They had a sharpness to them.
I am not sure that it is a fitness problem. I think it’s a lack of blood and mind. These horses that are bred to be competitive in dressage do not have the same mentality as the horses bred for high intensity endeavors like racing or steeplechasing. Warmbloods think on a completely different wavelength than TBs or other blooded individuals - their entire existence is not owed to how willing or fast they were able to run, so it is not a present trait in their make-up. Because WBs did not have that trait hammered into them the way TBs have by hundreds of generations of breeding the most competitive runner to the most competitive runner, they don’t express it.
Americans quickly realized they couldn’t compete with europeans in dressage with these “non-specialist” horses – so what did they do? They bought specialsts. Over and over again we are seeing American horses more suited to dressage endeavors than XC. Look at Loughan Glen or Veronica… they were made for the sandbox and we can’t get a clean round from either one of them without refusals or falling. And… neither one of them has any love for the sport.
Rather than fix our lack of dressage education, we tried to buy it by buying horses that are more dressage-specialized than jump specialized. Having a horse with a more “dressagey” way of going helped us immensely - especially in the coefficients – and briefly gave us a more competitive edge in dressage, but not in jumping.
Over and over I am seeing Americans buy horses for eventing based on their dressage ability. That’s going about it wrong IMHO because dressage is not the end goal for eventing and your horse can’t piaffe his way out of a water complex.
It’s very unfair to compare the sport now to how it is back then. It has completely changed and IMHO there is very little that is similar except the name.
I also firmly believe, having been exposed to this side of eventing as a WS, that the less blooded horses are far less hardy and sound. We can’t keep most of them sound enough for the job we’re asking now – we’re not going to jeopardize our 6 figure horses by taking them hunting.
I don’t think it’s realistic to ask our riders/owners to take their horses hunting either - they’re cut from a completely different clay.
yeah the issue is, the WS want to go to event yards, and ride event horses. Most of the event horses in Ireland have hunted before going there.
Hunting in Ireland is not for the faint of heart lol
I also think his point was more - he could only do one or two CCIs with a horse a year (because of the long format). The horses were still full of running even after doing the LF. Riders now, spend too much time schooling, and dressaging, and not enough time conditioning. If you think about it, a good honest jumper will only quit when they are tired.
MJ also does a boat load of conditioning work. He is out there galloping the horses himself, in the snow, rain etc. If you follow him on social media, you can see he is always out there working them over the land. Himself, not his people.
@Jealoushe I don’t disagree with his point that the horses need to be better conditioned. But MJ’s system is not based solely on his expertise at conditioning – his horses are very trained and he spends a lot of time working on dressage and show jumping as well as XC. He is riding at the top levels of showjumping as well. His “system” is much less based on seat of the pants hunting style and much more precision at all moments. His philosophy is that his horses trust him because he never gets them to bad distances and consistently states that he doesn’t jump until the horses are adjustable on the flat.
The precision questions are very different as well. I think in many respects you need that rideability today – different in a way that a game horse that would jump anything but in front of it but maybe wasn’t so ratable would work for the courses I watched as a kid but would no longer be competitive today because they have to be ratable to even get them pointed at the right obstacle any more.
It seems to me the logical thing to do with breeding is to cross blood with the jumper lines that often also excel in dressage. Plenty of good WB jumper lines that cross over to the dressage ring but not so much the reverse.
I thoughtI read somewhere that Bruce foxhunted his youngsters because it taught them think for themselves.
Boyd Martin recently rode in a hunt seat class for fun and it was mentioned that the opportunity arose as a result of his foxhunting:
I don’t want to get into a quagmire but it’s worth noting that Jennie Brannigan has done timber racing, which involves galloping and riding to fences in a straightforward manner.
So some riders are clearly going out and seeking out those types of experiences even if it is less common than in the past and less a part of horse culture in the US.
I agree w/ everything BD says from the sloppy reins to the fox hunting component…But he also had an unparalleled enviable position…From marriage to a Fox Hunting dynasty, having the land to build Chesterland on and access to horses that had generations of run jump in their DNA…plush his own riding talent…Very few people/riders today have the deep pockets to keep 15 3* competing horses keep in condition and care required to be there…We do however have a deep pool of riders who need something more along the Olde Gladstone system where you work as a “team” not a group of individual Professionals. The old days you were matched w/ the right horse and not every rider horse combination was accepted…sometimes it was just the rider or only the horse asked into the program…and it was a program…Todays system is not going to create a “team” let alone the rider/horse combinations…its to political and economy driven by deep pockets. Today system is set up for “Individuals” and their sponsors/owners… The old days ar gone and so I fear is our rankings at the top…Eventing is slowly sliding to a “Show” and not the Test was meant to be…
Might Tango had generations of of run jump in his DNA? Run maybe, IIRC he was a washout from a mid West racetrack!
But Bruce is absolutely correct. I cringe when I see kids out at Prelim with their crest release over fences.
And many of those horses got long format fit without acres and acres of ground. It did take grit and determination.
Actually, I seem to remember that Bruce DID hunt his 3 and 4 star horses. I can remember people reporting back that that they had seen so-and-so out in the hunt field.
No, I can’t imagine doing that now, not with the price of an Advanced Horse, but I think it did happen.
He makes some very good points, but there is still a pretty strong “Old Man Yells at Cloud” vibe to it. The sport is different now. And wouldn’t it be great if we all had 15 four star horses and a rich spouse and annual trips to Ireland?
I was just reading the Under 25 recaps and noted that Leslie Law points out how the two systems are different: “Part of Germany’s success is discipline: They’re very well trained and well educated. Great Britain’s great hunting tradition is actually a little undisciplined, but it has produced instinct and incredible feel down through the generations.”
Two very different paths to success but either way involves a lot of hard work and saddle time.
BTW, I heart Leslie – the recaps are full of great stuff. He’s simply terrific.
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