Ooh… a great topic and I wish I had more time right meow to speak to it.
I have spent more time with Brannaman and his ilk (while being discerning about which pro I’d “take” ideas from and which ideas I’d find applicable to making a dressage horse).
Two things I’d point out to all y’all in Dressage World (with the slight exception of the Frenchies) for you guys to consider until I get back from work and have time to discuss more.
- Don’t worry so much about “behind the bit.” More on why in point #2. That said, the progression recommended by traditional dressage means that those dressagists can’t school the light or behind-the-bit relationship that the Western disciplines install in their horses from the beginning.
I had this conversation with a thoughtful student of one of Brannaman’s good students with whom she had trained for years. When speaking about the impossibility of meshing my young dressage horse’s training too far with the Vaquero stuff because of the “ideal relationship with the bit” difference, she pointed out that those guys did want contact and “through” (my word, but we all understood this to mean, pushing from the back feet forward, all the way up to the shoulders (again, see point #2) and forward. But this contact or steadiness could be something she would teach her horse later, not initially.
I don’t think I want to wait until I have a finished bridle horse (or one far along) in order to create the relationship with the bit that I need for lower level dressage. But! I took their point and tradition to heart: I can create more than one relationship with a bit (meaning some kind of snaffle) with a horse. And I can create different relationships with different pieces of equipment-- bosal, double bridle, a well-chosen spade bit. I can do this in practice. But it also reminds me that one can do this in theory, too, because.
- The relationship with the bit is not where the focus should be. Rather, all that nice riding and work you see Brannaman do (and he is a very nice rider), is that admirable because he’s actually worried about the the relationship between the shoulders and hind end. Where the horse’s head goes isn’t the point, rather the horse’s anatomy means that controlling the head’s position is a means to an end. If you control the horse’s head-- that 45# or so hanging out at the end of that long neck-- you gain a mechanical basis for getting him to use his core to hold himself up in front.
So the real point is we aren’t that far apart. Horses generally have the same architecture across the breeds, so everyone is using their preferred equipment and method to find a way to get a horse to engage his core. To consider this in terms of Point #1. Yes, the relationship with the bit that you teach a horse will be different, but don’t let that issue be bigger than it properly is.
The emphasis on moving the hind end (and also the shoulders) is a good way to get the horse (particularly the low, well-muscled stock breeds) to have to maintain their balance and moments of squatting and uphill self-carriage. And really, once you have ridden a Vaquero style horse that lets you control “all four corners” with such lightness and precision, you see the value of it. It’s a pretty neat ride.
So, OP, here is how I use both styles together.
I have an Arabian who is weak at the base of her neck, so I ride her a Vaquero would-- I ignore the top 2/3s of her neck and think about keeping the base of her neck in-line with her shoulders. If she gets wiggly, I think about moving the shoulders to get back in line with her head, not moving her head to get back in line with her shoulders.
And then, again because of the weak neck her breed gives her, I ride her as, I think a French Dressagist would— I strive to keep her throatlatch open and her neck telescoping up and out from her shoulder. As she gets stronger, I can have more pounds of pressure in my hand. But! If she doesn’t generate that from behind, I offer “room” in front with my hand. What you can see, I hope, is that “steady in the contact” is way down my list of priorities. And, I think, Brannaman is also about the feel in the horse’s body; the horse being dull or light to the rider’s aids is necessary to train, but it’s how those are applied to the horse as needed that I find worthwhile no matter which discipline I raise this mare in.
Also, the groundwork and slow stuff you see Brannaman do has lots in common with what I take to be the philosophy of French dressage-- the point is to produce the posture and balance you want. You ride for that first and get the movement second. I think Dutch/German dressage might rank movements and posture/balance the other way around. I ride my weak, wiggly mare toward correct posture because she needs so much help getting strong enough to hold herself in an uphill posture.
When I ride this mare, I rank my priorities to parts of her body-- I ride the base of the neck-shoulder connection first. She’s weakest there and can relax her core into a downhill posture in a single foot fall. So I have to pay attention to this section of her body, always. Second, I try to generate more push from behind-- without losing the posture in front, and I try to feel for some swing in her back. But we don’t go fast enough that she falls on her forehand. Last, I pay attention to where her head is-- forehead on the vertical or behind it. Really, as I ride, I kind of check in on these three body parts as needed and constantly. But I leave her alone when she’s in the sweet spot and correct. I try to identify that to her so that she learns how to earn a soft ride. I don’t know is this is an expressely western idea or not, but I do recall having a Western trainer tell me that “leave them alone as a reward.”
The last things I’d say about Vaquero stuff-- and watching Brannaman’s clinics can be confusing on this point-- is about groundwork. My mare is wonderfully broke on the ground, She is so light and obedient. I’ll never go back to anything but the Vaquero’s high standards. And she digs it, too. She has learned to focus well and never has to get her head pulled anywhere. She follows the feel of the rope. It’s so peaceful and polite! That said, no horseman spends 3 hours at a stretch perfecting the art of having his horse disengage his hind end or back in a figure 8 or whathaveyou. That’s just an unfortunate artifact of the way this industry does it’s teaching via those weekend clinics.
What I do appreciate about Brannaman/Hunt/Dorrance is their emphasis on the horse’s experience and estimation of his training. I don’t hear quite so much talk about this so close to the surface among most traditional dressagists.
I do think different training styles matured along with selective breeding that produced differences in horses’ conformation. I’d be loath to take a lanky, tall 4 year old WB to a Brannaman clinic and spin him around on his hind end for 3 hours. Perhaps that’s not so hard for a Quarter Horse. By the same token, if you attempted to drive a quarter horse up into the bridle the way you might, say, a Hannoverian, I think you are setting yourself up to work very, very hard for very little return-- for you and for the horse. My Ay-rab doesn’t do well at this in the initial stages, either: Her conformation makes it easiest to tuck her chin, leave her sternum low and run if she’s ridden from leg to hand with lots of impulsion. I have to do that French or Vaquero work around that emphasizes posture for her in order to get anywhere. When she is stronger-- more like that purpose-bred Hannoverian, she can be ridden more like him.
