I’ve watched some videos and as I’ve said many times. I see a lovely rider doing some lateral work. I will not follow someone blindly though. Very interesting conversation though and I always give everyone power to follow what feels right to them.
Does he go into more detail in the DVDs? Maybe I can rent them or something.
Words and details matter if we are to provide helpful comments. We can’t read your mind or intentions, so perhaps it would be useful if you could:
1.) Define “it”…as “it isn’t correct for my path” as you see it.
2.) What features of “it” do you feel are inappropriate for what you want to do?
3.) Define what qualities you are looking for in “train up the levels in a more traditional way” that BB’s methods don’t allow.
I personally don’t see any problems with the work done by a lot of “cowboys” and the ultimate goal of producing an advanced riding horse as seen in the work done by SRS.
Now if you are discussing an “advanced horse” as currently seen in the dressage competition ring, that may have another answer.
@pluvinel I’ll write back more specific questions/points later. I have a ton of errands to do but I’ll come back later and try to be more specific about what I’m questioning. Thank you!
Lunabear…I ask questions, because I see nothing wrong with this sort of work as foundational for any riding discipline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmlOanVeqxo
As a matter of fact, I teach all my horses to do this so if I ever have to mount in a strange place (like a fallen tree log, or a trailer fender) the will align themselves to make it easier for me.
I went to one of these “trainers” who thought he would show me up…and it shut him right up when I demonstrated with my horse…the hard part was clambering up on the fence.
I would totally agree with the claim that the top Vaquero riders are making advanced performance horses. I’d even agree with the claim that their horses may be cattier, lighter, more reactive, more supple, than most or even all dressage horses.
Also that correct riding respects the biomechanics of the horse and will show many similarities across disciplines.
But I don’t think that Vaquero riding will get you a finished dressage horse, in particular to the aspects of going on contact and improving the gaits.
I also think that people are well advised to seek out the best trainers and horsemen locally. So if this is an area with a strong Vaquero tradition but no gifted dressage trainers, it makes sense local people are following the western school.
In any case most ammies and even low level pros don’t get much past first level dressage, so its not a huge loss of opportunity.
If you aspire to something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HulyaoH-cEs
I don’t see any problem with any of the following work as foundational to doing anything higher in the dressage levels…even competition dressage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI7h4uIZBiQ
Well, as for what’s in the BuckB video, it won’t prevent anyone from going higher in the levels, but it’s not the type of riding I would do if the end goal was truly to do dressage shows or become a SRS rider.
Buck’s horse is broken at the 3rd vertebrea, I don’t advocate at all for all that backing up, and his horse is mostly off the bit (light), and onto the forehand.
Yes, you will see this at dressage shows, and it is penalized.
It’s fine for general riding. I’m sure his horses are well trained to be quiet, nice to ride and versatile.
As they say “many roads lead to Rome” if you feel this type of riding fits with your goals for your horse and your riding, go for it! If it doesn’t then follow the road that appeals to you. There is no one cookie cutter answer for everyone.
Makes sense to me.
I don’t know where you are (no location listed in your profile), so I have no idea if you have seen riders in California and the Great Basin.
And I choose between what a Vaquero-type horseman can teach me and what I know I need to learn in order to make up my dressage nugget. Lots of what I do is closer to traditional dressage training for a few reasons. 1. I have more consistent, “live” help from those kinds of trainers. 2. This is what I have chosen to pursue with this horse right now. Insofar as the Vaquero guys are interested in making up bridle horses and not grand prix horses, there are some aspects of training that dressagists worry about (e.g. a good change, a particular relationship with a snaffle, piaffe and passage) that they don’t. Or, perhaps more correctly, they don’t worry about at the same phases of a horse’s training that a dressagist taking a horse up the levels with.
Sadly, then, for all these reasons, I mainly ride with dressage folks. But I will go learn from the Vaquero guys.
Heck, I’m planning to take my flighty dressage mare to a guy who can help me start her on cattle because she’s too afraid of them. The pro who would have me skip over this problem because “she’ll never see cattle at a dressage show” isn’t doing it right, IMHO, LOL. The reason to care about this mare’s being afraid or OK with cattle has more to do with building her confidence than cattle, per se. This is another piece I take from the Vaquero guys, though any good horseman should care about his horse’s emotional comfort.
But! And a bit like George Morris— if you put Brannaman on a dressage horse that could do the movements, I’ll bet you that he could softly get those done. The way Brannaman puts the onus on the rider to be good with his training decisions, his feel and his timing is very welcome.
My dressage foundation came from an old cowboy who was very much in the same tradition. He did not do all the flag and long leadrope stuff for hours like is done now, but he certainly used a very long leadrope - all our horses ground tied, because he was also our farrier, and he’d drop that rope, and catch them if they started wandering off. They soon learned that simply standing quietly was easiest.
He taught a class called “training” which all the instructors at the riding school I started riding at attended, as well as some other adults (my mom included.) I watched, and spent all my free barn time with him listening to his lectures on various theory around horse training. I also had a 1970s translation version of the German Federation book which was handed out at the riding school as the basis upon which our instruction was focused. They aligned. I agree about not doing all the backing and getting the horse overbent - I feel like those are things which have come to be because of the weekend clinic as a way to teach horse and rider to get along methodology of these cowboy clinics. Those will make getting a horse out to the contact hard to achieve. But general good horsemanship will work for any horse, and Buck teaches a lot of that.
I always had that classical background sitting there, took some dressage lessons in college, but it wasn’t until my mid-30s I was really focused on dressage lessons. And with my background, I never quite got why lateral work and bend are so hard, or why half halts are this mysterious thing. They simply are things the horse is expected to do, and that’s always been the case for me. That background wouldn’t have taught my horse piaffe, but clean uphill changes were the norm for me.
Where I think dressage isn’t a pattern class vs western is - in western, prompt transitions without a reaction from the horse other than doing it at exactly the correct place was the focus, with the horse traveling in its basic natural gaits, at whatever speed I tell it to. In dressage, it’s more important I work on improving my horses’ gaits to be more uphill, more cadenced, showing more bend and suppleness. Ideally transitions happen at the right place, but emphasis on balance overrules promptness for letters, especially at the lower levels. Now, because I had supple horses who bent properly and maintained balance in transitions in addition to being prompt, I tended to win pattern classes. But I can certainly see why they are seen as different - the development and gymnasticization of the horse is supposed to be shown in dressage, and is not a concern in a western horsemanship class.
I am not arguing but pointing out that this is statement focuses on what wins in a competition ring…be it in a western or english discipline.
So, I have to ask what exactly is the OP wanting to get out of a BB clinic?
I have not ridden with BB, but I have ridden with Mark Rashid and the people there ranged from the clueless to fairly advanced riders. They all lacked basic understanding on setting expectations for the horse.
The cowboys like BB & Rashid focus on training for a functional horse. Anyone can use this background to further specialize into dressage or western disciplines.
If someone wants to win in the competition ring, then by all means produce what the judges are pinning…western or english. The current dressage focus on “gaits” is just because that is what judges are currently emphasizing.
But I can tell you that 40 years ago, that was not the case in a dressage competition.
In those “olden times” in dressage …“prompt transitions without a reaction from the horse other than doing it at exactly the correct place was the focus, with the horse traveling in its basic natural gaits” what the emphasis to show that horse was sublimely obedient to the rider’s requests.
IMHO this current obsession with “gaits” is being taken to extremes. And this focus on “dressage as competition” vs “dressage as training” is being driven by the USDF and the FEI.
This will eventually produce dressage horses with caricatures of “normal” gaits much the same way that the “big lick” TWH are a caricature of the natural TWH…or in dog breeds, how the “crouchy walk” of the GSD that was being pinned in the show ring led to dogs with medical issues (hip dysplacia)
I’m with you. I think the horse’s neck is too still throughout and that is part of the problem that, I suspect, creates the shape of the neck that’s bad.
But boy-howdy you can see similar in a ton of dressage horses-- not just the shape of the neck, but the stillness/stiffness of it.
Meh, I’d just school mine differently. With these advanced horses where you work on collection a lot, I think it’s tempting to just keep them there and refine their posture. I hope, however, that if you make a decision to keep an active, supple neck during your work by asking for some stretching more frequently, you can correct this “posing” problem.
I have no doubt that Brannaman can do this with a horse’s neck if he decides to make it a priority. So can, of course, any rider who is competent in their hand and their riding generally.
I also look at that horse Brannaman is riding. I think I have seen him in person. What I see is a horse who is a helluva lot closer to the architecture of the WB than the stock breed horses most western folks are riding now. He’s bigger, squarer, with a flatter croup and neck set on more vertical (by far) than the low little Quarter Horses folks ride. And that choice of horse gets Brannaman some distance toward making a horse who can be so prompt and able to sit a bit. That said, I’ll bet that if you saw that horse untacked, you’d see that he was level, not uphill, when he was just standing there. I’m sure Brannaman can feel uphill posture in whatever horse he rides. But I don’t think his vocabulary, and therefore the conceptual framework underlaying what he does, means that he explicitly focuses on that feel. Same would go for the “improve the gaits” project some of you name.
Rather, I think Brannaman would talk about making a horse able to do a job in a way that is mentally easy for him and physically easy and reliable for his rider. I think he’d agree that if you rode the horse as well as he intends, the gaits would improve. Or rather, the horse would be using his body the very best his conformation allowed him to because you are giving him that quality of a ride. If you had his respect enough and time over a beer to have an in-depth conversation about whether or not he agreed that his horses were carrying themselves in an uphill postuer all the time, as well as able to collect and extend on a dime without losing their balance, I think he’d say yes to all that. But he might give you a hard time about merely “improving the gaits” as being a rather insufficient goal.
I agree that the horse is broken in the 3rd vertebra.
We don’t know anything about this horse…
We don’t know why the horse is being backed up…
We don’t know if it came to this clinic that way…
We don’t know what is happening in these short clips…
Ergo, jumping immediately to criticize is a tad premature.
The video clips are of a training event. This is NOT a competition. Again, this immediate jump to “dressage is competition” vs “dressage is training.”
There is nothing in the work that BB has done that would preclude any rider from moving up the levels…which is what the OP was originally asking about.
Those charicatures of gaits exist now, and are ugly.
However, look at old videos of the SRS, when Podhajsky was in charge . Those horses do not have the same gaits they did in pasture. When they extend, their gaits are more elastic, with much more suspension, than they would have had before starting their training. And they BEND. Because that’s how you teach a horse to fold the joints in the hind leg - by progressively training them, teaching them to carry themselves in a different manner. When I’m showing gaits rather than just obedience with my horse, I’m showing her sit,and bend, and have the ability to progress up the levels. Piaffe and passage develop out of collecting the gaits and adding elasticity if they’re done right. It’s a continuum. And when I show, I’m trying to show that. The fact I have had multiple judges comment on my test that this is a horse who is clearly poised to progress up the levels is really a huge positive to me. We have never scored super high - because she doesn’t have those type of gaits. But judges acknowledge that our work is what is needed to continue to develop her. I don’t really care about placing at shows, I care about that development - and focusing on riding her to show more than mere obedience, but actual work which will develop her and help her improve her canter pirouettes and the uphill balance of her changes, the sit in her half pass, etc., is part of that. That has nothing to do with Tennessee Walking Horses.
This.
Improving the gaits has nothing to do with buying a horse with huge gaits.
By improving the gaits, I meant the horse learns to reach to the bit, stretch over the back, engage the hind end, take a bigger stride. Then after awhile learn to collect.
My Paint mare improved from a sewing machine trot that was almost a foxtrot to having a normal two beat working trot and can do collected/ medium transitions. Her canter has also become much more balanced.
I’ve also watched more talented horses develop proper extended trots that you would not think they had in them.
Improving the gaits is part of improving the overall balance of the horse. Rhythm, cadence, gymnasticing. A four beat walk that’s not tense or lateral, a two beat trot, a three beat canter.
It isn’t driving a big gaited horse onto the forehand. And IMHO it isn’t done enough by many dressage trainers.
I watch the horses schooling under our biggest name visiting trainer here, and even the ones that are schooling flying changes and collection don’t move like educated horses. They move like green horses horses.
Again, I don’t see any of the BB work that would preclude a rider wishing to progress to higher dressage levels… which is what the OP asked about.
Netg, in your own experience, you state that the foundational work you have done was recognized and rewarded in the dressage competition court…so I don’t understand the negative to BB’s work.
I agree.
Again, I don’t see any of the BB work that would preclude a rider wishing to progress to higher dressage levels…
Which is what the OP asked about.
I need to get on my laptop to see the BB videos, my phone won’t play them easily. At the start of the thread I was thinking more generally about things like disengaging the hind end that works in western horsemanship but seems counter productive to an uphill balance. I will have to watch the videos and see how that translates.
But you’re reading things people aren’t saying into their posts, which in turn makes you come across as very argumentative, and as if you are intentionally twisting everyone else’s words. It’s not possible to have discussion when you state things which are contrary to what we have said, and claim you are repeating our viewpoint, then arguing against it.
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