Oh please. What a joke. If you wanted to know how I was riding you’d have ASKED me how I was riding, You instead insulted me. A gimmick… You are such an ignorant rider. I cant help that.
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Quire likely. I don’t see undertones of snobbery. I see people recently generally helping and responding to each other. This wasn’t the case upstream as much as it is now.
I’m sorry you see me defending myself to this poster as “sinking lower” but it is what it is. How would you respond to this poster? Real question?
I can appreciate that you are apologizing for your behavior. I don’t agree or align with all opinions on here, and some of them are a little odd to me, but there are so many trainers out there and so many theories to subscribe to it seems. Not always, and not for all things, but there is the saying with horse people of “2 horse people, 3 opinions” or something like that.
Even within dressage there are many schools of thought and methods. I’ve kind of dabbled around over the years to figure out what works for me, my horses, and to learn to define myself as a rider. It’s an ongoing journey for sure, and my views are still changed from time to time.
Anyway, even though I don’t agree with a few things on here, I’ve just sort of learned to let it wash over me because you can just tell when people are “stuck” and just aren’t open to it being any other way. Which is sad.
I could’ve been told something by several big name trainers but just because someone comes along and says something different, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ignorant, wrong, or that I should discount their experience.
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Why are you deleting all of your posts? Why can’t you engage in discussion?
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Maybe you should just let this go. You’ve made your point.
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Since I have MS I am very concerned about the state of my brain.
Over a decade ago I started reading the Forum and came to a conclusion about the unsuitability of dressage for MY own specific disabilities.
People, I have brain damage that affects how I see things, interpret things, and express things, and I had to learn how to work around the damaged parts of my brain. Concussions from falling off horses and concussions from car wrecks did not help my brain either.
With many riders in many schools of riding I see hints of long term brain damage. I see many riders exhibiting behavior problems I had to deal with. I read what people who mainly jump, and believe me we who have/had jumped get our brains whammed. We are not the only ones though and the problem seems to me to be more widespread than just people who jump.
Over a decade ago, in the age of Rollkur, I started reading the Dressage Forums here. I saw how people interacted with each other, I read about how they rode and trained their horses, and I saw similarities, their seems to be brain damage, a different type of brain damage than I’ve seen and experienced with jumping.
Then I looked at myself and how my brain was acting after riding. I STOPPED doing the sitting trot beyond 3 strides, my sitting trot seat is usually a crotch seat, and I totally refuse to sit the trot on a horse with a stiff back. I am protecting my brain.
Jumping riders get brain damage from falls. My tentative hypothesis is the dressage riders get brain damage from sitting trots. I suspect that the brain stem is more involved in the damage from the forces of the sitting trot instead of the more peripheral brain areas that get WHAMMED when jumping and falling off the horse at speed.
I think that this may be the reason that some/many dressage riders have times in which they act snobby and whack.
Flame suit on.
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Indian Hemp! There were two lines descending from him in the Pacific Northwest in the 80s and 90s. Really really nice sport horses!
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Interesting!
However it’s also true that any lifetime rider can have falls, not just jumpers. At my barn adults come off their big athletic dressage warm bloods fairly often, spooks bolts bucks in the arena, though less dangerous than over a big fence. And many people who ride dressage conservatively enough in middle age have wild child junior days behind them where they did jump or at least do risky things and tumble. Indeed few children learn to ride dressage first. You either learn to ride as a feral child on a back yard horse or in jumper focused lessons even if you never get very far in jumping. Or in Western world with no helmet.
But I totally agree about the role of TBI in horse world craziness.
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I think a lot of us become dressage riders as adults because of all the falls, injuries and concussions we got riding when we were younger
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yup, and you knew just by looking at them what they were.
Hemp (his son) was actually out here in the Midwest and owned by a friend of mine who rarely if ever took outside mares. When people saw my mare showing he got a lot of inquiries, but he turned them down.
I always stop by his place when looking for good horses. He tends to keep them for life.
Hemp is long gone now, but he still has a lot of nice horses. Brought a friend out to his place last summer and she left with a really nice 4 year old. Now her trainer wants to know where she can get more just like him.
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Both Flying Lark and TV Lark Sired wonderful sport horses in the PNW. Poggio 2 was by Polynesian Flyer, if I remember correctly. The dressage trainers knew about these horses, then the Warmbloods took over…
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You know J-Lu, I usually agree with you. But I am going to have to disagree with you on this. In the U.S., “upper levels” has always meant PSG and above. And I’ve been doing this (professionally) for over 30 years. If you say, “I have an upper level horse,” everyone assumes you are riding/schooling the FEI levels. Not sure where you got your idea.
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Replying to myself because I see that the back and forth ended. Sorry for adding my 2 cents.
I had a Polynesian Flyer gelding a long time ago. Straight TB. Everyone thought he was a warmblood. They’d ask me what he was and I’d say TB and they’d say TB and what? LOL Then I’d say, OTTB. He was big, beefy, and a very fancy mover. <3
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Just a lower level/eventer chiming in here. I have also scribed at dressage shows.
One of the more interesting things I have learned from scribing at the mid-levels (2nd - 4th) is that, in my area, there are a lot of riders showing at these levels, on pretty cute horses. They can “do” the movements (typically except clean changes) but what the judge usually notes is that the horse is not truly showing the change in balance, push and sit from behind that is needed for the level. Then they score typically 1 point lower per movement than the horse showing the correct balance. And that is the hard part, right? My current horse (OTTB) may be able to do lots of the 2nd/3rd level lateral work but he does not have the needed sit/balance for those levels.
I do understand some of the perceptions that “judges don’t like” off breed horses or need fancy moving horses, but often, in my area the comments are from hard working, dedicated riders without access to coaches who can actually train to the mid to upper levels. They just don’t have the balance right, and it shows in the scores. It is not the fancy WB vs off breed horses at all.
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YES. My Lusitano Bravo had a really hard time “sitting” for PSG (he is built rather straight in the hocks). It was quite a surprise for me when what I THOUGHT was a nice canter P (or whatever) was, in fact, just a 6 at PSG… The higher expectations at the FEI level really impacted our scores. He is now leased to a friend doing 2-3rd and is much happier…
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Huh. I’ve done dressage in 4 states, worked with the likes of top judges (S, I and O), trainers (2 Olympic plus bunches of FEI trainers) and breeding facilities, and there’s always been considered a distinction between lower, upper and FEI levels. Many of the judges and top trainers came in from other places and maybe we never talked about it. The major breeding and showing barn I was at made that distinction. My horse at the time was considered an “upper level” horse but not confirmed FEI. We were actively showing third and fourth at that time. And that is how we were explained to other bigger and big-wigs who came in to give clinics. None of them corrected anyone.
Huh. Thanks, @Mondo!
I find that’s a surprise to many people new to dressage competition or moving up the levels as well. A 7 canter at Training Level might be a 6 at First and only a 5 at Second. The difference between the expectations at Third and PSG is huge, ditto for the difference between PSG and GP.
I was one of those people who really didn’t understand the difference until I started riding with an actual dressage trainer vs a riding instructor. I thought the difference between Training and First was just smaller circles and the addition of lengthened trot and canter.
In fact it was the fine people in the dressage forum here who helped me learn and made me start looking for a more specialized coach. My horse and I got good marks at Training Level but when my instructor rode him in a First Level test that was reasonably clean for a young horse who could be a bit opinionated, they got an abysmal score. Instructor didn’t understand why. Her coach didn’t understand why. So the old “the judge doesn’t know what she’s doing” song was played. By asking for advice here it easy to see exactly why it was scored that way and where he was failing to meet the basic requirements of First.
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I have also never heard 3rd described as upper level.
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I have heard “well we can go sideways so we are ready for 1st” many many times
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Same with people who think if their horse can do a cleanish change then it’s a Third Level horse. If only it was that easy!
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