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Did someone move the third vertebra when I wasnt looking?

Dressage
#41

I am sure I will get thoroughly slammed by some people about this observation.

Going through my dressage books and looking at pictures of dressage riders in magazines and on the web I have noticed something that is interesting to me.

In many of the old pictures I see riders holding their heads UP and their faces vertical. Their horses often tend to have the highest part of their neck at the poll with an open throatlatch even when the horse’s face is mostly vertical.

BUT in the pictures where the rider is looking down at the horse’s neck the horses generally look like they are behind the vertical, with the neck “breaking” at the third cervical vertebrae rather than the poll and the horse’s throatlatch is not as open. Over the years I have seen more pictures of dressage riders looking down and their horse’s faces behind the vertical until this has become the “new normal/new proper position.”

I have always had a huge problem not looking down at the horse’s neck, which in my case was related fully to my back not being straight (partially my own conformation and partially an osteoporosis hump now) &/or my shoulders being in a permanent slouch. I finally “cured” it though I still have to keep my attention on it (the cure–holding my face vertical all the time while I ride) and by finally learning how to “fix” my shoulders (by pushing out with my diaphragm.)

I can really understand why dressage riders feel like they need to keep looking down, it is the only way a rider can SEE how their aids affect the horse. When I started keeping my face vertical all the time I had to start refining my FEEL because I could not look down and SEE how the horse was doing, and I also depend on my riding teacher to get after me if I start looking down again (with my MS my “feel” is not perfect.)

Yes I ride Forward Seat instead of dressage. But I have noticed that the horses I ride do move forward with more impulse when I keep my face vertical and my eyes on the horizon and I have to use my leg aids less to keep the horse moving forward freely. Besides, looking up and forward is a key element to a proper Forward Seat position and looking down was a big part of ruining my position.

Just my extremely humble opinion of course.

3 Likes
#42

Thanks for posting.
I value constructive input

You are a good example for posting because you dont have the “perfect” rider body and you ve had to adapt.

It is true that even upper level riders tend to look down.

You can feel when a horse curls behind the bit , but it takes a lot of saddle time to learn to do that.
You really have to turn off the thinking brain and learn to process what your muscles are telling you.

It’s one of the many reason why I love dressage. There’s so much to learn and you never get to the end of it.

1 Like
#43

Learning to ride by looking at the horizon is what riders are told from day 1.

It takes a rider to actually only think of that for many rides to do it. You must look up. Not just with your head but with your eyes. I think it is Sally Swift or Mary Wanless who talks about soft eyes and hard eyes. Hard eyes is one spot in the distance. We need to ride with soft eyes which means you see all, including your peripheral so as you do not crash with other riders in the arena.

Looking down at the horse’s head is looking with hard eyes and the rider will crash with other horses in the arena. You must look up with eyes, not just head.

Looking down happens when you are training youngsters and at home riding daily with noone telling you to look up.

My boy look up and his poll is the highest. Look down and his poll is not the highest.

I spend the whole time hubby is riding saying look up. He can’t do it for more than 2 strides. He is getting a little better as I have told him he will not progress until he does it. There is no point him having lessons with other instructors until he can do it.
.

4 Likes
#44

This is really true. I have done my better riding when someone is telling me to “look where you are going, look up!” It seems to be an odd habit to develop. I think I spend too much time looking at my horse’s neck as well. I need to do better.

2 Likes
#45

No demo rides and they did not define ifv vs. atv vs. btv. They did mention prioritizing the whole posture over focusing strictly on the poll as the highest point, though added that this is the ideal. After that segment, there was a bit of a nuanced discussion about challenges of presenting a horse at the world championship and also on the judging side about how to prioritize mistakes, differentiating between fundamental mistakes and minor mistakes. Like in the prior Cesar Torrente video, they made some comments that made it sound like there has been some evolution on this front to make sure they are rewarding correct training - they mentioned horses going around too deep here. Regularity of the gaits was also highlighted as a priority in that part of the conversation.

For the OP (and @Jackie Cochran, you may enjoy this too), here’s a nice video of Ingrid Klimke with Franziskus as a young horse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Z6Nbh9ipg
I think this is an instructive video because he’s mostly ridden up and out, but occasionally does drop his poll and go btv due to normal young horse loss of balance, etc. This him now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98v8_X4qGuk
He’s got a huge crest, so in this video, you can see examples where he’s in front of the vertical with poll not the highest point due to the musculature. He also drops occasionally btv (notably going into canter pirouette and in the extended walk).
Here’s Eva Moeller at the 2019 Bundeschampionate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-GChiPTB7U
This horse is also generally ifv with poll highest, but occasionally drops behind, notably in corners/on circles. I think you can see what @mvp was talking about in this video.

7 Likes
#46

Ahahaha. Yeah. Sure.

4 Likes
#47

If blah blah is the best you can do…
.

2 Likes
#48

Considering this ride in totality, does anyone want to focus on the poll?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF-oExmIqi8

#49

Nope.

2 Likes
#50

Yes, but as you can see by the responses on this thread, it is not the be all and end all. :yes:

#51

Not me. :slight_smile:

I think Dressage has come a long way, and not just from 25 years ago. I think Hester and Dujardin made quite an impact.

I wish the old Horse and Country TV episodes were still available to watch without cost. They were free to anyone back before the big international wins and the Olympics. Watching Hester instruct Charlotte was fascinating.

2 Likes
#52

If all horses you see are btv, and all the horses competing are not collected, there really is nothing to do.

8 Likes
#53

You’re funny.

2 Likes
#54

And another thing that I learned riding the screwed up National Show horse!

I think I made this point earlier and some of y’all got it. But relevant for this discussion: Folks need to distinguish between a horse who briefly comes behind the vertical and the horse who has learned to hang out there. IMO, the latter is the serious postural problem and, I can tell you from experience, it’s is a bitch of a riding/training problem to fix.

Horses who start tucking their chin and leaving the back low often then get asked for something like rollkur, or deep, low flexion to the side with their neck. That’s because the rider is trying to gain influence over the base of the neck. The base of the neck, of course, is the relevant part for lifting the front of the rib cage. But once you have the chin tucked in and don’t want to let go of that contact in order change the neck (the throatlatch and, really, the base of the neck), what else can you do but keep pulling until the base of the neck comes up?

I can say more, but this pair of ideas were the ones that I wanted to offer you all in addition to my post above.

ETA: But I am wondering if Rollkur developed as an extreme training tool after we allowed/taught a horse to go with his chin in and his back low. We didn’t mean to allow him to “cheat” with his posture this way, but while we were focused on the neck and the contact in our hand, we stopped feeling for the horse who was ahead of our leg enough that we could have him pick up his rib cage with the contact we had.

I wonder and ask this only because I’m old and an ecumenical kind of horsewoman. I have never understood it when (some) dressagists laid so much emphasis on the consistency of the contact in the hand. And I have also not understood how/why people put young horse in (relatively heavy) side reins. I suppose I have revealed enough of my ignorance so as to have you all dismiss me. But I think rider’s placing so much emphasis on what’s happening in the hand can lose the more subtle feel of a horse who is well-ahead of the leg and also maintaining the kind of consistency in your hand that he’s postural strength allows him to do with his whole body.

4 Likes
#55

OK, a few small comments.

I do not know if this horse was a stallion, but years ago I had been around stallions for years, both Paso Finos and Arabians. The Arabians especially would cavort around and float through the air and perform free versions (on their own) of various airs above the ground, as well as passage, piaffe, extended trot and collected canter. The Arabs did tend to have purer gaits on their own than the Paso Finos, and many of the Arabian stallions had full, mature crests so I AM familiar with how a stallion’s neck can look while performing collected movements on their own.

I paid attention to the poll as you requested. Yes, that horse was better than many I’ve seen, but there was still a small slope from the front of the neck to the poll. Since the rider spent most of her time looking DOWN at the neck of the horse I did not expect full free movement. The rider looking down at the neck loads the forehand, and it was very obvious during the turns on the hindquarter at a canter (sorry, I can’t remember how to spell the dressage word).

When the rider looked up a little bit more on the straight stretches the horse started lifting his forehand and his action looked freer at the trot. He raised his head and neck higher, his forehand looked a lot lighter, and his stride fore and aft reached forward more with the joints properly flexed.

I would love to see a performance like this with an equally good rider who looked UP at the horizon throughout the whole ride.

A good horse, a good rider, and an illustration of how the rider looking down at the horse’s neck can affect the free fluid motion of the horse’s legs, the carriage of the neck/forehand, and the way the thrust from the hindquarters comes up through the top of the neck.

I bet if the dressage competitions riders never looked down at the horse’s necks that the complaints from us Jurassic age dinosaurs would cease, or at least abate a good bit.

#56

Nope, not my request. Yes, Everdale is a stallion.

1 Like
#57

I look at my horse’s neck when I ride to make sure his poll doesn’t drop–or at least when it does I don’t reward him for it. After all, it’s right there in front of me where I can see it, unlike many of the other indicators that would help give me feedback if I could only see them.

#58

I need to listen to the entire youtube video but found heard a great section on a happy horse. My goal, happy and relaxed. Around 40 mins.

I love these videos, thank you for posting them. You can see how the young horses, Franziskus even now, needs the encouragement to push from behind and not allowed to drop down in front. And to be allowed to open the throatlatch, not contstricted. I love Ingrid Klimke. And Eva Moeller does a wonderful job in that ride.

#59

A lot of the pictures I see in a certain FB group showing a horse “up and open” are usually just horses above the bit, on the forehand or both.

If a horse isn’t truly over its back, it doesn’t really matter where the poll is.

7 Likes
#60

I’d like to focus on the fact that Charlotte Fry is 24yrs old.
That this ride got her 82,620% in the Freestyle and she’s in the ~75% in regular classes.

Is this a 100% ride? No.
Is this a 90% ride? No.
Since it’s a Freestyle, there’s a music and creativity score, and so it’s usually 5-10% more than in regular classes.

So this ride was a very nice ride, despite some technical flaws which were scored appropriately, from a promising young rider.

The poll is just 1 element mentioned in the article 401.

2 Likes

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