I think your opinion about what is difficult might be questioned. Too, I’m not so sure that Totilas’ freestyle is so totally lacking in difficulty.
FEI’s statements about difficulty in FS:
Appropriate repetition of single exercises, especially the exercises with a
coefficient.
• Exceeding the minimum requirements of the exercises, such as number of
simple and flying tempi changes or piaffe steps, but without exaggeration.
• Showing a steeper angle than requested in half passes possibly combined
with changes of direction
• Executing the movements on lines without the support of arena rails, such as
on the inner track, the quarter or centre line, or on angled or curved lines,
(e.g. circle or serpentine).
• Well-chosen placing of movements in positions that make their execution
more difficult: for example directly in front of the arena rails, as well as
pirouettes directed outwards, possibly towards the spectators.
• Well-presented clearly defined combinations of movements (e.g. half-passes
in trot followed by half-passes in passage, flying changes every second stride
immediately followed by changes every stride and vice versa).
• Showing demanding and difficult transitions (e.g. piaffe or passage derived
from the halt without prior development of impulsion; transition from walk or
halt directly into a series of flying changes; significant but still harmonious
transitions out of an extended pace to a highly collected exercise: e.g.
extended trot to piaffe or extended canter to (half) canter pirouette or piaffe.
• Performing movements or transitions with the reins in one hand but without
exaggeration.
A well-calculated risk is demonstrated when the Degree of Difficulty corresponds to
the potential and the level of training of rider and horse. A challenging, technically
correct performance is a significant testimony of a high standard of riding ability and
the training of the horse. On the other hand, obvious mistakes in the execution of
the movements may reflect an over-asking by the rider of the horse, which means a
badly calculated risk, and the score for the Degree of Difficulty has to be reduced.
I’m not going to delve into Totilas’ freestyle in detail til I watch it a couple more times and sober up. Christmas is just too demanding.
But actually I think were some extremely difficult moves and transitions in Salinero’s freestyle, there was an extended canter on center line with transition to I can’t recall what that I thought was extremely difficult and more to the point, done very well.
I really am not sure most fans have the same understanding of FS difficulty as the judges do.
Too, as much as we hate the increasing scores, we actually seem to expect more and more flashing freestyles every season, which further distorts our concept of ‘difficulty’. There is the issue of using figures rather than movements to bring in difficulty which I’ve not once seen anyone here bring up. Maybe we should discuss the difference between figure vs movement.
Too, I think people might be distorting this to ‘difficulty is better’ rather than what the literature says, which is ‘difficulty can raise your score, but beware, it can also lower it if you don’t do it very well’. Thus it is conceivable to me actually that a young GP horse can get a very high score on a very well done simpler freestyle with lower level of difficulty, while someone who tries to put in a lot of difficulty and the technical side or the fluency or artistry suffers.
I see some very difficult things competitors choose to do, and I see the audience going ‘oooh…ah’ and the judge going ‘ohhh…no…’. The two groups do not always see it the same way.
Difficulty at all costs is different from appropriate difficulty for the horse and from difficulty executed with aplomb and technical correctness.
IS Totilas scored too easy? This is what I have been hearing on the bb’s since the day the horse first stepped into the GP competition ring.
In fact it is one of the most consistent complaints around any watering trough, over many decades. No one ever seems to complain that 2nd place and down was scored too high. Maybe some principle of cognitive dissonance at work…
