As far as music goes; the proof is in the pudding, as it were. The whole point is to show off the horse, not critique the music. Better yet if you don’t even notice it, and all it does is enhance the experience without taking it over. I would challenge anybody not to get goosebumps on that first extended trot.
As I said, that music does not show off the horse, IMO. As I watched the video, the music faded further into the background until I felt I was watching a GP test, not a freestyle.
Siegi, surely you’ve heard that they only hire brainwashed dip$h!ts to judge at that level now, haven’t you? I mean, really, where have you been?
[QUOTE=Mike Matson;4562783]
As I said, that music does not show off the horse, IMO. As I watched the video, the music faded further into the background until I felt I was watching a GP test, not a freestyle.[/QUOTE]
Mike this make me so scary. You always told me that you are working on getting the freestyle to music in the US at a higher level. But the things you do to archieve these goals are WRONG. Jeeeezzz open your mind and ears and crawl from under your stone.
[QUOTE=
is getting these near perfect scores, why are people not allowed to express negative views without being jumped on?
Now some one might say the following…
a. but he’s soOoOoO pretty! omg! so elegant and magicalz!!
b. You don’t know what it’s like to ride dressage, especially at that level, so you can’t talk you desktop rider! show me some videos!
c. but that horse is spoiled and well taken care of. He is not abused.
Then I would say…
a. There is no excuse to present a horse incorrectly even though it is aesthetically pleasing to crowds, judges, breeders, etc…
The first priority is the horse and his well being, not how to make dressage more appealing to the masses.
b. Sure I may not own a GP level horse, but I try my hardest to ride my training level horse in a correct manner, and any horse I sit on in a correct manner. Also, even though I haven’t sat a piaffe, I am confident I can assess if one is correct or not to some extent. “Desktop riders” do usually ride actual horses, and can have the knowledge to discern if something is correct or not.
c. Yes, these horses are not abused. Abuse is a strong word and should not be used here really. This horse, IMHO, is not being ridden in a correct way and the manner that he is being ridden in is detrimental to him.
So please, do not attack those who are not in favour of this “style” of dressage (if it can still be called that), and let us speak our minds. I believe that on the BD forums, Totilas is also not allowed to be discussed, so hopefully we will be able to retain our freedom of speech here.
[QUOTE=JenK29;4561750]
The thing I find most impressive about this horse after years of explosive, disobediant horses, and terrifying tests winning everything with ridiculous scores, it is refreshing to see a lovely moving horse be calm, fluid, and sane, and actually get good scores (even though I think they are high - like someone else said, what else do we aspire to when these scores come so easily?). I hate nothing more than watching big name riders miss a movement due to disobediance and still get a 4-6. It is disgusting. You don’t do the movement, you should get a 0. So while we can argue he maybe should have gotten a 6-7 instead of a 8-10 in places, neither can we accuse him of not being able to complete the majority of the test.
So while we can all argue that the movement is mechanical, perfect, manufactured, what have you, I hope we are all happy to see a horse succeed to the highest level that isn’t about to jump out of his skin and hurt his rider and those around him. I’m tired of holding my breath while watching the Grand Prix. I’m over “beauty in tension”; to me, that is the height of false mechanical movement.[/QUOTE]
I agree. Also, as a newbie to dressage (and a Friesian rider), I am a little confused why Totilas’ movement is often called manufactured and mechanical. I saw some one posted a TWH with huge pads on his shoes et al…as a former Saddle Seat rider, I hated seeing horses like that winning. The gait on that horse is absolutely manufactured. However, I don’t think Totilas gets lunged in bungie hobbles or is rode in hyperflex…maybe I am mistaken. In my humble and amateur opinion, extreme measures like that are what makes a horses gait manufactured.
Depends on who you ask. “Manufactured” is a term some people use for a gait they don’t like, some use for any sort of altered gait, some use for any time the feet are lifted up high.
‘Manufactured’ is not a defined dressage term, and different people use it to mean many different things.
Keeping in mind that the foreleg in extended trot CAN very well lift and make a higher gesture than the hind leg and be correct (look for pictures or Rocher, Boleem, for examples) because the hind legs are lightening the forehand that much, please note that it can also lift and make a higher gesture than the hind leg, and be incorrect, too.
Many people here say the foreleg must always be perfectly parallel to the hind leg, and that’s incorrect technically, if the hind quarters are working very correctly and the balance is perfect, the foreleg can make an expressive gesture because it is freed up.
In this case, the hind and fore cannons do not and cannot remain parallel, simply because of how the hind leg is structured. The key is that the hind leg and back are very correct in position, and the foreleg floats effortlessly.
What is incorrect, is when rather than the momentum and balance and power allowing the forehand more freedom, it is the effort of the shoulder muscles raising the foreleg, while at the same time, the hind legs are markedly not tracking up, and the back is not correctly working.
No, I don’t believe Totilas is being trained with any ‘action devices’. I think it is very easy to produce this sort of erroneous action without any of that.
Just ask for a little too much on a horse that is a little green and needs more suppleness, and tends to try very, very hard and get very eager.
I think the photo above, with Totilas making an extreme gesture at the trot, lifting his foreleg very high, is an exaggeration of the old pre-hyperflexion problem, ‘all the generals out in front, no soldiers bringing up the rear’ thing that can happen and has happened for a great many years in many horses.
I think this horse is so exhuberant that he can get over ridden very, very easily. And I do think it’s getting better, er, some, and I think Gal is actively trying to fix it though not always entirely succeeding. I think Gal just asks the horse for a ton of expression in the extended trot, and winds up going too far. The horse looks a lot more normal when he does extended trot in the warmup.
“But, seriously, if this:
http://i45.tinypic.com/i4ia81.jpg
is getting these near perfect scores, why are people not allowed to express negative views without being jumped on?”
Keep in mind that this is the worst this horse ever does, that he doesn’t always go to this extreme, and that there are better moments. Even so, it still is a problem.
But like many top scoring horses with specific faults in their test, he simply has a lot of other things he does very well, and he wins back points elsewhere.
I won’t follow the bandwagon and cry that he is getting overly generously scored when he does this, until I see specific scores for these movements. Maybe there are judges over scoring him, but I don’t have enough information yet to agree.
“why are people not allowed to express negative views without being jumped on”
Because they aren’t saying their negative views privately to their teddy bear in their bedroom?
Because people are opinionated, and they nearly invariably ‘jump on’ people who disagree with them. As far as I recall, the bill of rights or constitution says, ‘freedom of speech’, not that, 'and when you speak, everyone will scream, ‘so true! so true! we are not worthy!’
Look, it’s not even a dressage thing. People always do a lot of ‘jumping on’, in every subject and topic in the world. Anyone ever listen to anyone discuss politics, religion, cars, the environment, or how to categorize butterflies? Dressage fans are not exactly breaking new ground here.
[QUOTE=Aleks27;4562932]
:yes: again!
I believe that on the BD forums, Totilas is also not allowed to be discussed, so hopefully we will be able to retain our freedom of speech here.[/QUOTE]
Where did you hear this fairy tale? :rolleyes:
I’m still gobsmacked that Stephen Clarke can be using such an incorrect picture on the front of his book.
This is the man who is supposed to have said “the only thing wrong here is that we can’t give the horse higher than 10”.
And we are supposed to now take Stephen Clarke as an independant judge? Most disillusioning.
Re - criticism of Stephen Clarke’s ability as a judge:
I would be interested to see if Clarke is actually proposing that the horse should always get a 10 for doing an over-ridden extended trot, or if he is talking about giving the horse a 10 for his flying changes, or his piaffe, which look much better more consistently.
On the other hand, if some steps are really over-ridden, and more of it is not over ridden, one can see some sort of justification for giving it a high score. Judges aren’t supposed to completely slaughter the score because a few steps are a little too yeehaw.
What I am seeing is that the extended trot of the horse is inconsistent. It varies from competition to competition.
Sometimes the leg doesn’t fly up til he hits the bit at the end of the diagonal, sometimes there are just a few steps at one point that are really overdone, and the rest is better. I think he hits the bit like that because he gets stiff right in that moment, I think they get stiff when they are trotted like that.
Overall, I have to say, the horse looks eager and happy. He doesn’t look skittish and tense and sweated up in the wrong places or in the wrong way, he DOES look excited and very energetic, and he isn’t always completely correct, but he sure as hell looks like a very happy camper.
He also looks, except during the incorrect steps in the extended trot, like he has a natural balance, and when he ‘loses it’, it’s not out of lack of ability or talent, it’s because he’s over-ridden. I’m not even so sure he’s so incorrectly trained in the sense it couldn’t be changed, I think it is how that moment is ridden in the competition ring more than anything else.
Some of the popular top horses, with heavier shoulders and a longer more rectangular build, didn’t always give the impression that the were loose and energetic but not overly hectic.
I don’t actually think this is one of the ‘can’t do an extended trot’ horses. Some horses, they can canter and change and piaffe for a 10, but they can’t do an extended trot. The rider puts together some sort of ‘fake’ extended trot, because the horse can’t really do it in the correct way. I don’t think this is the case with this horse.
So this one gets kind of tight in the neck, and gets over ridden some times, overall, I’d have to say that Ithe naturalness of the horse’s balance looks really great. And he doesn’t look tense so much as just very exhuberant and at rather obvious points in the test, over done.
So is he incorrect? Yes. Is he overscored? Probably a little, but I’m not sure so much. Are judges turning a blind eye to the extended trot fault? I don’t know. Would have to see the scores - all of them, all the judges, all the tests…that isn’t going to happen.
Clearly it did - he scored over 92%
See it’s this sort of critique that really perplexes me… Totilas did not receive near perfect scores for his extended trots. The 10s he is getting are primarily for his piaffe/passage and some canter work. Of course that also impacts the collective marks. The reason why comments like this may get ‘jumped on’ is because it winds people up when it seems that others are deliberately muddling the issue with skewed allegations. Can you offer a valid critique of the movements he DID receive 10s for?
I would take offense if I could stop chuckling about the sheer absurdity of this comment. :lol:
For the record, I’m also not a fan of high leg action but I genuinely believe that educated eyes can see beyond that and appreciate the excellence this animal achieves in some movements.
[QUOTE=ceffyl;4560805]
I wonder if all this negativity about Totilas - movement, training, ability would apply if he was owned and / or ridden by a US rider? I hazard a guess at it would not, y’all would be singing his praises.[/QUOTE]
I think this is very true. (and Sjef is the anti-christ)
I think Totilas presents a problem for some people because he has been trained with rollkur yet he seems very relaxed in his work and exhibits none of the tension and spookiness of some other top horses which people love to criticize for being spooky and unsettled in the halt. So they can’t criticize him for the usual things. blahblahblah.
OK Here’s one who is calm and relaxed in his work and not spooky. New complaints must be found. He’s got to be awful. I think the term is cognitive dissonance if I reach back to Psych 100.
He is not perfect. No horse will ever be perfect. There are issues with the extended trot, for example. I don’t think anyone argues with that. You can be sure that the trainer knows this if we know it.
I wonder how many here think Matine was superior to Totilas. In the minority I was not a fan of MAtine’s tests. There you had the high knees and the dropped back and not even a working trot and yet she was the bulletin board darling.
I think Totilas even with his flaws is a much better athlete than Matine, Salinero, Bonfire, and I’d have to think about the rest.
He’s imperfect like everyone else but I do think people go out of their way to trash him because they don;t like the training philosophy. Step back, maybe.
He’s the new target.
What Egon said… and let me add the “real” issue - Totilas is better than Ravel! So there, I said it…
I think I need a Christmas cookie now!
I think his extended trot is getting better- if you compare this video with the one from the indoor championships last year, big improvement. He is a YOUNG GP horse, he will get stronger and better with time.
Video of Edward training Sisther de Jeu
I don’t know if you guys have seen this or not, but Edward also performed a demonstration at Olympia on Sisther de Jeu. He discusses his training methods as he rides her.
http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/edward-gal-shares-his-training-secrets
Totilas’ Freestyle and Grand Prix marks from Hickstead (scroll down):http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readupdates.php?id=7491668922
Totilas’ Grand Prix marks at Olympia (far right, click on the pages): http://eventcontent.hippoonline.de/453/sta_erg/01_D_ergDEU.htm?style=hippo
[QUOTE=quietann;4560669]
To my very inexperienced eye, I agree. He just seems wound very tight, most of the time. The free walks were interesting, in that regard.[/QUOTE]
When you see this horse in the flesh you can see that you couldn’t be further from the truth.
He is so powerful but at the same time exudes a feeling of complete ease and confidence in his ability. You seriously get the feeling that if he could smile he’d be grinning all the way through the test.
I have never seen a horse be able to produce that amount of power without creating negative tension as well and I have seen most of the ‘greats’ from the last 35 years. He is truly outstanding.
There have always been horses who could perform one or two of the movements exceptionally well ie Aktion’s piaffe, Rusty’s changes, Walk On Top’s extensions etc etc but I don’t know of one who can perform them all to the standard he can.
“he seems wound very tight”
To me the horse looks like he’s running around going yay, haha, wheeee, big diagonal, yay!
