kick me if I’m wrong, but to my eyes many of the trot extensions in eventing looked much better than those in dressage. The eventing horses seemed looser and truly lengthened their frame in the extended trot, but many of the dressage horses looked too tense, with exaggerated leg action but without much lengthening through the frame.
what do you think?
I saw the exact opposite. No stretching through the frame in the extentions on the eventers, even between the spooks. The grand prix dressage horses were grand prix dressage horses as usual and I loved it.
I do like watching the eventing dressage. I don’t know if that’s because they’re at the levels I’m riding at or if it’s something inherent.
The eventers do have an advantage, which is that most of them are not maxed out athletically at the 3rd/4th level test. This means that all those years of dressage are spent polishing the movements they do rather than pushing the envelope for competitive canter pirouettes, passage, etc.
I haven’t watched enough of the straight dressage this year to see how I feel about the relative extended trots, but I will say I’ll put David O’Connor’s extended canter to collected canter transitions at the Sydney games against any dressage performance by anyone else in the world at any level. They are so light and so accurate.
The eventers are performing at a much lower level. You can’t compare how they look, to how the dressage horses look. You’re comparing third level to grand prix. There is much less collection in the eventers.
The eventers, to me, had much flatter, quicker extended trots, with less balance. When they lengthened their frame it was more in their necks, and affected their balance negatively. But that is what you expect at the lower level. The extension doesn’t come as much from lengthening the stride, it comes from lengthening the neck. Less extension of stride is possible, but that is third level.
The dressage horses have a different kind of gait, too. The eventers have a quicker, lower stride. The dressage horses lift their knees and hocks higher.
I am very often told by many lower level eventers, “I just don’t like that kind of gait”, and people from hunter backgrounds where a low, ‘daisy cutter’ gait is preferred, their ‘eye’ just doesn’t like a horse that moves differently. A horse with a higher lift to his knees and hocks looks very, very different when he is collected, and when he extends, and when he does changes, etc.
When a GP horse is doing an extended trot, his head and neck remain higher than at 2nd-3rd level, and the lengthening of frame is more in the angle of the head to the neck, than in the whole neck dropping and lowering, which would cause problems with balance, but even worse, would make it far, far more difficult to do the next thing in the GP test, which might be a piaffe or passage, which require maximum collection. That transition is emphasized in the scoring, often getting its own mark, so the transition is very, very important.
The extended trots in some of the dressage horses, that were over cadenced and too high, did not score the best scores. These trots aren’t actually ‘passages’, they are just over-cadenced and hovering. This happens when the horse is getting tired, distracted, or whatever keeps him from being even and forward off the leg.
The other thing is in the first class, many of the horses did not perform well. I think that the arena was bothering all the horses, even the ones that did not spook. During the Grand Prix Special all the dressage horses were more relaxed.
Again, when you are doing Grand Prix, it is different from doing third level as far as how much tension there is. THis just a part of doing Grand Prix the horses need to be much, much more between the rein and leg and more collected, and have to be ridden every stride much more - and they are getting pushed very hard to show maximum collection and extension, plus they are doing piaffe, passage, which they have to exert a great deal of energy, so the dressage horses are much, much more ‘treading on the edge’. It is a lot harder to keep a horse relaxed in a GP test than in a 2nd-3rd level test.
A third level test is JUST busy enough to keep a horse paying attention, yet it doesn’t ask that much of the horse, so you always see fewer spooks and fewer disobediences. Because the horses are just less ‘excited’, ‘aroused’ (in sports psychology terminology).
[QUOTE=slc2;3455299]
The eventers, to me, had much flatter, quicker extended trots, with less balance. When they lengthened their frame it was more in their necks, and affected their balance negatively. But that is what you expect at the lower level. The extension doesn’t come as much from lengthening the stride, it comes from lengthening the neck. Less extension of stride is possible, but that is third level.
The dressage horses have a different kind of gait, too. The eventers have a quicker, lower stride. The dressage horses lift their knees and hocks higher.
A third level test is JUST busy enough to keep a horse paying attention, yet it doesn’t ask that much of the horse, so you always see fewer spooks and fewer disobediences. Because the horses are just less ‘excited’, ‘aroused’ (in sports psychology terminology).[/QUOTE]
A lot of the eventers were top riders, their horses were extending properly, not simply lengthening their necks.
Not all eventers move like sewing machines, some of them have quite nice active movement.
I hardly think the eventers are less “excited” or “aroused”…their riders are doing everything they can from keeping them from exploding…
To my eye, Ingrid Klimke on her horse Abraxxas had a VERY correct and lovely extended trot. Much lovelier than some of the bunched up, front leg flipping dressage horses. :yes:
[QUOTE=vineyridge;3455981]
To my eye, Ingrid Klimke on her horse Abraxxas had a VERY correct and lovely extended trot. Much lovelier than some of the bunched up, front leg flipping dressage horses. :yes:[/QUOTE]
Yes, she did and MANY of the GP dressage horses are not doing an extended properly.
The nose is supposed to be in front of the vertical and pointing to where the foot is to land, not bent at C3 and/or behind the vertical.
And that’s straight out of the FEI rules.
Eileen
You can’t really compare the extensions because as mentioned, you’re comparing 3rd level work to Grand Prix. The Grand Prix horses looked like the eventers when they were at 3rd level. In Grand Prix, they are asked to be more collected with higher frames and elevation. It’s apples to oranges.
From what I watched, some of the eventers were doing more of a 1st Level Lengthen stride at the working trot than a true extended trot. The GP horses were all going for the extended trot- they just did it with varying degrees of impulsion in the hind end (some had flashy front ends with flicking toes and not so much behind and some were beautiful).
I’m sorry, but you just have NOT figured out BBR - bulletin board reality.
The dressage horse that scores lower ALWAYS is the much better horse
they don’t win because the judges are blind, paid off and incompetent (all at the same time, in fact),
actually, the WORST dressage horses are the ones that win, because the judges are just scoring that way, because they’re incompetent, blind and paid off, so they all get together and conspire to have the same 1-2 people win over and over,
ANYTHING a chronic winner does is BAD and WRONG, ANYTHING an American rider does is kind, caring and ‘for the horse’,
ANYTIME an american doesn’t get a medal it’s because the judges are blind, paid off and incompetent.
American rider’s mistakes in dressage don’t matter, or are invisible, or unimportant. Foreign rider’s mistakes DO matter.
When a foreign dressage rider has a mistake, it’s because they are a bad rider, train incorrectly, and don’t care about their horse, and the horse has just had it up to here, and finally just up and says, ‘eff you’.
When an American dressage rider has a mistake, it’s because it’s too hot out, or that is just one of those things that happens and horses are not robots, the rider was trying his best, etc.
Foreign riders NEVER ‘try their best’, and they don’t have a clue how to really ride their horses correctly; their coaches, all the tests they’ve ridden and gained experience from, all the medals they’ve won, don’t give them as much insight and experience at the international level as a training level rider from Resume Speed, Iowa, who could give them a few pointers and straighen them up right
away.
However, American riders, despite far less experience, mileage and coaching, don’t have that problem.
dressage horses should be thrown out of the ring for lifting their feet off the ground,
a piaffe where the horse looks like a circus elephant on a ball is the best piaffe, and
the TRULY best horse is the one that is discovered pulling a cart or doing riot control for a police man, or is WHITE, or BOTH, and
the event horses ALWAYS do much better dressage than the dressage horses, because they don’t lift their feet as far off the ground.
Every Olympics, without fail. Get with the program, Girl!
Now that I think about it, my most lasting memory of these games will probably be Klimke’s extended trot on Abraxxas. It’s etched in my brain cells. :yes:
Yeah I was taught like Roan. And a lot of the gp horses were ‘flicking’ their feet out.
But granted eventers really do have a different set and type of muscles. So, look at the ideal for 3rd level extensions and that’s the goal of eventing extensions.
I would take a comparison of Klimke and Ahlerich. There’s a youtube somewhere. And then Bettina on Ringwood Cockatoo. It is said this eventer could have made a gp dr horse. Or, David OC in Sydney. He still hold the record for best score.
Headley Britannia is a small quick mover but she’s still correct as can be. Just not fancy schmancy like Salinero
Too bad Klimke didn’t ever HAVE a horse named Abraxxas at the Olympics, vineyridge.
Can you get your memory re-etched?:lol::lol::lol::lol:
His daughter, Ingrid, had an event horse in THIS Olympics named Abraxxas. That’s what I’m referring to. My memories from THESE games.
:lol::lol::lol::lol:
I didn’t see any ingrid mentioned and i thought you were referring to the ooh’d and aaah’d over video on the bb, of klimke at the 84 olympics with ahlerich.
I guess you didn’t read post number 6.
The only “Klimlke” vineyridge referred to on this thread is Ingrid.
First, a third level extended trot is going to be different from a Grend Prix extended trot.
Second, many years ago I heard Linda Oliver complaining about having to compete on less than perffect grass footing. She said that if the horse has a slight stumble at the extended trot because of uneven ground, he would no longer trust the footing, and it would be difficult to get as full an extended trot in the future because the horse would be holding “something in reserve” in case of uneven ground.
The eventers ride on uneven ground all the time. The horses ALWAYS keep “something in reserve” to deal with a miss-step. and you want them to.
That’s correct. I didn’t know she was talking about Ingrid Klimke, I thought she was talking about that all the dressage horses sucked so bad, that all she could do was cherish the fond memory of The Old Man at the 84 Olympics. Why did I think that? Because of all the OTHER nonsensical trash that’s being said about this Olympic’s dressage riders.:lol:
I enjoyed the eventing dressage HUGELY.
It was different, but lovely.
I don’t think many of those backs were as easy to sit on as higher level or dressage-only horses.
I really, really loved watching it. I found it by accident on the 'net, live feed, and am SO GLAD I did. I’ll be sure to look for it in the future.
It was perhaps equally inspiring for ME. Could be as Poltroon said, because it’s where I am working (not the eventing part! :eek: ) and so my understanding of it is greater.
For ME it was easier to tell what was a Very Good Extension. My opinions/impressions were right in line with the judges’ for the eventing dressage. Not so much for the GP. Probably because there’s so much more and I’m nowhere NEAR there yet.
Apples vs Oranges!
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