Fitness of the dressage horses?

[Appsolute]

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;3443770]
Does a GP dressage horse ever get to work out at the strong canter or gallop, or do hills, etc?[/QUOTE]

I have never been a “dressage rider”, just an eventer… but in my working student days an upper level dressage barn shared the same facility.

I ended up getting a gig working their dressage horses on the gallop track, and out on the hills that we conditioned our event horses on.

So, at least at the barn I worked with, the dressage horses did get hill work, and gallop sets

[Beezer]

[QUOTE=newrider;3444733]

The whole point I was trying to make originally is that if you are used to seeing eventing or foxhunting or other more Thoroughbred-type horses, the dressage horses look very different, in part because of their breeding. And because they don’t look like they would be able to go on, for example, a four-hour hunt, someone who is not familiar with the high level of fitness required for what they do might look only at the massive bodies that don’t move with speed and agility as much as suppleness and power (although they are agile too, it just looks different on an 18hh Hanoverian than on, say, a 15hh Anglo-Arab) and think that the body type indicates a lack of fitness.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. :yes: A non-horsey person was looking at the GP dressage over my shoulder at work ( :eek: ) and said, “That one looks really fat. Are they supposed to look like that?” I explained it as the difference between a sumo wrestler and a runner. Both have developed the muscles and fitness they need for their sport, but that the difference in training gives them entirely different looks.

Of course, having said that, I think I’d really rather go out on a cross-country hike with the runner than with the sumo wrestler.

[TBlitz]

maybe the camera’s just adding a couple pounds

I think the comparisons of human athletes to eventing vs dressage horses has been amusing, but also not accurate in my sporty mind (no offense).

Maybe comparing them using fast and slow twitch muscle fibers (power vs endurance). My thought is that the eventer needs more slow twitch muscle fibers due to needing energy to get through all the events. I believe show jumpers probably have type IIA (intermediate fast-twitch) since they require alot of power, but also need to go strongly at the same thing for an amount of time. Dressage horses need more fast twitch muscle fibers than slow to power their powerful collections and extensions. They aren’t required to perform each movement for too long, though they do need to be able to perform different movements in sequence.

Though the classic slow vs fast twitch muscle fiber uses the analogy of sprinter vs marathon runner as an extreme example, I don’t think the horses have that much of a difference between disciplines. I’m not sure if my muscle fiber thoughts are accurate at describing the difference, but it’s the first thing that popped into my head while reading this.

[Falconfree]

Thanks for the info in this thread! I was wondering that same thing, because some of the dressage horses looked really chubby to me. I guess I’m just used to skinny-minnie TBs.

Anyway, a decent amount of good information here. Stuff like this is why I <3 COTH!

[Wellspotted]

I was glad to read slc’s post. At the first barn where I ever took dressage lessons I was surprised to find that most of the riders rode for maybe 15-20 minutes, in the indoor. That was the average length of a schooling session.

Having come from hunter/jumper barns in the “distant” past, I thought those were very short rides, but the norm for dressage riders and horses.

Apparently not.

And, Applecore, I was also glad to read your post! Now I know what shape I’m in–it’s not that my tummy’s fat, it’s that my ribcage is really widely sprung! :winkgrin:

[Maryalden]

it’s not that my tummy’s fat, it’s that my ribcage is really widely sprung!

Wellspotted,

I no longer have cellulite, I have celluheavy!

[dressagetraks]

In my copy of “My Horses My Teachers” by Podhajsky, he has a series of pictures of Nero, his TB (OTTB?). Beginning of dressage training, six months later, one year later, etc. Granted, Nero never looks like today’s WB, but the changes and development of the muscles during training is remarkable. He started out looking like a fresh OTTB. By the last pic, he certainly looked closer to my mental “dressage horse” peg than my mental “TB” peg. Not tucked up at all. Beautifully glowing coat in the last pic at age 20, in grand condition and obviously fit.

[Larksmom]

not getting into the fit or fat but

as far as what sort of work they do, I loved the Horse in Sport videos and recently watched them all again. In the dressage video, they interviewed Chris Bartle who rode a horse he had ridden over the Badminton course. He then switched to Dressage, and rode to GP. He rode his horses over whatever he had, jumps fields etc. They also interviewed Anna Greta Jensen with Martzog. She never turned him out loose. No one else was ever allowed to sit on him. I think all that stuff just depends on the individual rider but I feel sorry for a horse who never gets turned out to run and buck and roll.

[NRB]

Well I may have my facts mixed up. But I remember reading an article about Jan Brinks training facility in Sweden. He has a race track around his property in and I would assume puts it to use. As an aside he trained under Kyra didn’t he? M Barisone was quoted in an article as saying that to up his horses fitness level he started doing interval traing and trot sets. I remember it as really long trot sets.

[Mozart]

Well, having seen most of the dressage rides…I stand by my comment that some of these horses would have benefited by being fitter. I do know the difference between dressage horses and eventers. I do know these horses are extremely strong and cardiovasularly fit for normal conditions. I know they work hard and that their muscle mass is different than eventers and show jumpers. I realize they are not unfit chubbies. But I still think that some were clearly affected by the heat and humidity as evidenced by some lack lustre rides.

Some of the horses were prepared differently for these games due to the expected heat and humidity and some others might have benefited from that as well. And for some reason, the stallions seemed the hardest hit.

[freestyle2music]

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;3444706]
but the blood of agricultural horses was, ie Gelderlander.[/QUOTE]

Yes… and you hit the bulls eye with this remark. We need these kind of horses to regain a hindleg and a strong back again. To many horses these days look like they are cut in the middle. IMHO a very big mistake of the German and Dutch breeders to leave out this kind of blood. Please bring us back the horse with a strong hindleg and a solid back.:lol:

Back on topic ALL horses didn’t perform at their best. And like the Olympic judges stated some days ago, “it was extra difficult to judge all these tests, because none of the horses were in their normal shape”

Theo

[tartanfarm]

I keep hearing how hard it is on our (US) horses with the weather conditions. Except for the extreme pollution we are hotter and more humid in a large portion of this country and horses are training every day.

So now in hind sight was the air conditioned barn and indoor a help or a hinderance to the horses conditioning?