German vet discusses flawed breeding and issues with movement

[sascha]

About this section, the narrator says that the LF is taking the entire weight of the body. What?

That’s not what I’m seeing. What I see is a horse that is entering the moment of suspension with a rather relaxed front leg that hasn’t yet fully contracted as the pinnacle of suspension has not yet been reached. Any weight that was on that front leg is already off of it.

Also, whenever these types of video ‘analyses’ come across my feed I think that I’d love to see high speed videography of ye olde horses and dressage masters and also wild horses, particularly stallions showing off compared to modern horses instead of modern day horses compared to line drawings.

[Annie_Burton]

In the video analysis Pro Equo explains that the spectacular front action is achieved by breeding for maximum impulsion from behind (Schwung vs. Lastaufnahme). Paired with hypermobility in all joints, this is the cause for the 1-legged trot seen everywhere. And the cause for a huge increase of lameness issues in young expensive horses. Which is what the first poster @hoopoe 's video describes in greater detail, at the top of this thread.

[Scribbler]

@Annie_Burton

In the video analysis Pro Equo explains that the spectacular front action is achieved by breeding for maximum impulsion from behind (Schwung vs. Lastaufnahme). Paired with hypermobility in all joints, this is the cause for the 1-legged trot seen everywhere. And the cause for a huge increase of lameness issues in young expensive horses. Which is what the first poster @hoopoe 's video describes in greater detail, at the top of this thread.

You can still train such horses to carry themselves in a correct diagonalized trot but it will not look as flashy. So there are 2 things here, genetics and training.

[Annie_Burton]

@Scribbler

You can still train such horses to carry themselves in a correct diagonalized trot but it will not look as flashy. So there are 2 things here, genetics and training.

The argument here, in the longer interview in much greater detail, is that we should not allow for it in the first place if we want sound horses. Health has to be the priority.

[Scribbler]

@Annie_Burton

@Scribbler

You can still train such horses to carry themselves in a correct diagonalized trot but it will not look as flashy. So there are 2 things here, genetics and training.

The argument here, in the longer interview in much greater detail, is that we should not allow for it in the first place if we want sound horses. Health has to be the priority.

Oh I agree. But the horses would stay sounder if they were schooled in correct balanced gaits. Even a “normal” horse will break down if ridden this way.

[Annie_Burton]

Hard to look at this photo,
a screenshot from the abovementioned videos —

and harder still to imagine thinking that it’s somewhat passable, or just so-so, or not important in the context of breeding, selling, and riding horses:

It matters greatly.

[sascha]

@Annie_Burton

The argument here, in the longer interview in much greater detail, is that we should not allow for it in the first place if we want sound horses. Health has to be the priority.

Please show us on the stuffed horse where Valegro is suffering.

Seriously, I really don’t think the woman doing those videos has even half a clue. Half an idea of wanting to not give up on things she’s heard, but when she chooses not to listen to science, to post images of horses to compare that are in a completely different phase of the stride, and you’ll find a few on the forehand too if you look hard enough, it discredits her passion.

When she calls an unweighted leg out as “taking the entire weight of the horse” well, her videos should be removed for false information.

Honestly, I don’t think she knows how to read phase of stride from video, let alone from still images

[sascha]

@Annie_Burton

Hard to look at this photo,

How is this so difficult to look at? The horse is about to enter the suspension phase during a trot or passage half pass. The horse has finished pushing off and the left front leg is relaxed and about to contract up off the ground. It is NOT bearing the weight of the horse. It is NOT pushing against the ground.

Positive DAP means that hind leg is going to be a bit quicker to thrust so it can travel under and take the additional weight. The foreleg can be/will be a bit slower because the hind leg has it covered.

The hardest thing about the photo is that someone has misinterpreted it and got others to believe their misinterpretation

[Einhorn]

@Scribbler

but it will not look as flashy.

Isn’t this part really for the judges? If the flashy wins, that’s what everyone will breed for, just like the HYPP? Quarter horses.
If this in fact an issue Judges have to be part of the equation, because let’s face it, a horse breaking down at a young age due to whatever is being alleged, won’t impact the breeding plans unless similar horses don’t win.

Nobody in dressage world actually needs a long term functional horse for day to day life anymore. The only selection process is judges, really.

This is to say I don’t think breeding for short term success at the expense of long term sounds is ok.

[Annie_Burton]

@Scribbler

the horses would stay sounder if they were schooled in correct balanced gaits.

Agreed. Of course. Before they are even trained they need to be bred for soundness, durability, and longevity.

With a trained eye you yourself can see (and if you’re a good rider you can feel it) the asymmetry of the trot, a symmetrical gait, everywhere in fancier warmbloods, and we can choose to ignore it, or we can open ourselves to a conversation that addresses this issue if we agree that asymmetry in trot is not acceptable, but most certainly not at the very highest level.

PS:
ARTICLE 404 THE TROT

1. The trot is a two (2)-beat pace of alternate diagonal legs (left fore and right hind leg and vice versa) separated by a moment of suspension.

16.3_ANNEX_GA19_DRESSAGE%20RULES.pdf

[Annie_Burton]

@sascha

How is this so difficult to look at?

@Annie_Burton

harder still to imagine thinking that it’s somewhat passable, or just so-so, or not important in the context of breeding, selling, and riding horses:

??

It is one-legged = no longer diagonal. No longer two-beat.

[sascha]

Uh huh. I bet you also believe that there was once a time that canter pirouettes were three beat too.

The way horses move, especially as we ask them to take more and more weight onto their quarters and to relieve weight from their forehands is NOT what most of us have been led to believe. Positive DAP does not cause a horse to fall onto/overweight its forehand. The old masters did not have access to high-speed videography. Today we do.

[millerra]

The ‘beat’ is when the foot hits the ground, not when it lifts off. The pictures are paused at the wrong time. Clearly the horse is lifting off both feet in the pictures, one is just higher than the other. Show the true picture of when the feet hit to determine the rhythm. Since this is not shown, I can’t tell you what the rhythm actually is. No one can - the current picture only shows that there may be a different speed in each leg in lift off.

[Annie_Burton]

@sascha

Positive DAP does not cause a horse to fall onto/overweight its forehand. The old masters did not have access to high-speed videography. Today we do.

Let’s have Julie reply to this: “Contrary to popular opinion, Diagonal Advanced Placement was not discovered by scientists in the 1990s due to the emergence of advanced video technology. If you know a well rounded horse person, ask them to check their book shelves for ‘Die Reitkunst im Bilde’ by Ludwig Koch, published in 1928.

The book describes a fault known as the ”rushed hind leg” whereby ”the hind legs contact the ground unbent and in a dragging fashion and the hind leg is put down before the diagonal foreleg.”

Sound familiar? The description continues: ”This type is often seen in carriage horses who have been fixed too high in front in order to create the high and dazzling front leg action which impresses lay people.”

Waldemar Seunig had this to say about DAP: ”This gait is induced through false tension. Stabbing, hovering steps, braced back and a restricted neck, which ought to be stretched better forward. Due to the false posture and the forced trot, the latter becomes impure (the left hind leg pushes off before the diagonal right foreleg) which means an impure rhythm behind. The braced, non-yielding back does not swing. The collaboration of the forehand and the hind end has been disrupted. Schenkelgänger!"

So now we know that a long time ago, horsemen knew of DAP and saw it as a symptom of tension due to a forced, unnatural head carriage. And that back then, it was associated with a type of flashy front leg movements which impressed people who didn’t know what they were looking at. Was that a different type of DAP to the type the Olympic horses were showing in the 1990s? If so, isn’t it a fabulous coincidence that a footfall sequence which used to denote tension due to forced riding and false collection should turn out to be the exact same footfall sequence which correlated with what rightly passed for ”good balance” and ”uphill movement” in the 1990s? The 1990s, when forced, short necks and flashy front legs were increasingly rewarded with high scores in the dressage ring. The 1990s, when it became accepted, not only to hyperflex your horse in the warm up, but also to ride behind the vertical during the actual test. That really would be some coincidence.

A hind leg which lands early and further back ends up standing further back - behind the front leg in a timing sense - during the maximal loading phase. Everything about the hind leg movement is moved back, relative to the horse. So that lovely ”uphill movement” seen during the suspension phase transforms into rather a downward one as the horse begins to load the limbs. By the time the front leg is maximally loaded, the hind leg is often camped out too far to properly assist it. Even if the hind leg is still in front of the hip joint, tension prevents the horse from sinking into that hind leg, leaving him croup high and on the forehand. Perhaps that is why this type of movement was frowned upon at a time when horses were less disposable than they are today.” —Julie Taylor

[omare]

It seems like the point would be made more effectively–if it can be–if a sequence is shown–not one still? (Just me trying to learn and “see” properly.)

[Scribbler]

@Annie_Burton

@sascha

Positive DAP does not cause a horse to fall onto/overweight its forehand. The old masters did not have access to high-speed videography. Today we do.

Let’s have Julie reply to this: “Contrary to popular opinion, Diagonal Advanced Placement was not discovered by scientists in the 1990s due to the emergence of advanced video technology. If you know a well rounded horse person, ask them to check their book shelves for ‘Die Reitkunst im Bilde’ by Ludwig Koch, published in 1928.

The book describes a fault known as the ”rushed hind leg” whereby ”the hind legs contact the ground unbent and in a dragging fashion and the hind leg is put down before the diagonal foreleg.”

Sound familiar? The description continues: ”This type is often seen in carriage horses who have been fixed too high in front in order to create the high and dazzling front leg action which impresses lay people.”

Waldemar Seunig had this to say about DAP: ”This gait is induced through false tension. Stabbing, hovering steps, braced back and a restricted neck, which ought to be stretched better forward. Due to the false posture and the forced trot, the latter becomes impure (the left hind leg pushes off before the diagonal right foreleg) which means an impure rhythm behind. The braced, non-yielding back does not swing. The collaboration of the forehand and the hind end has been disrupted. Schenkelgänger!"

So now we know that a long time ago, horsemen knew of DAP and saw it as a symptom of tension due to a forced, unnatural head carriage. And that back then, it was associated with a type of flashy front leg movements which impressed people who didn’t know what they were looking at. Was that a different type of DAP to the type the Olympic horses were showing in the 1990s? If so, isn’t it a fabulous coincidence that a footfall sequence which used to denote tension due to forced riding and false collection should turn out to be the exact same footfall sequence which correlated with what rightly passed for ”good balance” and ”uphill movement” in the 1990s? The 1990s, when forced, short necks and flashy front legs were increasingly rewarded with high scores in the dressage ring. The 1990s, when it became accepted, not only to hyperflex your horse in the warm up, but also to ride behind the vertical during the actual test. That really would be some coincidence.

A hind leg which lands early and further back ends up standing further back - behind the front leg in a timing sense - during the maximal loading phase. Everything about the hind leg movement is moved back, relative to the horse. So that lovely ”uphill movement” seen during the suspension phase transforms into rather a downward one as the horse begins to load the limbs. By the time the front leg is maximally loaded, the hind leg is often camped out too far to properly assist it. Even if the hind leg is still in front of the hip joint, tension prevents the horse from sinking into that hind leg, leaving him croup high and on the forehand. Perhaps that is why this type of movement was frowned upon at a time when horses were less disposable than they are today.” —Julie Taylor

So this supports my argument.

The disunited trot you have identified is created by schooling and riding in a certain way.

I’ve had horses start life with a disunited trot but not flashy at all, and fixed it. The horses in these pictures are being ridden deliberately to disunited the trot to create bigger front end movement. It’s very very common.

I cannot speak to whether the horses are also being bred to be hyper mobile and thus break down earlier. For real comparison we’d need to see a horse of this calibre schooled and ridden in a correct diagonalized trot. Then look at their career longevity.

It might be a combination of breeding and riding, or it might be just primarily the riding. At the moment impossible to separate the two because these horses typically only go to riders that train like that.

You can certainly destroy an ordinary horse riding like this. It won’t look as cool, though. Arguably ordinary horses break down faster like schooling first level if they are ridden like this.

[Annie_Burton]

@Scribbler

The disunited trot is created by schooling and riding in a certain way.

It can be found in foals and unridden youngsters that were bred for extra-flashy movements. ECVM and PSSM are genetic disorders, both of which are contributing factors. It’s all inter-connected, see long interview in post 1 in this long thread.

[BigMama1]

@Annie_Burton

Hard to look at this photo,
a screenshot from the abovementioned videos —

and harder still to imagine thinking that it’s somewhat passable, or just so-so, or not important in the context of breeding, selling, and riding horses:

Is it possible that there have always been moments like this demonstrated by the more extravagant movers of yesteryear, but we lacked the high quality video and ability to review frame by frame to catch the fraction of a second where the weight is on one leg?

[Warmblood1]

@Scribbler

So this supports my argument.

The disunited trot you have identified is created by schooling and riding in a certain way.

Yes, absolutely. Most people would be shocked to see many popular dressage stallions natural gaits before training and manipulation. Their gaits can be quite plain as youngsters, especially the trot which is the most malleable gait to manipulate. Here is a video of a young Totilas. Quite different from later in his career after his training progressed even though training has still altered his nature gaits in this video:

totilas_verden_2005.wmv

On a different note, does anyone have any clinical or statistical data that shows higher incidence of lameness in modern bred dressage horses?

[BigMama1]

He’s an absolutely stunning mover in that video. Not the crazy hyper-extension we saw later once he learned to “sit,” but that’s not what I’d call a “plain” mover!