That’s exactly how I read it.
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I interpret it as:
“Don’t think for one second that what you’re doing there with your cowboy boots and western saddle and whatever-that-thing-is in your horse’s mouth that it’s real dressage.”
It reminds me of back in the day of dinosaurs and the children’s hunter division was just getting introduced, there were people who objected to calling it and judging it as a hunter division because real hunters jumped 3’6” and above.
We got over it.
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I would expect that from individuals, but the association? How…welcoming…
I’ve been a USDF member for years, but that certainly does not make me feel good about the org. I suppose I can just add that to the list of reasons I’m reconsidering that membership.
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It’s a shame John Richard Young isn’t still around.
He could take them out and school them a bit.
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"Head position is a result of collection; not the cause of it. A horse that is truly collected is relaxed and supple from jaw to croup; he must be, for the slightest stiffness anywhere destroys collection–and I don’t mean the full collection of a school horse; I mean any slightest degree of true collection, such as we should expect in a trail horse or a stock horse when the rider demands it.
The position of the head, no matter what it is, has nothing whatever to do with making a horse truly light or collected."
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And they wonder why the declining number of participants.
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Sounds good, hope something will happen….
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I hope something happens too. I would like to watch the top dressage horses perform without seeing the horrific abuse (I am one who thinks riding the horse behind the vertical is abuse all by itself, but I know I am mostly alone with this.)
I would like to stop feeling so sorry for those poor horses who give their all in spite of the torture they go through.
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Not alone. I feel the same way
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At the risk of wading into the fray…but because I am a science nerd and prefer reading studies to anecdotes…
This study was completed watching British Dressage, lower level competitions, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787822000843
This study concluded that 90% of dressage horses in competitions are ridden behind the vertical - at least in warmups - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4121138/
And this is pretty gross "Many riders prepared their horses with the nasal plane “BV”, but the prevalence was significantly lower during competition, indicating that the majority of riders might be aware of what is the correct HNP according to the guidelines. Apparently the riders pay more attention to HNP of their horses when under the eyes of the judges. Potentially, riders also perceive their horse to be more relaxed or willing during competition, when they release their horse from a more flexed HNP during warm-up to a less flexed HNP just before the start of the test. In particular when horses were ridden with the head “BV” in the warm-up area, riding style changed markedly in competition. "
Now - there are some flaws in these studies, in the latter one namely the observer bias issue but they do address it. In addition, the latter study is from 2014, so it’s possible that a heightened awareness could have made things a bit better internationally (outside of the British dressage study, which was completed in 2020), but I haven’t found another study yet that is updated.
Something that is very interesting to me about these studies is the connection between riding behind the vertical and conflict behaviors. Since it is a connection or correlation rather than a definitive causality, I have to wonder whether it is the training that creates the behavior (as many have accused) or whether the horses themselves are more anxious, causing the training methods to deviate in order to control the hotter, more anxious horses (as we heard with Salinero and Rembrandt). So either breeding has “gone wrong” or training has “gone wrong” or it’s a complicated mixture of both.
And yes, of course not all competition dressage trainers and riders - but like the “not all men” - if it were a minority, it would be less of an issue. It behooves those who are competing to not brush studies like this under the rug, or the more recent findings of noseband tightness and fascial restriction being another issue.
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Me three.
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Well, damn then. I guess I will just never be able to ride in public again because I will be labeled a horse abuser.
One of my horses, supersoft in the bridle and currrently learning to balance on his hind end, in spite of my best efforts (no I’m not a pro) will drop behind the vertical because he’s trying to lean on the bridle for balance. It happens… And I am most definitely NOT cranking him here.
My youngest OTTB, probably was ridden in a rig on the track and I got him from a less than ideal situation - will, on loose rein, curl behind the vertical at the canter - like - it seems like he’s touching his chest - deep. And YES i am trying to get him up by riding him forward. It is an evasion.
But, sure as H*** if behind the vertical is suddenly classified as abusive, well, there goes little ol’ me. I guess I will either have to accept being tarred and feathered as an abuser or stay at home.
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I, too, have one that will drop and curl to avoid pushing and carrying from behind. I am an abuser, too, I guess.
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I, three, have one that will drop behind as she starts to get tired. I can half halt and put her on the vertical, and two strides later we’re behind again.
Plz only take pictures every third stride k thx.
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Same here. I have one who curls behind the bit as his go-to evasion especially at the canter. Luckily he’s a hunter that very much likes the float the reins and kick ride, but it’s still a struggle when we school on the flat. Anything he doesn’t want to do or is having to work at, he curls. Guess I’m a horse abuser for trying to put proper flatwork on him!
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I don’t think (although I don’t want to put words in Jackie or Knight’s Mom’s mouth) that anyone is talking about the occasional BTV that happens with a green horse, or the horse that is curling as a learned evasion, but rather the intentional BTV that the studies are talking about. You really can’t (and shouldn’t) compare the two.
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From the above study: " Horses carrying their nasal plane behind the vertical exhibited significantly (P<0.0001) more conflict behaviours than horses with their nose held in front of the vertical."
What does the P stand for and where is there mention of degrees behind the vertical?
Thanks
My now 18 yr old warmblood came out curling. Thankfully I had a trainer who knew how to fix this from the day I backed him. Occasionally I cliniced with others when she was out of town, when they asked me to ride him long and low I said absolutely not, he needs to be ridden in to the contact and don’t ask me to over flex him either. Eventually he was strong enough to carry and went in the double with no problem.
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P in research studies stands for Probability - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4111019/#:~:text=The%20P%20stands%20for%20probability,value%20between%200%20and%201.
Here are the study’s categorizations of behind the vertical:
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Nasal plane mostly in front of the vertical (“IV”) (maximum flexion within a ride such that the nasal plane is at the vertical)
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Nasal plane slightly behind the vertical up to ten degrees (“AV”) (minimum flexion within a ride such that the nasal plane is at the vertical)
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Nasal plane more than ten degrees behind the vertical (“BV”)
I’ve copied those directly from the second study. The first study with British Dressage was a little more complicated, with behavioral scores that included going 30% BTV.
Again - I’m just interested in the connection between conflict behaviors and head position, and lack of penalization of some of those conflict behaviors in competition. I’m not saying that all upper level dressage riders crank their horses in - more of a “this is really interesting and deserves some deeper study and observation” comment.
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Thanks, again
