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Okay, I’ll bite.
I am the smurfiest of dressage smurfs, and have never ridden above second level.
But what my uneducated eye sees in this test is a very tense horse with a busy mouth, that loses the rhythm in the downward transitions, and is slightly uneven in the P/P. Also lacks lateral suppleness and cross over in the half pass.
I do not understand, especially with the busy mouth, how that scored the way it did.
But I am just a smurf.
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And I will attempt a counterpoint. Obviously, I love the Spanish horses, so probably have bias. Generally these horses are a little tense and can get tight in the neck. But this horse does not appear unhappy. His ears are relaxed and there is no tail wringing. And I don’t necessarily attribute the mouth to tension. I’ve known many horses with mouth/lip movement that was just a habit.
The horse is absolutely obedient to the rider and performs willingly. I see definite crossover on half pass. I see sit from behind and self carriage. The extended trot shows fairly even front and back movement, not just flashy in front. His extended walk was very nice, as was extended canter. The level of difficulty was quite high: halt to canter pirouette, pirouettes in piaffe and passage, etc. The P’s showed real sit, not just a shuffle.
It wasn’t perfect. The transition from halt in the beginning was rocky and sometimes there were mistakes. But I liked it and I liked the horse. Also, these horses have thick necks that may appear tense. My horse is a gelding with a substantial neck that may appear tense when it’s not.
Last, if you want to see a tight neck, I think it was Carl Hester that had a very tight neck on his horse in one recent competition.
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100% agree! I have a Spanish horse. Mine can be tight because he’s trying/thinking too hard. It’s like mine has a hamster for a brain. They seem to have zero quit in them. But we’re ALWAYS working against his somewhat natural tension and wanna be quickness (“when in doubt, I’ll just go faster, tighter, and get stompy, mom!”). It’s getting better as he’s moved up the levels, but it’s definitely his “go to” when he’s trying too hard or thinking too much. My trainer is one of the quietest riders I’ve seen (judges comment on it as well as on how “well-established” the correct basics are on mine), and he will still revert at times. It’s just who he is, and I think the breed can be that way.
I think it’s a nice test given the breed (they aren’t generally big, super elastic movers), and the mechanics are fairly correct.
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I think when we wonder why a score was higher than we think it should, our first thought should be learning why and educating our eye further.
Asking your trainer to tell you what all is good and why and where there are less correct parts, that is how we learn to judge better for ourselves.
The judges know, is why they score like they do, but are not infallible.
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Don’t say that 
. Carl Hester is not to be criticized .
But I agree with you, because I was trying to compare this ride to Carl Hester’s ride as well.
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I loved this ride. It wasn’t perfect but it was harmonious and boy can that horse piaffe!
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It was also a freestyle. The artistic marks scale the score higher than just the movements. The movement score alone I think was about 77%
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The horse looks behind the leg to me. He looks like he’s been trained to do all the tricks but isn’t truly through from the hind leg to the hand, and that there’s no push from behind and correct use of the back.
But what do I know 🤷
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I was trying to reply saying the L program is a great way to educate your eye. And scribing is, too.
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I found the rider distracting. He didn’t ride as quietly as I would have anticipated.
Can I ride 1 1 millionth as good? No way :D. But that was my initial reaction as I watched and try to educate myself.
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I strongly disagree. He doesn’t move like a warmblood, but I think he has push. I don’t think you get P and P like that without use of the hindquarters. His shoulders are always up and his hind legs under.
@Manni01, yes! With Carl Hester, his horse was strongly “on the underneck” several times. A clear bulge was shown. Here, like I said,the horse remains up in front, in front of or on the vertical.
YMMV
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Maybe I’m just used to seeing the suspension of the WBs and not watching the Spanish horses as much.
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They are different, no question. Like @mbdsea said, they are overachievers, so always a step ahead of you…or so they think. But they generally don’t have the huge gaits.
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Interesting comments.
Please educate me then, why is the somewhat busy, open mouth not considered a fault? In a lower level test, I think it would be considered not accepting the contact.
Also the horse’s neck is very heavily muscled, but it does not appear that the poll is the highest point
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The horse is a stallion, thus the more heavily muscled neck.
I find it interesting that some people are so focused on the horse’s head, while ignoring the high difficulty of the test. Besides test difficulty, the higher mark can also be attributed to the double scores for piafe, passage, and pirouettes. What I did find objectionable were the tails on the riders coat.
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I’ll have to go back and look again but don’t recall seeing an open mouth or tense mouth. I did notice that he seems to be a bit of a lip flipper, playing with his mouth, but not resisting the contact or objecting to it. We have a GP horse in our barn who has done that with his lips his whole life, so I assumed it was just a habit. Off to go watch the video again…
The cresty muscular neck is typical of stallions, particularly the Iberian ones. I’m more concerned about where the hind legs are than the poll but I notice a lot of Spanish type horses tend to get a bit tight in the neck and overflexed. To me the rider seems to be working to keep the poll up and throatlatch open.
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So lip flapping aside, what do you think about the rest of the test: especially the good things.
Pill?
Assuming a typo for poll.
