Or is it a detriment?
Do those of you who regularly take dressage lessons on your hunt horses think it helps you in the field?
lateral work is great for opening gates.
[QUOTE=Risk-Averse Rider;4422778]
Do those of you who regularly take dressage lessons on your hunt horses think it helps you in the field?[/QUOTE]
Disclaimer: my boy and I came to hunting via eventing, so there’s already some acknowledgement that the dressage thing is necessary.
I would think a responsive, well-balanced horse would be an asset in the field or anywhere else. In my humble experience, dressage work has REALLY helped us. We did intensive dressage boot camp from November through May, boarding with a local dressage trainer and commuting out to hunt as long as the season lasted (certainly the first time that had happened in that barn). Then we worked indoors the rest of the winter to rebuild a better horse and rider. Better dressage, better jumping, better eventing, and now better hunting.
Not to mention, hunting helped his dressage work.
Maybe all those old cavalry masters were on to something… 
I was at a feed store in Wyoming, and the salesman told me how glad he was that his wife taught his cowponies dressage and jumping. The dressage made his horses MUCH handier when chasing cattle across the rough country (we were at the edge of the mountains) and jumping got them over WHATEVER was in their way. sounds a lot like hunting!!!
I may be in the minority but I think dressage is crucial.
I wouldn’t treat dressage as a way to control the every thought and footfall of the horse, of course. I mean really applying the knowledge and skills to have a balanced, responsive horse. Movements like shoulder-in, haunches-in/out, leg yielding, and the half halt are really useful.
Hope that helps.
I was thinking of dressage as teaching the horse to handle himself better, with balance. Not as a collection of trick moves to be used in certain situations.
That’s the first I’ve ever seen a movement described as a “trick move”. I’d rather a person use a half halt before a trappy coop rather than haul on their horse’s mouth to get it to slow down.
If you want to call it a trick move - that’s your perogative.
I call it dressage.
And every field hunter and rider benefits from it.
Well, ‘dressage’ is nothing more than the French word for ‘training.’ Anyone worth their salt will tell you that whatever you are using the horse for, you want it to be well balanced and responsive and obedient. 90% of training over fences is…the basic schooling on the flat (have I mentioned how much I hate that new term ‘flatting’…)
The result of proper flat work, call it what you will, is a horse that carries itself in balance- INCLUDING WHEN BEING RIDDEN OFF CONTACT. I ride to hunt- want the horse to just do its job without micromanagement. He would be clueless as to what to do if I didn’t school him in lateral work, shortening and lengthening strides at all three gaits, and how to properly negotiate hills, both up and down.
For me, whatever I’m doing on a horse, riding a beast that has never been taught how to ‘use itself’ is not fun.
At the very least, being able to leg yield away from trees and thorns can save your kneecaps and britches!
My neighbors are foxhunters, while I am a dressage and trail rider with eventing and hunting in my past. Generally the neighbors are a bit … dismissive … of my arena work. Until they got an OTTB that was a bit of a mess. They asked to use my arena in order to have a confined space to work him. When they asked for some observations and feedback, I provided it, along with some exercises they could try to address some of the larger issues I saw. They were so pleased they now take weekly lessons with a dressage instructor.
While they are by no means looking to come down the centerline any time soon, they have come to appreciate that the human can influence the horse by means other than the bridle.
star
more sound horse longer
Your hunter will be sound much longer, too. He will be able to be balanced and cat like to handle whatever comes his way. Imagine thinking what you want and have it happen. You won’t get as tired and neither will he. Those calvary officers loved to hunt and brought their hounds with them when they were going to a new base. Gen, Patton was all over my territory.
How much use is training for hunting?
If “dressage” = “training,” you may have posed an question best answered by the Department of Redundancy Department.
I’ll bet no one wants to hunt an untrained horse.
Recognizing that dressage does really mean training, I was specifically talking about what we affectionately call “prancing in circles” (Lisa W-B has an old ranch horse who watches with some amusement while other horses do dressage - we imagine that he would call it that.)
Probably should have explained myself better. I’ve been a bit brain-dead lately.
I was thinking about the belief - held by some, but clearly not all - that taking an event horse to a high level of dressage “ruins” him for x-c, because he learns to wait for instructions rather than thinking for himself.
I concur
[QUOTE=Beverley;4423511]
Well, ‘dressage’ is nothing more than the French word for ‘training.’ Anyone worth their salt will tell you that whatever you are using the horse for, you want it to be well balanced and responsive and obedient. 90% of training over fences is…the basic schooling on the flat (have I mentioned how much I hate that new term ‘flatting’…)
The result of proper flat work, call it what you will, is a horse that carries itself in balance- INCLUDING WHEN BEING RIDDEN OFF CONTACT. I ride to hunt- want the horse to just do its job without micromanagement. He would be clueless as to what to do if I didn’t school him in lateral work, shortening and lengthening strides at all three gaits, and how to properly negotiate hills, both up and down.
For me, whatever I’m doing on a horse, riding a beast that has never been taught how to ‘use itself’ is not fun.[/QUOTE]
Just this morning I was enjoying a bit of lateral work as the Huntsman did a headcount. Leg yield/half pass… my mare was stiff from fall shots. It’s great to use basic dressage/flat work to keep them supple and also great to have them moving off/bending around your leg (again - negotiating through trees is a great example). All that dressage work was great for Hunting and vice versa… she moves even more uphill and balanced than before we started hunting… also great for them to REALLY know where their legs are and how to use them on uneven footing…
Of course, R-A R, I think I knew what you were asking, but was subltly chiming in with other posters.
I might actually agree that, for example, taking Keltec Salinero foxhunting might be a really bad idea. However, Podhajsky routinely took his stallions galloping cross country with others from the SRS. So, maybe foxhunting might be beneficial even for horses doing Grand Prix dressage. Wait. Your question was the other way around. hmmmm. I guess I have to say I wouldn’t want Salinero out there trying to think for himself in a covert somewhere. At least, not with me on him.
That mindset is not new. When I was in college in the early 70s, one of my fellow collegians had a mare that she competed quite successfully in dressage- had her bronze medal, maybe even silver and/or gold. She dabbled in showing hunter o/f and a bit of eventing too. The mare liked the variety. Her dressage friends were horrified that she was ‘ruining’ her nice horse!
I am not of the opinion that training to even the highest levels of dressage ‘ruins’ a horse for x-c. What ‘ruins’ them is indeed, never letting them think for themselves. I’ve had horses that had no problem at all with ‘now we are doing dressage for the next couple of minutes, and you will be supple and obedient and responsive to every twitch of my pinkie fingers and heels’ - and then go out and let 'er rip cross country, forward and happy and jumping out of stride, because the horse has been given the proper foundation for independent thought when necessary in doing its job.
Any time that you can influence your horse’s movement with very subtle cues is a benefit. Flying changes around sharp corners were always useful. When I fieldmastered my mare would go for miles in a relaxed and stunning extended trot whilst all the rest followed at a gallop. Lateral work is very useful for getting out of the way and half halts, without use of the hands, are a much better way to rate a horse that has to work hard for several hours. My mare was an avid and keen hunter in the winter and an impressive dressage horse in the summer. Maybe Salinero would have been a very different horse if he had spent his early years in the hunt field ?
[QUOTE=Risk-Averse Rider;4424310]
I was thinking about the belief - held by some, but clearly not all - that taking an event horse to a high level of dressage “ruins” him for x-c, because he learns to wait for instructions rather than thinking for himself.[/QUOTE]
This is a slightly different question than your OP. It may have been Reiner Klimke – at any rate a high-level rider with an international reputation – who felt that high level dressage could interfere with a horse’s ability to “think for itself” when out cross-country. I think the story went that this rider’s horse was injured, and when bringing it back, he schooled it to a higher level/the highest levels and found that, when it was finally ready to go back out into the field again, it had “lost” something of it’s former ability to read a fence for itself and instead “waited” to be told what to do.
I’ve seen this belief/observation raised in the eventing forums over the new dressage tests that, as I understand it, include higher level movements than formerly.
But that’s a different thing from dressage, in general, being a good foundation to build on/provide support for any discipline.
helpfull done well
the big paint [photo in my profile] had a several months with a local Dressage trainer B4 I started hunting him. very very strong and forward, He never felt like my first hunt [1/4] horse. but since no two are alike one uses the training resources that work. As the years went on he improved quite a bit, [but never entirely quit the pulling until after the first run.]
[QUOTE=Equibrit;4424609]
Any time that you can influence your horse’s movement with very subtle cues is a benefit. Flying changes around sharp corners were always useful. When I fieldmastered my mare would go for miles in a relaxed and stunning extended trot whilst all the rest followed at a gallop. Lateral work is very useful for getting out of the way and half halts, without use of the hands, are a much better way to rate a horse that has to work hard for several hours. My mare was an avid and keen hunter in the winter and an impressive dressage horse in the summer. Maybe Salinero would have been a very different horse if he had spent his early years in the hunt field ?[/QUOTE]
That is sooo true.
I hve ridden a wide variety of horses in the hunt field, everything from season foxhunters to horses just off the track. Even though I can get the job done on any of them, the well trained ones, the ones that can be influenced by a very subtle cue, make for a MUCH more enjoyable day of hunting.
