Interesting article

[skydy]

They look so much different than the Olympic horses we’ve been seeing for the past four or so decades, and they don’t have the stressful facial expressions that Ms. Stuckelberger was referring to in her article.

I’ve never been a Dressage rider (other than the basics used in the everyday schooling of horses) only a spectator, but it seems as if their piaffe and passage look much more fluid, natural, less choppy, than what we’ve been seeing in high level competition for a long time now.

[Knights_Mom]

Your observation to examine horses facial features as a stress indicator is quite correct and astute.

[Manni01]

I really wonder why Woyzeck is not pulling his legs up under his belly in the passage …

[Knights_Mom]

Mine was a foxhunter. Thank goodness.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I noticed that these horses did not lash their tails as much as modern dressage horses.

I also noticed that the second horse was at liberty to open its mouth.

These rides were rather pleasant to watch.

[Rackonteur]

@axl

Consul was by Cottage Son xx? Is that also the line of steeplechasers Cottage Rake and Cancottage?

Cottage Son was by Young Lover and out of Wait Not by Cottage. Cottage also sired Lovely Cottage (who won the 1946 Grand National), and Sheila’s Cottage (who won it 2 years later, in 1948).
Cottage also sired Cottage Rake (won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1948, 1949, and 1950; as well as the King George VI Chase in 1948, and the Irish Cesarewitch Handicap in 1947).
Cottage was the great-grandsire of Cancottage (pedigree here:
https://www.pedigreequery.com/cancottage )
Cancottage raced in the US, apparently.
https://www.pedigreequery.com/index.php?h=cancottage&query_type=stakes&search_bar=stakes&field=all

[SuzieQNutter]

@Jackie_Cochran

There is no WAY that a horse lunged with side reins will stay at or in front of vertical while lunging at the walk. I failed because the horse’s mouth would hit the end of the reins since the surgincle or whatever the side reins are attached to do not move with the horse’s mouth, and I DID use side reins with elastic.

You failed because side reins are not supposed to be used in walk. To do so you are risking getting a lateral walk. Side reins on the lunge are for trot and canter only. Side reins adjusted correctly do not teach a horse to go behind the vertical. If they are, the side reins are too tight and the horse is not being pushed enough from behind.

Looser side reins do not get hung up on anything, that is why they do not need anything around the neck.

To lunge correctly the horse must be able to walk trot and canter without side reins. The side reins are then put on loose, as the horse must be thinking forward and you have to make sure that they do not have anything like a grass seed stuck in the wrong place or anything that would stop them going forward. A lunging cavesson is best so as you can change direction as much as you want.

Halt to trot transitions. Trot to canter transitions. Canter to trot and trot to halt. There is no walk to change direction if you are in the middle of the arena, there is if you are in a lunging ring or the end of the arena.

You then put the reins on the working hole which does not have the head vertical. You working the horse from behind brings the head vertical. The same transitions again. Then clip the reins off again and ask for circles in walk. That way you won’t have horses always wanting to trot when they go out.

That is as long as I lunge for. About 10 - 15 minutes all up. With the reins in the working mode think of 10 minutes of that equalling an hour of being ridden.

[chestnutmarebeware]

I was a dressage failure , so I may not be expressing this in the best way, but what really struck me about these videos (in the best way possible) was the horses came across as “real horses”. By which I mean that they clearly had their own thoughts about the performances and weren’t just the CGI automatons that modern upper-level horses resemble to me.