Someone really needs to tell my horse that :winkgrin: I have seen very few other horses able to get the air time he gets when he’s playing. I’ve had more than one person tell me that he looks positively frightening when he’s playing in an arena, and that they can tell it is him by the sound of his thundering hooves.
I just don’t think that size is the main factor. There must be another mechanic involved. Whatever that musculature is, just hasn’t been bred into the warmbloods.
[QUOTE=Ambrey;3697763]
Even halter horses are moving away from the 00 feet aren’t they? At least now that HYPP is going out of style they won’t be dropping dead randomly ;)[/QUOTE]
No, they’ll just get navicular instead. 1500lb animals on 00 feet, ick ick ick. :dead:
I’m glad they are phasing out HYPP, AQHA will no longer be allowing H/H horses to register, but are still allowing N/H. I wish they’d ban those, too. The Foundation Quarter Horse Assoc has the best idea… any horse that has Impressive in their lines is not allowed to be registered. Sounds extreme to some, but you won’t find any HYPP foundation QHs!
And yeah, I think they are slowly attempting to breed bigger feet onto them, but it’s a slow process and when some folks still like the look of the tiny tiny feet, it’s like trying to swim upstream. :no:
Sorry, more off topic. :lol:
Philippe Karl’s Long Reining book has a picture of a horse in pesade on the cover. The text has no mention of the levade, but looking at the degree of hock flexion shown, I can’t imagine there could be a more extremely collected movement! Interestingly, the horse is a very dark dapple grey, I wonder how old he is.
One of the most perfect pesades I ever saw was performed by a horse out in the pasture. To think that these are artificial movements that the horse cannot do on his own is to misunderstand the true nature of dressage. 
The Orange One - the picture you linked to is a croupade.
My understanding is that the Pesade is not the same as a Levade, but I’m not sure what the difference is, and I have seen them used interchangeably.
What the Cadre Noir calls a Courbette on the website someone else linked to it what everyone else would call a Levade/Pesade.
The Courbette is the “hopping forward” on the hind legs.
The Capriole starts as a levade, and then a leap up and kicking out of the hind legs.
To the best of my understanding, a Croupade is an instructed kicking out of the hind legs while the horse is balanced on the forelegs. This is not seen at the SRS - only CN mentions it.
The “White Stallion Productions” here in America also has something called the “Mezair.” I’m not convinced that it’s anything other than an instructed rear.
And I’m surprised that all of you are overlooking the obvious reason the Airs are not part of competitive dressage… the horse comes above the bit!
http://www.lipizzaner.com/home.asp :lol:
These are some of my favorite examples of Levade
http://www.cheval-haute-ecole.com/levadeNO.JPG
http://www.karlmikolka.com/images/blackie2_bg.jpg
http://www.le-site-cheval.com/figures/images/sauts_ecole/levade3.jpg
[QUOTE=Aven;3695766]
My understanding is that when training the lippizaners the trainers would see which air(s) about the ground the horse had talent for. None of the stallions did all the airs, only one or two.[/QUOTE]
My former instructor studied under Michael Handler, son of Hans Handler of SRS fame. We learned through him that the SRS trainers wanted ALL the stallions to learn to levade to some degree. The way the stallion naturally came out of the levade determined whether he would then be trained further for courbette, or for capriole. Some stallions with exceptional strength and balance would hop forward on their hind legs when leaving the levade, so they were trained on for courbette. Stallions that had more of a tendency to explode forward into an upward leap when leaving the levade were trained on for capriole.
[QUOTE=Schiffon;3697822]
Philippe Karl’s Long Reining book has a picture of a horse in pesade on the cover. The text has no mention of the levade, but looking at the degree of hock flexion shown, I can’t imagine there could be a more extremely collected movement! Interestingly, the horse is a very dark dapple grey, I wonder how old he is.[/QUOTE]
That dapple grey is Phillipe Karl’s 5yr old Lusitano Odin (on the cover). When I rode with Mr. Karl in the late 90s in Germany, he had Odin with him, then into his 20s. To this day, I have not seen a more harmonic, trusting, engaged and correct pair in dressage - ever. This old stallion was so impeccably trained that the entire spectrum of advanced movements, including airs, came so naturally it was absolutely mind boggling. Odin sat in the deepest levade in the middle of Webelsgrund’s ancient indoor with Mozart from the loudspeakers and he didn’t change his position for roughly 30 sec. I have it on video and keep going back to it.
Yes, St Graal is the thoroughbred.
There’s a photo on page 8 (this takes forever to load)
http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications/annual-reports/2003_Annual_%20Report.pdf
Excerpt from page 7:
"The levade is a haute école movement in which the
horse elevates his forehand by up to 30 degrees from
the horizontal. It is initiated from an energetic piaffe.
Horses that perform a correct levade are few and
far between. We were extremely fortunate when Paul
Belasik agreed to bring his horse St. Graal to the
McPhail Center for a study of the mechanics of the
levade. St. Graal is a twelve-year-old Thoroughbred
gelding who graces the cover of Paul’s book,
Dressage for the 21st Century.
"The levade and the pesade, which is a similar
movement performed with a higher angle of elevation
of 30-45 degrees, are important movements in the
classical school, because they form the introduction
to the “airs above the ground,” such as courbette
and capriole. Indicators of correctness in performing
the levade or pesade include the angle of elevation
and the lowering of the hocks. If the horse lifts himself
to an angle higher than 45 degrees and does not
bend the joints of his hind limbs, he is simply rearing
and is not performing a classical movement."
wow, even better: The USDF Connections article on St Graal (well, on levade actually, but I digress):
to answer the OP: “Like the piaffe, the levade is considered a natural evolution of collection and the ultimate test of a trainer’s ability to collect the horse.” source: page two, second para of linked article
"The levade—called the mezair in some works of classical equestrian literature—evolved from the pesade as a more challenging movement, with the horse elevating his forehand only to about a 30-degree angle to the ground. Classical trainers began experimenting with lowering the pesade in the nineteenth century, and some experts regard the levade as the most difficult of the ‘airs above the ground.’” source: page one, last para of linked article
Yes, waaaay to juicy. May I additionally suggest the riders themselves would need to be 99% SRS and 1% FEI GP Dressage riders.
Today’s FEI GP riders are constantly (1) behind the motion or the center of gravity, basically at a complete loss here. If that wasn’t enough, they are also (2) very active. Two tough habits to break!!
“During the levade, the horse is in a rather precarious state of balance and must constantly adjust his muscle tension to maintain the position. The recommendation of the late Alois Podhajsky, former director of the Spanish Riding School, that the rider should sit as still as possible is certainly good advice, for the horse must also compensate for any movements by the rider. During his levades with Eli, Paul’s body position remained almost vertical (88 degrees in Figure 3), with his center of gravity vertically above the horse’s center of gravity.” http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications/usdf-connection/USDF_Oct03.pdf
Soooo, are GP riders schooling levade at home? If not, should they really be competing at GP? :uhoh:
Canticle - so what do you school after you have the airs down pat??
the art of bs’ing, i believe.
I thought putting on airs was a favorite past time at COTH?
[QUOTE=pattnic;3699575]
And I’m surprised that all of you are overlooking the obvious reason the Airs are not part of competitive dressage… the horse comes above the bit!
http://www.lipizzaner.com/home.asp :lol:[/QUOTE]
In that photo, yes. Not really a levade or even pesade at that. However, if you had actually ever ridden a real levade, courbette, and capriole, you would know that the horse does not come above the bit! Upon landing you would strive to have the horse maintained through and in utmost collection…otherwise you cannot get in that 2nd, 3rd, etc jump in courbette!
[QUOTE=slc2;3700772]
the art of bs’ing, i believe.[/QUOTE]
Very good! Canticle’s a master of upper level BS.
:yes:
Even the best riders don’t get a perfect levade, courbette or capriole every time. It happens quickly and something can easily go amiss. I have pics of the horses at the Spanish Riding school doing courbette with the mouth wide open and one from Saumur of a croupade with the rider 2 1/2 feet from the saddle. it happens. It happens to everyone who does anything on a horse.
But it doesn’t happen every time, or even often, if the jumps come out of collection rather than just teach horsey to jump in the air when he gets smacked with a whip.
The other thing to keep in mind is the terminology being standardized for the jumps never really totally happened. Every school used slightly different terms and the terms changed through history and different translations of books.
Too, you can go to dinner theatre or to Preacher Buck’s and see someone doing what they SAY is a levade and it just isn’t. There’s a lot of bull hockey going around these days about those airs above the ground, which just shows how emotionally attracted and cathected people are to this stuff, how crazy people go when it comes to a horse leaping around and saying it’s ‘classical’.
But ‘mezair’ is a legit movement and a very old one. There is even a very ‘energizer bunny’ looking thing where the horse bounces up and down at the canter.
There are a number of movements that didn’t really make it into the classical tradition, such as cantering around holding one leg up and cantering backwards. At some point, many schools DID agree that these were too artificial. Yes, riding is to a degree artificial but they agreed they wanted to stop at a certain point and that was it. They wanted to keep things that involved a more natural gait and not going backwards.
There are two levade like movements, one is easier, and is at a different angle. The higher one isn’t a ‘bad’ one unless one intended to do the other one! Usually the higher angle is the pesade and the lower angle is the levade.
The other, the horse’s whole hock and cannon is almost resting on the ground. It doesn’t matter if the horse is perfectly schooled or not - that’s a very, very difficult movement and only a few horses really should be doing that.
All the work comes out of collection, but it IS true that each horse would be aimed at a different movement depending on his responses. The idea of any one horse doing all of the school jumps - or really - competing in them at all, is really awful.
[QUOTE=fatwhitepony;3701529]
In that photo, yes. Not really a levade or even pesade at that. However, if you had actually ever ridden a real levade, courbette, and capriole, you would know that the horse does not come above the bit! Upon landing you would strive to have the horse maintained through and in utmost collection…otherwise you cannot get in that 2nd, 3rd, etc jump in courbette![/QUOTE]
Oops - it didn’t link to the right page… if you go to the section about the airs above ground, you will see what I was trying to link to. Regardless, it was a joke - while I have never ridden even a piaffe or passage, let alone any of the airs above ground (and doubtless I ever will), I do recognize that the examples given by the “World Famous” Lippizaner Stallions (quotes theirs, not mine) are pretty crappy (the show is also filled with poor examples), and I find it humorous. Then again, the show is pretty well geared towards non-horsey people…
[QUOTE=slc2;3700772]
the art of bs’ing, i believe.[/QUOTE]
Oh thanks! Now I’ve got coffee in my nose :lol:
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