lately, i have seen many people keeping their jumping horses, both hunters and jumpers, only in jumping training. as someone who owns a 3’3’’ junior hunter that also plays derby horse, learning dressage has helped both of us improve SO MUCH. my mare used to turn like a freight train, wouldn’t slow down, would avoid connection as often as she could, would canter the trot jumps, and could never do the inside turns. now she is one of the handiest mares i’ve ever ridden, and is super successful in any handy round. just learning a more advanced level of collection, extension, and bending has worked wonders and she is now an extremely well-rounded horse. i think that normalizing taking dressage lessons would help both younger and older riders improve, as well as helping horses be more focused in the jumping arena and i would love to see it become more regularized in our industry. even just weekly flat lessons would help everyone.
“Dressage” means “training” in French.
Most of your good H/J trainers teach at least to First if not Second level dressage. Or have someone that comes in to do it for them.
It’s pretty normal in the UK and Europe. I’ve been comparing how their top level horses go with those in the US for decades. I think it is getting better in the US finally.
This is called flatwork and it is normal for all decent hunter and jumper programs.
Unfortunately “decent hunter and jumper” programs aren’t the norm in my personal experience. Whenever I’ve watched EAP or the young rider program in FL in the new year, a lot of top youth riders have blank looks when the coach asks for shoulder-in or haunches-in. I used to ride at an A circuit H/J barn, 6-figure horses, etc. and most could barely do a drifty leg yield, let alone put the horse on the bit/aids. The trainers did not know how to do this, so their students didn’t either. Success in the ring was definitely a crap-shoot, not a progressive training program. A more expensive horse was usually the suggested solution vs better riding.
Expensive =/= decent. Or successful, as you experienced.
This has also been my experience with dedicated H/J programs in our area.
ETA: I think it starts with getting jumpers to stop saying “oh my horse hates flatwork” or “I hate flatwork”. Too bad, jumping is just flatwork with obstacles.
Exactly! If you can’t control all 4 quarters of your horse correctly around a basic dressage test, how are you supposed to steer him/her around similar WITH jumps?? I think most riders who “hate flatwork” haven’t ridden with a knowledgeable trainer who explains it so it’s educational AND fun! It gives the rider such an advantage over those who don’t take the time to learn this basic necessity of all horse sports!
If only.
What amazes me is people continuing to struggle on the flat with good basics (forget leg yeild, it a crap shoot what lead they pick up if not glued to the rail)
And then they behave as if it should happen magically or a counter canter is some sort of incredible maneuver. (The horses can barely swap leads, they spend so much time cross/counter cantering you would think they could figure out how to it on purpose.)
Lord. Success doesn’t come from money or fairy rings.
Truth.
There is such thing as “jumper dressage” - flatwork that is slightly edited for the needs of the jumping disciplines. IME, slightly less focus on seat bones and footfalls because the rider is not always sitting fully in their jump saddle, and for example in equitation classes you need to be able to promptly pick up either lead on command from anywhere. But the basics are the same - it is just “training” after all.
ETA: I was also taught a lot of early dressage without the terminology - “you know they’re probably going to ask for the counter canter next, so bend him out a bit and push his butt over” type of flatwork. If you’d asked me in Dressage Terms to do that, I’d have looked at you blankly. I eventually picked up the lingo from the eventers I rode with in college.
This type of post breeds more ignorance and generalizations than anything else. Its possible to highlight the benefits of good flatwork without suggesting that nobody is doing it, which is simply ridiculous. There are many types of H/J barns and modus operandi. Juniors and adults alike should know this.
A rider can train a horse to do decent flat work without getting into “dressage”.
I do a lot of flat work in Forward Seat. My hunt seat teacher has no problems with this since I do stuff like 3-speeds of whichever gait, turns on the forehand, turns on the hindquarters, on my good days some leg yield, on contact or off contact.
The horses I ride get trained for obedience on the flat. The problem is keeping the horse from getting bored or getting upset from harsh aids. I expect the horses I ride to obey me even if they are “just” lesson horses. My riding teacher/barn manager approves.
Obedience to the aids can be trained in any humane riding system. “Dressage” is not required, just good training to the aids and good training for obedience.
Signed a Forward Seat rider whose horses obey me cheerfully and immediately (usually. horses.)
I’m not sure what OP is referencing exactly, but I feel there is flatwork and then there’s flatwork
I feel like a total alien around dressage riders, and I am the first to admit I have absolutely zero idea what is going on… I have had the opportunity to watch a very good dressage trainer re-train a hunter flunkie. To me, it’s less about the ability to do counter canter, shoulder in, haunches in, and fancy dressage things that sets apart some Hunter/jumper people from dressage people. It’s the way the horses carry themselves. I watched that lazy slug Hunter turn quite sharp/light/snappy in only one ride— not exactly the ideal hunter ride, but I do think there is something to be learned from creating a truly engaged, balanced, soft, forward-moving horse. There are plenty of riders in the h/j world who “understand” flatwork and can do all the bells and whistles. Do you have a truly balanced, engaged, pushing from behind, elastic animal? To me, that is much much harder to achieve than moving their shoulders and rear around and getting a counter canter. I don’t think it’s necessarily something dressage riders are more capable of harnessing than h/j riders—though the hunter ring does not reward that level of engagement for sure… whether it’s the slow, loping “hunter style” or a general knowledge gap hindering those riders? Who’s to say
Like who? I have never seen a hunter trainer who could ride Second Level dressage and few jumper trainers, although some can.
You’ve been surrounded by very poor hunter trainers, then.
One of the things about the fancy to me h/j barn I ride at that I love is that they do expect me to do lateral work and get the horse I’m riding to push from behind and work through their back, something that has never been expected from me at previous barns. And they keep adding in more complicated flat work for me, because it’s good for both of us.
As the trainer says, she was never the fastest rider, but she could make up for a lot by having a horse that listened to her and that she could get to balance up and turn on a time or leg yield over or do whatever else was needed to make a distance or a turn or anything else work.
Either you’ve got a chip on your shoulder the size of Boulder City or you are in equestrian wasteland. Just about every hunter trainer (at a reputable barn) can easily ride 3rd level. No, I’m not going to drop names, you can easily find them on youtube and at horseshows.
Anyone who trains anyone for the USET talent search finals could ride a second level test, likely some of third. Perhaps one thing that isn’t practiced as much is a smooth canter-walk. The horse I rode my last year in the Big Eq could totally have done a second level test well. And we basically did in one medal challenge class where the work off was to make up your own flat test in 2 minutes, and I showed things like extended trot, three loop serpentine in canter holding the lead, turn on the haunches, etc. And I won that class :). I had never done a dressage test save for one pony club event when I was a kid, but we practiced all of those things in schooling regularly.
And at USET finals after the flat phase they have everyone ride a flat test before pinning the phase. You were expected to know how to execute a certain collection of movements that they could choose from, more difficult than the regular part of the class which already required working gaits, counter canter, and lengthening in trot and canter.
I never showed at a dressage show until taking a baby horse out at training level 25 years later.
