Revisiting Rollkur/LDR?

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=MysticOakRanch;8907426]
I totally agree Senden, but would add - horses go “BTV” naturally too - when we talk about “natural head carriage”, horses put their heads and necks all over the place for balance and just for the sheer joy of movement. I have a 100 acre ranch and use to breed horses - AND I do photography. I have many, many, many pictures of horses totally free, in huge pastures, no tack, no rider, no interference, and they are “BTV”.

I would also add - when you see a horse ridden “IFV” but braced and resistent (hollow neck, etc), that so many people say is “better” then “curled neck” - people need to watch horses at liberty. They seldom go to that hollow neck stance - it is a much less natural and comfortable position for a horse.

And totally agree with you - RK is about force - and training by force is seldom the “right” way![/QUOTE]
Totally agree. I laugh when people freak out about a smidge deep- back here in reality if you have any experience you know that its not RK and no reason to freak out. Its how you manage it and the theroy that underlies your work,

[ThreeFigs]

This discussion seems, at least, to be more mature and open-minded than discussion of RK vs. LDR VS Long & Low that we used to have a few years ago. I got castigated for describing how LDR/Long & Low helped my horse recover from an injured, atrophied back. He was NEVER ridden in Rollkur. Rather, he was invited down with his head and up with his back. Buuut, people insisted I was “doing it wrong”, including, but not limited to the infamous E.A.Buck.

He is now working at PSG, sound as a $20 gold piece and a very happy fellow.

I observed several horses going very deep and low (but NOT RK deep and low), with swinging backs at the Jean Bemelmans “Old Masters” symposium. He was fine with horses starting out in that fashion. No force, horses freely forward, and when they were ready, the head & neck came up and the rear end came under. Not every horse went that way. Not every horse needed it.

[Velvet]

[edit] yes, I really like that we can now discuss this topic in a civil manner!

[mvp]

[QUOTE=netg;8904836]

Here’s what I don’t get: How on EARTH does Rollkur help control a horse? My first horse used to tuck nose to chest and take off bucking like a rodeo bronc, and my only hope was to hang on until she bucked herself out - it took a dressage trainer teaching me upward half halts (or more if necessary) to get her nose out of her chest to learn to handle it.[/QUOTE]

I don’t get it either. A horse will learn to put his chin on his chest without changing much else about his body. He can still run away and buck. He can still leave his carcass low between his shoulder blades. You see this sometimes in old schoolmasters who have figured out how to “cheat” with their neck and leave the rider sitting in a hole.

The only appeal of putting a horse in the Rollkur posture that I can find is gaining control of the base of the neck. IMO, if you don’t get that to flex, the horse doesn’t lift his ribcage up between his shoulder blades. The fact that they also curl up at the top of the neck-- flex a great deal at the poll, come behind the vertical, flex at C2 &C3-- is just a side effect. It’s caused, I think, by the horse bending in the most flexible places first in order to make more room for his head and neck in that short rein; his main goal is relieve the pressure of the bit in his mouth.

Along these lines, I have asked a horse to flex deeply to one side at a time. I ultimately want that to be short and “open”-- inviting him to lower his head and then lengthen his neck while I give. I just want him to engage the base of his neck. I don’t have the balls to hold a horse’s head straight down next to his chest like that. I think that posture is hard on them physically and, perhaps worse, very, very hard to unteach. After all, if you create that “cheater neck” and low body, you didn’t get any of what you wanted.

All that said, I’d like a way to ride that involved 1) getting control of the base of the neck; and 2) leaving the throatlatch open. When I ride or double lunge, I work on both of these. Am I heading in the right direction?

[Manni01]

RK gives the rider a huge advantage over the horse. If he has the reins very tight and uses the whip to engage the horse from behind, there is not much a horse can do to escape this. It only works if you engage the horse from behind. Only pulling the head to the breast doesn’t work.
And the riders who did use RK in the past were very skilled riders so they knew how to do it.
RK is supposed to give you an advantage on your level over other riders who do not use it. Its not supposed to bring you up to GP if you are only a training level rider…
Which makes RK so cruel IMO is that the already skilled rider has a very forceful tool to dominate the horse

And yes, that is why it might be ok to use only “a little” RK, to just enhance everything your horse does. But IMO it is very tricky to define a border for “a little”

The Classic (in my sense classic, everybody else might define “classic” different) Dressage school, teaches that everything has to come from behind. All the aids are designed to teach the horse to move forward from behind. The reins are just supposed to keep the balance and to prevent that the aids will create an overflow of actions. No rein aid is supposed to go backwards Thats the classic way.