I thought this video was very interesting, especially for those who think there is such a beast as a “push button” Grand Prix horse that amateurs can easily ride.
I think they did very well.
Yes any time people make disparaging comments about amateurs riding fully trained upper level horses it just tells me they have never ridden one and don’t know what they are talking about. Just because a horse has upper level training doesn’t mean they give you everything for free.
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It’s very generous when people post minimally edited video like this. And very generous to let students feel an educated horse’s movement.
While not 100% “push button”, this is still a very mannered, tolerant horse.
I do wish the trainer had let the horse start long low and relaxed and showed the student how to meet the horse in the middle. I think there might not have been any resistance with him and this horse at the outset. Some horses with less tolerance for tomfoolery can either “brick up” and refuse to move or get explosive.
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He was a very sweet tolerant horse for sure. I’m guessing her dressage trainer wouldn’t have put her on a horse that would really blow up.
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For sure. I really like the trainer’s demeanor.
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Apparently I was really lucky, then, when my trainer let me have her Prix St. George dressage horse, unsupervised, with no instructions, and my first (and only) time on him.
After a few get-acquainted minutes at a walk, I “cranked him up,” as she called it, then asked for a few movements. Instead of using standard cues, I used the Centered Riding method I’d been taught of moving your body the way you would during the thing you wanted the horse to do, with the expectation that the horse would follow along. They always did when I tried that, including during this “treat” dressage ride.
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Boyd Martin posted a video recently (at least I think it was recently, time is passing so fast these days it very well could have been a year ago too lol) of him riding his wife’s dressage horse and it was VERY eye opening. Took him a minute to be able to get the horse to even canter lol.
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Thanks that was fun to watch!
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The best part of that video was definitely Silvia’s absolute indignation that he couldn’t quite get it 
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I went to a school where we had a fair number of upper level horses in our lesson horse roster. One my first year was a GP schoolmaster. I got him cantering, but then couldn’t figure out how to make him stop. I just sat there as his canter got smaller and smaller and smaller until I finally got him to walk
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The Elphick Event Ponies channel is a joy, I’ve been subscribing to it for more than a year now and I get so much out of Meg’s lessons (mostly jumping). She jumps at about the same height I do, and went throught] a period of fear issues after a bad fall. She handled it with such courage and grace, and she does her absolute best for her ponies. A total joy of a channel.
Last week she posted another ride on an Advanced dressage horse, same trainer. It went MUCH better!
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I had a lesson from Charlotte Bredahl on her 1992 Olympic horse Monsieur. All I could get him to do was passage.
Which I was not asking him to do. It was humbling!
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I had a similar experience on an older schoolmaster trained by an Olympian. I got stuck in passage and 1-tempis many, many times in those early days because my position wasn’t secure enough. I didn’t have enough control over my body to relax my thigh down and keep riding. At first it was kind of fun, then infuriating, then I cried, then I improved! I was able to show him second and third level before the end of my lease.
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Sadly, while the trainer was riding the horse was BTV.
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That was so fun to watch. I’m quite sure I will never sit on a horse that nice, but even I can relate to a coach saying “please ride your horse and don’t abandon him!” 
I’m going to be laughing at “No, that’s big trot” all day.
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This whole thread of people commiserating and laughing along with the student, and this is what you come out of it with.
Just… weird.
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Followed by “no, that’s little trot.”
I feel these feels, I got absolutely humiliated by a GP horse once. The trainer saying “wow, you really think you know what you’re doing up there!”
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Currently leasing a GP schoolie, and boy do I feel SEEN.
Only being able to (unintentionally) passage on the first ride, unable to get the canter depart, getting the canter but having unintended tempis thrown in periodically around the ring, cantering ever smaller and smaller before a (lovely) walk transition when all I really wanted was to just trot. At one point we went through a phase where we couldn’t sort out the difference between my haunches in and canter depart cues - it was dealers choice which one we got. Took me months to get a half-pass sorted out.
It’s been over a year and probably only in the last month or two feel like we’ve finally got all our “buttons” sorted out reliably. Even so, we’re probably only ready for PSG.
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My first experience involved a LOT of unintended piaffe.
Similar to my first experience on a finished western pleasure horse. I probably should have asked how to cue a spur stop BEFORE I got on, but alas…
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