Roundness: English vs. Western

[HicksteadFan]

I know this has been discussed and I found some threads through Search but I have some more specific questions. English riders feel free to weigh in. So I’ve been a hunter rider for about 5 years but have recently started classical dressage. Right now, getting the head and neck stretched out and the back round. I know now that this is (or should be) the basis for all English riding and will help it last longer as a riding horse. I’d like to start riding Western in the next few years, namely reining. Also I’m not trying to insult anyone by what I say, its just what I see and I know every discipline has a different look.

My question is about the difference between roundness (not collection, as in poll is the highest point, since western horses don’t need to go that far) and hind end engagement between English riding and Western and how you would teach it to a western horse.

Reining horses, even ones trained by trainers I admire, all seem the be over-bent in the neck and behind the vertical. I see trainers use the “fake hunter frame method” i.e. holding both reins until the horse puts its head down and in, then release to reward. How would that create roundness and pushing from behind rather than pulling with the front feet?

Cutting horses don’t seem to be in any kind of frame. Is it all about keeping the calf/cow away or is there a “look” component?

Western pleasure horses seem to have the head and neck stretched out, and about level with the withers, sometimes lower. Not curled in or shortened neck. But they all look like they’re in pain. The jog looks like a walk on hot pavement and the canter looks like a mix of walk, trot and canter. This makes me think there is no hind end engagement.

There are such huge debates in the English world about rollkur, and the fake hunter frames (broken in the neck and hollow backed) why are some western horses going around like this? (Less drastic than rollkur I guess) Would you be able to train a western horse, of any type, in classical dressage (stretching out and rounding the back), bring the head and neck to the proper height for what you’re doing, and still get good competition scores? Instead of just teaching it to put its head into a certain frame from the start.

If this doesn’t make sense, just let me know and I’ll try to rephrase it. And excuse my lack of knowledge of any kind on the subject, but one has to learn somehow. Any help from English or Western riders is appreciated.

[aktill]

I posted this a while back:
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/OneOfTheseThingsIsNotLikeTheOther.png

There are only meaningful differences between people who train for “an event” rather than training for athletic ability.

[merrygoround]

Looking at the ages if the horses at the KY Reining Championships I would think that those on top are training well and for longevity.

While I wasn’t looking for it, I don’t remember seeing many in a BTV head carriage.

[beau159]

http://youtu.be/vrYOQ52U3LQ

[QUOTE=HicksteadFan;7576893]

My question is about the difference between roundness (not collection, as in poll is the highest point, since western horses don’t need to go that far) and hind end engagement between English riding and Western and how you would teach it to a western horse.[/QUOTE]

I’m a little confused to you saying “not collection”. Having the back round and the hindquarters engaged is the basis of “collection”. The head will simply follow if you get the rest of the body in order.

[QUOTE=HicksteadFan;7576893]
Reining horses, even ones trained by trainers I admire, all seem the be over-bent in the neck and behind the vertical. I see trainers use the “fake hunter frame method” i.e. holding both reins until the horse puts its head down and in, then release to reward. How would that create roundness and pushing from behind rather than pulling with the front feet? [/QUOTE]

While certainly there are people in all disciplines who ask for “collection” wrong (by simply using the reins) sometimes there is more that the rider is doing invisibly that you can’t see. A good trainer for reining is going to be engaging the hind end of the horse using their legs and seat while keeping them soft through the bridle. If the horse has the hind legs underneath them and are driving from behind, the back becomes round as well.

[QUOTE=HicksteadFan;7576893]
Cutting horses don’t seem to be in any kind of frame. Is it all about keeping the calf/cow away or is there a “look” component? [/QUOTE]

Yes they are. Have you seen the back of a cutting horse? Talk about rounded. Most of the images you are probably referring to are these, when the horse is in the middle of making a sweep to stay with the cow: Cutting horse sweep

It doesn’t look like much in a freeze frame like that. But if you watch the movements of a cutting horse, all their weight is in their back end so that the shoulders are free to move quickly to stay with the cow.
http://youtu.be/bs_v-ePSzxs

The horse isn’t making any forward motion (technically) but their body is posed to move in any direction quickly. If you can move in any direction quickly, to me, that is collection. The horse’s body is like a spring.

[QUOTE=HicksteadFan;7576893]
Western pleasure horses seem to have the head and neck stretched out, and about level with the withers, sometimes lower. Not curled in or shortened neck. But they all look like they’re in pain. The jog looks like a walk on hot pavement and the canter looks like a mix of walk, trot and canter. This makes me think there is no hind end engagement. [/QUOTE]

And that would be incorrect thinking on your part. While yes, there are many horses that are forced into a Western Pleasure frame and shouldn’t be (because they don’t have the ability), but a truly talented Western Pleasure horse has to have extreme drive from behind to make the gaits fluid (including having the back rounded).
Western Pleasure horse
Hunter horse

@HicksteadFan;7576893

Would you be able to train a western horse, of any type, in classical dressage (stretching out and rounding the back), bring the head and neck to the proper height for what you’re doing, and still get good competition scores? Instead of just teaching it to put its head into a certain frame from the start.

Collection is collection is collection. No matter what discipline or event you ride. You want the back rounded and the hind end engaged.

The headset will depend on the conformation of the horse, but the headset will be in a natural position for the horse when the body is engaged.

A horse that has a western pleasure build is not going to be able to be a world champion in dressage. Nor will a horse that has a neck that ties in high to their body be able to have the low headseat of western pleasure.

When things start looking terrible in the horse’s movement, is when people have forced horses to do events that they do not have the natural talent to do.

Anyone who teaches their horse to just “put their head into a certain frame” is training wrong. The headset will come when you have the end end engaged and the back rounded. It’s always back to front. You can’t force it front to back.

Have you only ever taken English lessons? You seem to have a somewhat skewed viewpoint of how Western horses are trained. I know you don’t mean any offense by it, but maybe some lessons with a good Western trainer would broaden your horizons. There really aren’t THAT many differences between training English vs Western, until you really get specialized for certain events.

[UrbanHennery]

Beau159 did a great job setting you straight.

The bit that I’d add comes from my experience working with a successful well regarded reining trainer. And that is:

• My horse only earns good scores when he’s well collected and engaged from behind. This is because a horse can only execute the stops and spins well when they are - a strung out horse will look (and feel) like crap in those maneuvers.

• While if you’re watching me it looks like I’m collecting my horse up from the bridle, I’m not. What I’m doing is taking contact on his face and pushing him up from behind with my legs and seat to get him to collect. I reward by giving him back his face and asking him to carry himself. As soon as he stops doing so, back we go to the same action.

[katarine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-upbUP3Iyfo

[alexis_liberty]

I think most people have covered this really well so I just have two things:

I have always been taught (and I have had good lessons in both disciplines) that collection is always important. The horse will not move well or feel good if it isn’t.

Reining horses definitely collected. Have you seen a sliding stop? The hind end is ENGAGED. That is where the stopping power comes from. If they aren’t engaged in the back they are going to have a hard time doing a good reining patter.

[Bluey]

To offer a different perspective, many western show riders watching upper level dressage ask me why those horses always seem so uptight and under stress?

Those are good questions.
The answers are about educating our eyes to what we are looking for in each different discipline and not bring to it what we would expect to see in other disciplines.

Context wins the day, understanding that all are using very much the same horse, bar some differences in breeding and talent for the task at hand.

[merrygoround]

The observer needs to focus their attention behind the head and neck to observe the level of collection.

I find far too much attention is paid to head and neck, when they need to realize that if the hind end is engaged, the head and neck placement is easily adjusted.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=aktill;7576917]
I posted this a while back:
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/OneOfTheseThingsIsNotLikeTheOther.png

There are only meaningful differences between people who train for “an event” rather than training for athletic ability.[/QUOTE]

FWIW, I like the horse on the upper right the best. He looks uphill in the body-- his rib cage and withers have risen up between his scapulae. And that front leg is leaving the ground sooner as the opposite hind leg comes up to support him.

If you look at the others, they don’t show the same carriage of the body. The two on the left leave the rib cage low between the shoulder blades, regardless of the neck coming out pretty upright. Those horses look hollow to me.

The WP horse is hard to discuss because the balance in that discipline is so hard to compare to any other that allows the head and neck to rise up. I don’t think the horse pictured is doing it, but there are some WP horses that raise up their body between the shoulder blades the way we’d want in any other branch of riding.

You guys have heard me say this before and I’ll say it again in the context of a thread about roundness. It’s all about reversing that 60/40 ratio of weight carriage between the horse’s front legs and his hind legs. To change that, you need to change what he’s doing with the trunk of his body. The neck’s shape and head position just are concombinant that with that. Because the horse uses his long neck and heavy head to counter balance his heavy hind end (especially at the canter/gallop), we expect to see a higher neck with more collection. But the very, very good WP horse (as well as a well-ridden lower level dressager or show hunter) will show you that the neck doesn’t have to be way high for those shoulders to raise up.

And along the way, even with green horses that are beginning to let you shape their body, the whole game is in getting them to contract their abs and pecks so that they put the trunk of their body going uphill.

[Wirt]

This is an opinion, and a bit of a rant.
I am surrounded by western pleasure horses and trainers daily where I train. I see them ridden and trained every day. To compare anything about a wp horse being like a low level dressage or hunter, implies that low level dressage and hunters are just as unnatural and useless as “good WP” horse. Any so called roundness has been forced on these horses, any natural movement has been diminished until the horse is a parody of horse movement. The head is forced down, then the hind end driven up so unnaturally that the horse’s hip has to curl in to accommodate. Of course, this is considered desirable, and the horse over develops the muscles there. This artificial and unnatural process is rewarded in the show ring, and everyone pats themselves on the back on doing such a good job on well trained horses. Most of the horses look miserable, and a majority of them are lame in the front end. All this so middle age women with money who would fall off at any other speed but a crawl can enjoy showing and winning on barbie doll horses with fake tails.
In my opinion, WP is a distortion, and a aberration. What we call a good one, is a horse that just doesn’t care what is done to him, and goes along with it.

[aktill]

[QUOTE=Wirt;7577944]
This is an opinion, and a bit of a rant.
I am surrounded by western pleasure horses and trainers daily where I train. I see them ridden and trained every day. To compare anything about a wp horse being like a low level dressage or hunter, implies that low level dressage and hunters are just as unnatural and useless as “good WP” horse. Any so called roundness has been forced on these horses, any natural movement has been diminished until the horse is a parody of horse movement. The head is forced down, then the hind end driven up so unnaturally that the horse’s hip has to curl in to accommodate. Of course, this is considered desirable, and the horse over develops the muscles there. This artificial and unnatural process is rewarded in the show ring, and everyone pats themselves on the back on doing such a good job on well trained horses. Most of the horses look miserable, and a majority of them are lame in the front end. All this so middle age women with money who would fall off at any other speed but a crawl can enjoy showing and winning on barbie doll horses with fake tails.
In my opinion, WP is a distortion, and a aberration. What we call a good one, is a horse that just doesn’t care what is done to him, and goes along with it.[/QUOTE]

Hear hear!

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=Wirt;7577944]
This is an opinion, and a bit of a rant.
I am surrounded by western pleasure horses and trainers daily where I train. I see them ridden and trained every day. To compare anything about a wp horse being like a low level dressage or hunter, implies that low level dressage and hunters are just as unnatural and useless as “good WP” horse. Any so called roundness has been forced on these horses, any natural movement has been diminished until the horse is a parody of horse movement. The head is forced down, then the hind end driven up so unnaturally that the horse’s hip has to curl in to accommodate. Of course, this is considered desirable, and the horse over develops the muscles there. This artificial and unnatural process is rewarded in the show ring, and everyone pats themselves on the back on doing such a good job on well trained horses. Most of the horses look miserable, and a majority of them are lame in the front end. All this so middle age women with money who would fall off at any other speed but a crawl can enjoy showing and winning on barbie doll horses with fake tails.
In my opinion, WP is a distortion, and a aberration. What we call a good one, is a horse that just doesn’t care what is done to him, and goes along with it.[/QUOTE]

Agreed 1000000%! Looking at the picture beau159 posted above (link to WP horse), the horse looks miserable, defeated, dead, dull, although I suppose you could say he’s “submissive” (I don’t know if it was posted as an example of good or bad WP riding, but the look in the horse’s eye tells me enough).

I will say that there does seem to be a difference in what a lot of people define as collection and Dressage Collection with the big C.

[HicksteadFan]

Wow that’s a lot of info to get through.

merrygoround: I looked at some 2014 KY championship YouTube videos. Don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing but the freestyle winner had his horse behind the vertical during the back up. No idea about terminology but the winner doing the pattern one (or one of the competitions with a pattern) had his horse’s head down and out during most of the ride including the back up. Beautiful. Do judges prefer one way or the other? Also I am looking at the head and neck of the reining horses only because they are (not all but many I see) over bent with the nose behind the vertical. The riders aren’t forcing them like you see in some dressage horses but over bent is over bent. It still bends the neck vertebra in an unnatural way.

beau159: I don’t know if you only do western but I think what most Dressage people mean (and what I mean) by collection is the lowering of the hind quarters, rounded back and poll as the highest point on the body and cadence. I’ve never seen a western horse with the poll at the highest point. Which does not mean that they aren’t round and engaged. I looked at the videos you and some of the others posted on cutting and yes I can see the hind legs really underneath and the back rounded behind the saddle. Got to get rid of that looking at the head and neck habit! :eek: I have only taken english lessons and at a place where they try to put the horses in frame (by holding or half halting until the horse brings its head down and in, but not behind the vertical), instead of rounding the back and getting the horses to want to be on the bit. I can’t get lessons right now.

Wirt, aktill, PocketPony: I’m not going to say that every WP horse is forced into the unnatural frame but you get what I’m talking about with them not being trained in the “round way”. At the schooling shows at the stable where I ride there were sometimes Pleasure classes and some all western classes. We were told to have our horses heads as low as possible and get them to go as slow as possible. A lot of WP horses I see have a ton of head and neck action like they’re using that to move forward instead of their back end.

I guess my question about training long and low and round and still getting good competition scores was answered. I guess its the same as English. Some of the high level riders go for quickest way and pretty rather than function and they are also getting top scores. For the reining its about the round neck and behind the vertical thing. I can really see the back end working in the stops, spins and back ups. For WP, the ones I’ve seen (I know not every single WP horse in the world) just look on the forehand and like every stride is a new movement instead of a flowing gait. Thank you for all the insight and keep the comments coming.

[Lady_Eboshi]

The Real Thing (engagement, collection, “rassembler”) is the same on any horse, in any tack:

“One Mind, Any Weapon.”

All the rest is style points, affectations, gadgets, short-cuts, and non-functional extremes.

The engaged horse feels like you’re riding the clutch over a great big engine which you can use 100%. The other stuff is just unbalanced.
There’s no gas pedal there.

Hope this helps . . .

[merrygoround]

[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7578287]
Agreed 1000000%! Looking at the picture beau159 posted above (link to WP horse), the horse looks miserable, defeated, dead, dull, although I suppose you could say he’s “submissive” (I don’t know if it was posted as an example of good or bad WP riding, but the look in the horse’s eye tells me enough).

I will say that there does seem to be a difference in what a lot of people define as collection and Dressage Collection with the big C.[/QUOTE]

The difference is in the dynamics of the competition itself. In Dressage Collection with a big C. the horse enters in collection, stays in collection and goes through a series of highly collected moves, with perhaps a break with a walk, hopefully long and low, but forward, then back to the big C collected work. Both horse and rider are in a state of dynamic tension.

In reining there are brief moments of intense work, then a halt, then flat out galloping and back to a brief collected work. The rider is in constant dynamic tension. The horse less so. But he’s listening constantly.

In cutting it’s a whole different dimension. the horse needs the freedom to follow that cow, the rider on a good horse, is allowed to come along. I had an OTTB who like to cut on dairy heifers. :lol: Interesting in English tack.

[froglander]

That is an interesting phrase, “dynamic tension”, gonna mull over that one as I still try and choose a direction to go.

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=HicksteadFan;7578770]

I guess my question about training long and low and round and still getting good competition scores was answered. I guess its the same as English. Some of the high level riders go for quickest way and pretty rather than function and they are also getting top scores. For the reining its about the round neck and behind the vertical thing. I can really see the back end working in the stops, spins and back ups. For WP, the ones I’ve seen (I know not every single WP horse in the world) just look on the forehand and like every stride is a new movement instead of a flowing gait. Thank you for all the insight and keep the comments coming. :)[/QUOTE]

For where I am in my riding career, I don’t give a hoot about trying to follow what a judge would want (I am not showing in the moment). The #1 most important thing to me in training my horse is working him correctly and with the goal of soundness and longevity and improved performance/progress. That means that I work him in well-balanced way, which to me means some long and low, some up and open, some forward and flowing, some collection, some straight, some bend, some cavaletti, some trails, some arena work, some cow work, some jumping. If I were to go to a show and if what I presented to the judges was what they were looking for, then great. But I would not resort to short-cuts or gadgets to accomplish what is the “frame du jour” in order to win a $.50 ribbon.

I don’t know that that answers your questions. I just want people to ride their horses well and get rid of the ego that puts one’s desires ahead of one’s horse’s best interest (not saying that is you, OP, or anyone here, just a general comment).

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=merrygoround;7578860]
The difference is in the dynamics of the competition itself. In Dressage Collection with a big C. the horse enters in collection, stays in collection and goes through a series of highly collected moves, with perhaps a break with a walk, hopefully long and low, but forward, then back to the big C collected work. Both horse and rider are in a state of dynamic tension.

In reining there are brief moments of intense work, then a halt, then flat out galloping and back to a brief collected work. The rider is in constant dynamic tension. The horse less so. But he’s listening constantly.

In cutting it’s a whole different dimension. the horse needs the freedom to follow that cow, the rider on a good horse, is allowed to come along. I had an OTTB who like to cut on dairy heifers. :lol: Interesting in English tack.[/QUOTE]

Yes, agreed. In general, I would say that “collection” as it is commonly used is a horse engaging the loins, having a circle of energy, carrying an appropriate balance for its level of training, working over the back - what is typically called “on the bit” in dressage. What I think of as Collection in competition dressage is a thing unto itself. Coiling the loins, yes. More stepping under, elevating of the front end, a more “compact frame” for lack of better term, more articulation of the joints - and what you see these days is over-flexion of the neck, although that’s not in my definition.

[froglander]

Going along with the comments about the behind the vertical the OP mentioned in reiners, do you think it ever has a place, as long as it’s temporary?

Lesson this week on Tuesday, instructor hopped on for 10 min or so just to see how he was doing, and there were moments that Cody was behind the vertical, but she said what she was looking for was softness over the top of the neck? and that moments of btv were okay and could be corrected later?