The Latest Video of the Totilas/Gal Freestyle at Hickstead

[mbm]

first, i never said i didn’t like the horse - quite the contrary in fact. i dont like his front legs but he is a super talented horse.

second, everything else is my opinion - based on what i have seen … i have said nothing about EG personally etc. - in fact my opinion is based on basically the exact same info everyone else’s is that haven’t seen him in person… yet their opinions are ok because they are positive?

it does seem like i repeated myself … - i must of been having a conversation with different folks… and since there are so many threads going on perhaps i didn’t realize i was repeating myself on the same thread?

ETA; my comment about him holding up is re: him being so young and how hard the GP work is… several other famous horses have dissapeared as they were pushed too soon too fast. i hope this doenst happen to Totilas.

Sorry, ETA again to say - if TPTB want to make dressage a spectator sport with stars etc then they need to get used to the fact that people are going to watch and discuss and have opinions. telling people to shut up is not a way to make a sport viewer friendly.

can you imagine the popularity of say football or baseball is the “armchair quarterback” were told to shut up and not have an opinion?

[J_Lav]

[QUOTE=mbm;4268237]
my big question is: how did he get such a gigantic score with so many errors and bobbles?

and seriously - what are the judges going to do when he gets stronger? give him a 110% ?

eta: i wish we could see the movement by movement scores… this would be really educational and might just answer a lot of questions :)[/QUOTE]

Although we do not get to see individual scores for the movements in the Freestyle (as they are not entered in to the computers in each judges box until the end of the test) we did get to see them in the GP the day before.

All 5 judges marks for each and every movement come up on a scoreboard as the horse is going through the test.

So I can tell you that the horse scored several 10’s especially for Piaffe and Passage but was also marked down for the errors, less then desired ground cover in the extended trots and swinging changes.

However despite the errors the good stuff is just so good it fully deserves the marks he gets. In the flesh this horse is truly awesome and no matter how he is ridden at home at no time at Hickstead did we see anything but a horse and rider working together in the sort of harmony that has not been very common at the top in recent years.

It is easy to bring up a Freestyle score even with errors as, has already been pointed out, if a mistake is made and the rider is clever then that movement can be repeated again and the final score will be an average of the 2 attempts so if a line of tempis has a mistake and is consequently scored as a 4 and then they are repeated without the mistake and given an 8 then the final score for the tempis will be a 6.

I also loved the music and thought it suited the horse perfectly. It will always be down to personal preferences and you can guarantee that any freestyle performance will have those who loved it and those who hated it!

My overall highlights from Hickstead this year were (apart from EG and Toto) Laura Becholsteimer and Mistral Hojris who just looked so much a partnership now they must be in with a chance of an individual medal at Windsor (were only .3% behind Parzival and Adelinde in the GP and would have been above them except for an error in the tempis) and Kyra Kyrklund’s wonderful Luso Stallion Rico who won just about everything in the small tour.

I was also delighted to see the first horse in the GP was a prue bred Freisian, again only 9 years old, who was stunning and scored a very creditable 64.9%.

[nadasy]

Video of Totilas

There is a book called Tug of War , by Dr. Gerd Heuschmann, who is a leading veterinarian in Germany. He also writes with Anja Beran a book called: “Classical Schooling with the Horse in Mind: Gentle Gymnastic Training Techniques”. They are both available on Amazon. The video by Heuschmann is: “If Horses Could Speak”, and is excellent.

It discusses the modern dressage training vs. the classical. It is about the back mover, vs. the leg mover. It’s very interesting, and after also seeing the video ‘If Horses Could Speak’, he discovered through extensive research, and the video is fantastic, that the back is a muscle of locomotion, and is not a carrying muscle. He shows that the ribs actually function as an accordion. Only if the back is relaxed can the back function as it should.

The leg movers appeal to some, but by and large the research and the focus is towards a more relaxed back, allowing the horse perform more easily and last longer. The ones that tend to be more leg movers are horses that the vets say they just can’t cure.

Now this is just one opinion. Don’t flame me for posting this information, but I think it warrants some thought if we want these horses, particularly the up and coming ones, to be able to work up through the levels to GP and not break down and burn out before their time.

Maybe the time has come for more thoughtful riding, and maybe not. Just a thought and posing the other side - or- another side to the story.

[siegi_b]

nadasy states … “he (Dr. Heuschmann) discovered through extensive research, and the video is fantastic, that the back is a muscle of locomotion, and is not a carrying muscle.”

The back is not a muscle but rather a part of the horse’s body comprised of many things, including bone, muscles of different sorts, tissue, etc. etc. I have seen where research indicates that the horse’s back was not meant to carry weight, so maybe that’s what you meant to say?

nadasy also states … “It discusses the modern dressage training vs. the classical. It is about the back mover, vs. the leg mover.”

I’m not trying to take things out of context but your post suggests that there’s only one or the other, with the leg mover obviously being the one that breaks down. My point in this is that you can have a back and leg mover - that the two are not mutually exclusive - so what is this argument about?

Not trying to flame you but merely stating another opinion on the subject and maybe trying to clarify some things.

[Home_Again_Farm]

@torontodressage;4267688

Youtube is known for their bad quality of both picture and sound

I just watched this version :

http://www.viddler.com/explore/hickstead2009/videos/17/

WOW, just wow.

[Pony_Fixer]

mbm, maybe you didn’t realize you kept saying the same thing and I took it as harping. If so, I apologize.

However, my point about not really being able to call someone’s whole training system suspect just by YouTube clips holds. Unless you have spent time at at clinic with him or similar I’m not sure you (the general you) can make that judgement.

I have clinic-ed with some I think are fabulous riders, getting great scores and found the training system “lacking”. Sometimes it’s a global disagreement with how things should be done, sometimes it’s due to the specifics of that clinician with a particular horse. I could never watch a few tests and determine whether their methods would work for me, or if they are “suspect”. And I suspect you can’t either.