Totilas…am I the only one that had a transcendental moment or are we all 'Matine’d out?
Nope, Just you. 
He is a nice looking/moving horse, but he does have his faults. Not everyone is overly excited about the almost fake looking front leg action.
I like Ravel much better. Much more natural and the reach that horse has is amazing.
but the hind end matches…can you ‘fake’ hind end? He is a freak.
BTW…did you think Matine was fake too?..not a trick question…
edited to add… NOPE…just watched again…without the music…effing dressage freak!! ;-0
If he were a Lipizanner y’all would think it was lovely, LOL. Since it’s a warmblood, it’s seen as ‘bad’.
Totilas has a natural ability to lift his knees as he moves. It’s just a normal part of him and his expressiveness. Dressage allows for variability in this area. It doesn’t make Ravel better. It’s just different.
His gaits are correct and the activity of his hind quarters matches. The tip off is to look at his gaits when he is stretching on a long rein.
“the activity of the hind quarters matches”
I said activity, not lift; in principle, the foreleg can make a high, expressive gesture so that the forefoot is higher than the hind foot…IN PRINCIPLE. And I’m not worried about someone being able to take a picture like that. When I’ve seen videos of the horse, it looks ok most of the time. Occasionally the horse gets too excited and overdoes. As is typical of his type, sometimes at the beginning of a test he is rather tight and excited.
I also see the rider responding when this happens, and at least attempting to loosen the horse up so the hind quarter is coming through more. From watching the rides I’ve been able to see, it doesn’t really look like Edward Gal is up there going, ‘Oh good boy, good for tightening up and getting exaggerated’. When it happens he is up there trying to correct it. Totilas is an extreme ‘A’ type personality, and if he ever has a fault, it’s in getting excited and losing his throughness (loose supple muscles). That’s the type of horse he is.
The horse is still an ‘artist’. he is still a brilliant, fascinating horse. All horses have faults and bad moments, as do all riders. There is still a lot of interesting stuff happening.
I’m not worried about that if it is a moment in time, though I would prefer that when horses get very exaggerated and tense frequently during a movement, the percentage of time they are tense and not through influences the score more, that they get penalized more than they do get penalized…though not having seen the scores, I am only really guessing at how the judge responds to those moments. And so is everyone else. One needs to see the test sheet, even more than the individual scores for the movements, and read the comments overall and for each movement, to understand the judge’s scorings.
The principle of dressage is that the hind quarters working energetically allows the forehand to be freed up to become more expressive. In principle, more loft to the foreleg CAN be correct.
I’ll agree this picture looks as if the action of the foreleg is exaggerated and the hind leg is not driving sufficiently.
But in principle, one has to remember that because the horse has a belly, he can not always lift his hind leg as far up as his foreleg, and because the hind quarter is the engine and engaged and coming under it is not physically possible what some people expect to see.
And the action of the hind quarter allows the foreleg to lift. We see Lipizanners do this all the time. We saw Rocher do this all the time.
When SHE did it, it was glorious for you all and praised to the heavens here as the ultimate best dressage work. her forearm was absolutely level and the hind foot can never lift that high…but the pictures I usually saw of her (yes there are a few less than ideal pictures of her, and of any horse that ever looked through a bridle) her hind leg looked more compressed and energetic.
But…When a Dutch horse does it, it is a whole different kettle of fish. Grab that one image and go to town. Totilas can have a very nice gesture with the foreleg and still come through and be loose and supple. He just isn’t doing that in this picture.
eurodressage - you forgot to show the pics of the superb piaffe and passage, the very uphill tempis, etc. etc. As I’ve said on a different thread, Totilas is the next super horse in my opinion. He’s only 9 and already competing at the highest levels. He’s only going to get better…
I like the horse that came in 3rd (I believe) at the Dutch National Championships better than Totilas. That horse had some rough spots in her test, but I thought she was extraordinary (plus!).
Transcendental? Are besotted awe and covetness transcendental qualities?
I’m with you fixerupper
I think he is only going to get better, I’m quite sure I couldn’t ride him, but I LOVE him;)
I was just talking about WBs like Totilas and their almost “freaky” front end/super elastic movement with my good friend the other day. She reminded me that some people used to think Arabians were “freaky” looking with their really small heads, tea cup noses and inverted frames flagged with that tail. Maybe we are just experiencing the initial changes in the WB breed and in 20-30 years it will be the norm and nobody will care. Personally, I would expect to see more like Totilas in the show ring (especially in Europe) and we don’t so maybe he is a bit of a “freak of nature” and before his time. Either way, I think he IS spectacular looking (even though I don’t think he is always “correct”) and if that is the direction breeders and judges want to move towards, non-traditional dressage breeds don’t have a chance at remaining competitive.
Spanish Walk?
I see that and think
mmm, mexican food.
Tortilas
No, not a Spanish walk. The Spanish walk is a … walk: 4 beat and lateral with just the exagerated foreleg movement.
Will he be bred? Any word?
[QUOTE=wbhorseusa;4263791]
Nope, Just you.
He is a nice looking/moving horse, but he does have his faults. Not everyone is overly excited about the almost fake looking front leg action.
I like Ravel much better. Much more natural and the reach that horse has is amazing.[/QUOTE]
I am gratified to hear someone else voicing this. When he made his debut, I posted a dissenting opinion about the horse, his high scores despite mistakes in the GP special, and how I thought it was bad for the sport because judges would be so besotted with his gaits and movement they would overlook his faults. I got hated on big time! Yet many others felt the same way about Salinero back at Athens.
I think GDS is right about the direction breeding is headed. I know I am in the minority here, and I was told before that I had no business on this board or any other (which is why this BB is so fun) for expressing my unease with Totilas and what he represents, but he reminds me of a gaited horse.
I like Ravel much better too!
Totally idle, self- indulgent fantasy here, but I’d love to see a before-and-after if Peters and Gal switched the ride on Ravel and Totilas for a year.
He reminds me…
of a Dutch Harness Horse. The trot, at least.
new movement: Spanish Trot
[QUOTE=SGray;4264953]
new movement: Spanish Trot[/QUOTE]
…If you consider movements done by James Fillis to be new
http://books.google.com/books?id=OuP45ydIftMC&pg=PA251&lpg=PA251&dq=SPANISH+TROT&source=bl&ots=zmgenbTja3&sig=jBnUrEZC2wRssMNEzZ_WpraFs68&hl=en&ei=WP1tSqraApDKsQP7scDKDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6
But then Totilas wouldn’t be doing competitive dressage, now, just performing another ‘circus’ trick.
He is such a willing horse, and very talented. There are many other horses brought along quickly that show tension, lose throughness, and so on…why do we say it is OK for this horse (by giving the highest scores) unless he is placing rather heavily on talent and expressiveness and less emphasis on correct and through? A show is a show.
We’ll see how he develops all that talent.
