Maybe it’s the eclipse
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Maybe because the state of welfare in dressage at all levels leaves something to be desired, combined with the desire that all the myths about dressage riding were true for ALL riders and horses.
After all if there are imperfections in other types of horse competition some people seem to hope that it will minimize all the faults of modern day dressage riding.
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I do think there’s a decided weirdness in this. I’m still wrestling with it - for years Dressage was held up as the “way it ought to be” and now that we’re seeing all of this I see people both saying “other things are worse” which somehow always circles around to western disciplines.
From a multi-discipline enthusiast, it sounds like Hunters from a dressage perspective are just kind of useless and riding their horses all strung out (not to mention the whispers about the damage they are all doing jumping their horses). Saddleseat is abusive. Reiners are abusive. Jumpers use big bits (and are abusive). Trail riders don’t care for their horses. Eventing dressage isn’t real dressage (oh, and it’s often abusive because it’s horse-flipping).
Like there’s some sort of corner dressage enthusiasts have on the market of good horse care and proper training.
It’s WEIRD.
Like, I love dressage. I take dressage lessons. I was recently at the Carl Hester clinic at the WEC. I’m not anti-dressage. I’ve always wanted to ride a proper kur. It’s been a dream since I was a kid. But this insistence that dressage is this untouchable mountain of good horse care and training is weird. And I don’t know where it came from.
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When Caprilli introduced athletic jumping and his philosophy of non-interference especially over the jump, the snaffle bit became popular. Many of the advanced cavalry riders of that day found out that without the need for collection they could control the horse just fine with the required precision necessary to win jumping competitions.
All of a sudden dressage riders and trainers started claiming that they also did not need a curb bit to replicate dressage movements. So started the road away from the double bridle to the snaffle, and dressage riders had to come up with techniques so they could get equivalent results from just using a snaffle as they did using the double bridle/curb bit.
The dropped noseband replaced the curb chain. The tighter noseband pulling down on its crownpiece replaced the poll action of the curb bit. The light responsive contact used with the curb bit in the double bridle was replaced by pulling on the snaffle bit with tense hands in a somewhat desperate attempt to replicate the natural flexion of the poll that comes with correct use of the curb bit.
But since these riders were using the supposedly milder snaffle instead of that “evil” curb bit they could now claim that they were just as good as the Forward Seat riders using just the snaffle bit, ignoring the immense differences in strength of contact between riding Forward with a light, responsive contact and the necessary PULLING of the dressage riders trying to get the horse’s face at the “proper” vertical headset. As the riders using the modern jumping seat improved over the years it became obvious to thinking riders that dressage, with its collection, was not the answer to every riding ill.
To me, a rider that uses a double bridle exclusively nowadays, there is NO WAY that manipulating a snaffle bit can replicate the action of the curb bit on the horses’ mouths, head, neck, back and the legs.
Once the dressage riders dropped the classical dressage methods of control there was no limit to their inventiveness. Ever tighter nosebands, ever stronger contact which by leading to the numbness of the horse’s mouth through the unrelenting pressure of the bit, and the greater use of spurring to try and replicate the natural forward impulse of a properly ridden horse in the Forward Seat system, IMHO lead directly to what we now see in competitive dressage.
There are still dressage riders with light, responsive hands that are sensitive enough that they can use the double bridle with perfect comfort to the horse’s mouth, and whose horses can keep their faces at or just in front of vertical, with relaxed mouth, lip, jaws and poll. Unfortunately these riders do not seem to win top honors in the dressage classes, so people who want to WIN copy the other riders who do win these classes with heavy, unrelenting contact combined with the increased spurring to keep the horse moving forward while the rider’s hands are telling the horse to STOP NOW.
To me proper dressage riding in lightness almost requires a curb bit in the horse’s mouth. It takes an unusually sensitive, light handed and coordinated rider to even try to replicate the curb with just a snaffle bit in the horse’s mouth.
And, unfortunately, most riders are just not this good.
This is just my opinion, of course.
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Exactly!!!
Totally agree. And that requires a level of feel and self awareness that not all riders have.
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Another take, how your horse performs is not confined to what bit it is wearing, but to what is between the rider’s ears snd the skills a rider brings to ask the horse and help it do what we need to do.
That courtesy of my first riding instructor, a retired cavalry officer then in his 70’s when I was an early teen barn rat and his shadow.
I only saw him ride once.
A young man that owned two horses, one a four year old big strapping Andalusian lanky colt had been working with the very gentle colt and was stepping on him for the first time.
He had been working on his own, trainer didn’t say anything, was not asked, was staying out of it.
Fellow had his groom hold the horse and got on and groom was leading him around when there was something go bump in the barn the indoor arena was attached to.
Colt took a jump, fellow lost it’s seat, was leaning sideways and it was scaring colt that took another jump and started bucking like a rodeo horse.
Fellow flew up and up, higher than I have anyone seen be bucked off, arms spread like trying to fly.
He landed in the arena dirt and was immediately up and fine, went back to the colt.
As he was going to get on again, groom holding horse, the instructor walked up to him.
Don’t know what he said, but next that old man mounted smoothly, gathered reins, motioned for groom to lead colt forward, then to release colt and went for a nice slow walk.
He was sitting on that colt ramrod straight, barely touching reins but legs on the colt and almost invisible aids helping colt turn this way and that, then trotted a bit in some circles, then figure eights.
I am sure all of us were staring, mouth open, just having seen cold buck so hard.
After a bit, they were cantering a bit, transitioning up and down,
Colt looked like a well trained horse, no resistances anywhere.
Rider was just sitting there, seat and legs engaging horse, horse yet without an educated mouth, rider’s hands and skills on display.
After a bit more, horse started coming together and, mind you, first ride and on a snaffle, colt almost looked like he would collect as a more advanced horse, then he was swinging forward again.
You would think horse had a double bridle on, but no, as instructor later explained, even bridleless, if the rider knows how to ask and horse is bred for it and talented, horse will give you what it has.
Took me years to really understand, but yes, if the rider knows, you can teach a horse with whatever you have on hand, is up to the rider.
I still remember clearly that day, think the instructor grew by ten feet tall in the eyes of those watching.
Instructor got off and told fellow that was a wonderful colt, get a trainer to help you and you both will go places together, which the fellow did.
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I totally agree with the whole of Bluey’s previous post…and I will add my anecdote similar to her point above.
I was boarding at a barn who was hosting a rider from the Escuela Real in Jerez, Spain. This rider told the tale of a colleague selling a famous horse to a rider who always wanted the best. After some time, the rider who bought the horse came back to the trainer to complain that the horse did not perform. The rider said, “I sold you the horse…I did not sell you my hands.”
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Oops.
I started working for a BNT, was assigned to exercise a horse he won a world championship when the first four had to ride each other’s horses.
Rode that horse a few days, one day he said let’s go to the big field, where he had a nation’s cup course set up and told me to warm horse up.
I was, thinking he word jump horse.
He came and we walked around, he told me to go jump it.
Ok, I did, he said horse fit me very well (horse was automatic).
Next day after warming horse, he got on and when he came back he told me I had horse too light and responsive for him, to let horse take a bit more hold, which I did after that.
He also commented, if horse had been that light in the wold championship, certain other more aggressive rider may have had a surprise, and was grinning to himself.
He was wonderful with any horse, didn’t fight them, just got along, they were his friends.
He won big with different types of horses, a real talent that.
I learned so much from him …
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That is so interesting, because on the converse we have a set of people who are saying “we think the requirement of the double should be dropped and you should be allowed to use “just” a snaffle the whole way up”. I really never thought about it because I was a hunter for many years and the snaffle was our default tool of choice.
In the spanish tradition you start on the cavesson or serreta and go straight to the curb. In the western tradition, the jaquima (or hackamore) and then to the curb (some now use the snaffle, but it’s very traditional to not do that), always the desire is to drop the primitive tool of the snaffle and head into the curb which means the horse must understand weight and leg aids well at that stage of training. But it happens so early compared to a dressage horse - the horse is typically just steering and wtc both ways with some basic lateral work. We wouldn’t put a dressage horse in the double at that stage. Curious!
Not judging it per se - just observing it and thinking about it.
Yes. Sadly I’m not sure most of us are that talented. 
So we use tools along the way, and that’s fine, but I think how we use them is super important.
Would that the hands could occur - that would save some of those riders riding at levels far above their capability like Shelley what’s-her-name from several years ago.
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I don’t want to offend you but you remind me a lot of Sara Wagenknecht.
She is a German politician with a great presence. she recently left her original party and founded a new one and polls predict that she will make it into parliament in the next elections…
I listened to an interview with her a while ago and found out that a lot of her opinions and political stands were formed without personal experience…. She talked to a guy who is spending most of his time in Ukraine now and he was asking her how she found out how Ukrainians think…
(one of her political stands is that she is against the war and does not want to support it at all. She thinks it costs too many lives and she stated that Ukrainians don’t want to fight anymore. She said she doesn’t like Putin but he will win this war anyhow and he will not threaten Europe after he won. BTW she did get a lot support in Germany for this 
. I guess everybody is against all this dying ).
Her response was that people were telling her….and that she doesn’t need to go to Ukraine in order to know what people think….
The interviewer spends a lot of his time interviewing soldiers in the trenches and also he talks to a lot of Ukrainians. it’s his job. so he mentioned that his experiences are different. yes people don’t want to fight (who does) but they don’t want Putin to take over to destroy their culture and the Russian soldiers to rape their women and kill their families). So they will continue to fight til the end regardless whether the west will support them or not….
The interview ended in a big disagreement because Sara Wagenknecht basically told the interviewer that he has no idea….
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You don’t want to offend me but then took the time to write several paragraphs in order to offend me.
Got it.
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I really don’t want to go OT but a lot lot of people would not think it offensive to be compared with Sara Wagenknecht…. They would simply call me stupid to have doubts about her political views……
Again, you don’t “want” to go off topic, then you do. And it’s not to give me a compliment.
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I honestly don’t even know what to say here 
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Believe it or not, I agree with you and feel the same thing.
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