IMHO, the “roots” of WD should reflect the ultimate job of the western horse - ranch type work. You want the tests to show how the training of these horses will help the horse do it’s job in ranch work, cutting, reining, penning, whatever. So you are really not looking for big moving forward type horses since that is not a quality that the western world is looking for.
“So what gives? Flat-moving QHs can do a lot of stuff that English World considers Way Hard.”
OK, any qh that is doing something that the English world considers “way hard” is not flat moving. They are incredible athletes and what you see them do in the show pen in such an effortless manner takes a ton of training and conditioning. These horses are lifting through the back and are built to do this. When you get a proper lope departure or a great halt, you really don’t feel much as a rider because the horse is so balance and it comes from the back and hind end. When my mare does a great lope departure, I get a mental picture of a butterfly taking off, it’s that soft and effortless. And it IS hard to get that!
I guess I just don’t understand the whole western dressage movement. If the goals are the same, ie: supple, forward, correctly moving horses capable of incresingly difficult movements, why don’t they just get a dressage saddle and show traditional dressage like everyone else? What am I missing?
Cowboy boots and a hat…
[QUOTE=MojitoMare;7191430]
I guess I just don’t understand the whole western dressage movement. If the goals are the same, ie: supple, forward, correctly moving horses capable of incresingly difficult movements, why don’t they just get a dressage saddle and show traditional dressage like everyone else? What am I missing?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MojitoMare;7191430]
I guess I just don’t understand the whole western dressage movement. If the goals are the same, ie: supple, forward, correctly moving horses capable of incresingly difficult movements, why don’t they just get a dressage saddle and show traditional dressage like everyone else? What am I missing?[/QUOTE]
As someone who has ridden dressage primarily the last 14 years, but was western prior to that for about 25, I guess why should we have to? Seriously, what is so wrong with wanting to mix things up a bit and ride dressage in western tack? Those people who are wanting to give it a go will be much more comfortable doing so in the tack & clothes they are used to, so let them do it.
I may be comfy in both, but when I get my 15+hh Quarter mare out instead of the Oldenburg gelding, I’m going to throw my TexTan up on her instead of my Stubben, I’ll be wearing my jeans, cowboy boots, and no, I won’t have a cowboy hat on my head. I’ll be wearing my helmet & will have gloves on too. Why, you ask? Well, as I’ve already stated, why the heck not!
[QUOTE=CowgirlDressage;7191499]
As someone who has ridden dressage primarily the last 14 years, but was western prior to that for about 25, I guess why should we have to? Seriously, what is so wrong with wanting to mix things up a bit and ride dressage in western tack? Those people who are wanting to give it a go will be much more comfortable doing so in the tack & clothes they are used to, so let them do it.
I may be comfy in both, but when I get my 15+hh Quarter mare out instead of the Oldenburg gelding, I’m going to throw my TexTan up on her instead of my Stubben, I’ll be wearing my jeans, cowboy boots, and no, I won’t have a cowboy hat on my head. I’ll be wearing my helmet & will have gloves on too. Why, you ask? Well, as I’ve already stated, why the heck not![/QUOTE]
Well THANK YOU! Best argument ever. As in everything equine, we seem to make things much more difficult than they need to be.
[QUOTE=MojitoMare;7191430]
I guess I just don’t understand the whole western dressage movement. If the goals are the same, ie: supple, forward, correctly moving horses capable of incresingly difficult movements, why don’t they just get a dressage saddle and show traditional dressage like everyone else? What am I missing?[/QUOTE]
As said, it makes for allowing different gear, but it also allows for different moving horse. In western dressage it says lope and jog instead of trot and canter. And I expect a moving out lope and jog will look different that an extended trot or canter.
I think it’s the same basic idea, but it allows for different TYPES of horses to do well. This is the way dressage SHOULD be–judging on how well the horse is trained and how much it has helped the horse be the best he can be.
I think I really like what this could allow in dressage.
[QUOTE=Flash44;7191420]
“So what gives? Flat-moving QHs can do a lot of stuff that English World considers Way Hard.”
OK, any qh that is doing something that the English world considers “way hard” is not flat moving. They are incredible athletes and what you see them do in the show pen in such an effortless manner takes a ton of training and conditioning. These horses are lifting through the back and are built to do this. When you get a proper lope departure or a great halt, you really don’t feel much as a rider because the horse is so balance and it comes from the back and hind end. When my mare does a great lope departure, I get a mental picture of a butterfly taking off, it’s that soft and effortless. And it IS hard to get that![/QUOTE]
Just to be clear, I am impressed by the QH “little” but reliable flying changes. The accuracy, too, represents a great deal of strength plus brokeness.
And that’s my point! These horses apparently have all the strength and training we’d expect of an upper level dressage horse and yet no on places a premium on “expressiveness”— as though it were a biomechanical necessity of a well-trained and broke horse.
No way ever did I think these horses were “less than” or the folks who trained them unskilled.
[QUOTE=MojitoMare;7191430]
I guess I just don’t understand the whole western dressage movement. If the goals are the same, ie: supple, forward, correctly moving horses capable of incresingly difficult movements, why don’t they just get a dressage saddle and show traditional dressage like everyone else? What am I missing?[/QUOTE]
I can tell you why I don’t.
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I’m priced out. I can’t afford the horse with the gaits that will make me competitive. (Oh, and by the way, I need to learn to ride those big gaits.) It costs as much to feed the horse who enters the ring with good gaits as bad ones, so I’m the type that would want to start out on the level playing field: With a horse as nice as the next guy’s. But I just don’t have the wallet to play.
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I’d need some pro help and I’m not sure I want to buy it from a trainer in the sense that many dressage trainers now work as hunter trainers do: They do the teaching of both horse and rider. Ammy doesn’t make the horse. I know this isn’t true in all times and all places, but I found it to be true in my little area (which is a tad of a dressage desert).
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The big one: I want a type of training that is philosophically different than what I have seen in dressage world and, really, in English World versus the vaquero people.
I like the relationship with the bit that those guys seek.
I like the faster speed with which they change what they are doing with the horse so as to put his body into the right position. Riding with them, I’d be surprised if I went around a 20m twice in row.
It is reassuring to me that discussions of the pedagogy of horse training gets more attention than do, say, biomechanics or training progresssions. I ride a horse in large part because I like the intimacy of training 'em. When I ask them to do something hard and unfamiliar and I make it ok for them to take that psychological risk, it creates a bond between us. I want to be around horsemen who think about that bit of riding and who can help me get better and better at that piece.
I don’t care what tack the horse wears. I think I do want to sit on a horse that’s more on the English side of things. (Damn, I want to ride the horse that would win the hack in the hunter ring, which is where I come from.) I don’t love all of the western tack, or even the stuff that’s vaquero. So you can see that I’m a crasher at both parties.
I just didn’t see dressagers talking about how to change a horse with such surgical precision as did the vaquero people. The way I do it, I have a feel of the horse as a “search image” of a standard (though it’s in my body) that I take from dressage world (with the exception that I don’t care if a young horse is pushing hard into the bit. I’ll want him to be “in the box” or responding equally to each of my hands and legs). But I use the stuff I have learned from vaquero world to get the horse to produce it. Holy Instant Gratification, it seems to work!
Well said, mvp. I agree with the fancy-moving horses, the philosophy, the relationship-building, the lack of endless 20-m circles. I wonder as western dressage goes if there will be the “standard” that people will be priced out of. Like in regular dressage, people aspire (generally speaking) to have the fancy-moving warmblood. With WD, will it be another version of QHs?
Like I said before, though, I don’t show so it isn’t something I see as a goal for my horse. I think Mac is not fancy and forward enough for regular dressage, but not slow enough (for lack of a better word. . . wrt jog and lope) for WD. I want to keep his natural gaits, as unextravagant as they are, and develop them to their fullest potential.
If western dressage becomes an “in” discipline, I can guarantee you that there will be people who are priced out of it-- much like reining, barrel racing, cutting, breed circuits, hunters, jumpers, dressage, polo, driving, or pretty much every other discipline.
Disclaimer: I’m a dressage rider. A bargain-hunting dressage rider that’s had some modest successes, for sure, and I’m not going to be halting at X in Aachen or even Devon.
In defense of dressage, which I’m sure it doesn’t really need, the gaits are actually a representation of how easy the horse finds the work. And as a major component of the impulsion score is “ease of movements”, you can see how they’d end up being rewarded.
Why not WD? Why not endurance, competitive trail, orienteering, camping, etc. It helps that I can do it all in my one saddle.
Paula
[QUOTE=mvp;7191110]
The whole post inspired the big phat question I’ll ask in the post.
This part is what I have seen, too, and it makes me wonder WTF is the Big, super-unique/special deal about dressage.
Some points ponder (really, they are at the end of the post. The rest is the stuff that informs my thinking):
What’s the relationship between the quality of movement the horse gives and the particular movements he does?
Think about the flying change as it has evolved in HunterWorld and as it exists in DressageLand. When I was a sprout, it used to be that a horse with a flying change was special. Learning to ask for that and get it was a rite of passage for good junior riders. Since then, the auto-change has come into existence. Also, folks comment on how easily horses change leads at liberty. There’s very little leaping up to get the change and their “doing a job”-- staying in balance for the direction and speed they are going.
In DressageLand, however, a flying change is supposed to have leap to it. It’s taught later and seems to be a big deal. Why? Before you answer, consider the rest of this.
I get that the special thing about flying changes in DressageLand is that some day, those will be done every stride. You need some suspension for that movement. But why? Again, hold that thought.
Consider how smoothly the modern hunter changes leads. Yeah, he ain’t doing one tempis. But! I saw some even flatter-moving HUS horses doing those “subliminally little” flying changes about every three strides in some junior eq class with a pattern. I didn’t know it could be done. (By the way, I have never seen a test that hard asked of a Big Eq horse).
So what gives? Flat-moving QHs can do a lot of stuff that English World considers Way Hard.
OK, so back to the ur-point of these disciplines: The purpose of either discipline (the training version or the showing version)-- dressage or western dressage (or reining and other things) is to demonstrate a horse well-able to do a job. He knows the aids and he’s strong and balanced enough to git-r-done.
There’s a huge emphasis in (competitive) dressage on the quality of the gaits. I understand why… theoretically: Those are the sign of a horse ridden in a way that is biomechanically correct. The movements are meant to test and confirm the same thing.
But WTF, people: it seems to me that you can/should buy the gaits in ModernDressageWorld, or you are wasting your money. This wasn’t quite so true when I was a kid. Having ridden horses that were good movers (some considered so in DressageWorld and some considered so in WesternWorld) and some horses who were officially badly-built, I know that better gaits make the training easier.
So where does that leave WesternDressage?
Will you sooner or later need to buy the gaits there, too?
But why have to buy the gaits or even care a whole lot about their quality if we already know that horses can do jobs like deliver “no muss, no fuss” flying changes while being way flatter than any dressagist would think?
Just asking.[/QUOTE]
Oftentimes the jump you see in dressage changes isn’t all due to engagement. Many, many times it also has to do with lack of forward movement and being through and flowing in the canter.
Dressage warmbloods may be the most expensive, the most prized for their sport due to the suspension in the trot and their inner metronome, but they aren’t yet perfect, and many lack the nimbleness and athleticism that other horses have. Breeding the really athletic canter is still a work in progress and that’s why TB blood and jumper blood is so important in the current breeding of dressage horses.
[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7192231]
Well said, mvp. I agree with the fancy-moving horses, the philosophy, the relationship-building, the lack of endless 20-m circles. I wonder as western dressage goes if there will be the “standard” that people will be priced out of. Like in regular dressage, people aspire (generally speaking) to have the fancy-moving warmblood. With WD, will it be another version of QHs? [/QUOTE]
I think that in effective and high end dressage, there’s not the grinding around on a 20 m circle. What’s interesting to me is that in Vaquaro World, the horse’s mind is discussed intially, and with the masses. In Dressage World, I don’t think that’s the leading topic.
By the way, my only objection to this is that I don’t think the horse can distinguish those “slightly better from slightly worse” bits when the big picture (Horse stays in same gait on the same circle) doesn’t change. I think its like being in a 6 hour lecture at college. Part way though, even the best students will become bad ones and check out.)
Also, my version of WD really is distinguished by a difference in training philosophy. I’m pretty sure that my version of “Western” doesn’t look like that steeped in, say, the Morgan WP ring, as is a large contingent of the folks who have organized WD.
I don’t care what movement a test asks for when, I want the best way to teach the horse to do it and to condition his body so as to make it easy for him to do. If I were a Big Wig writing tests or books and such, then I’d have to figure that out.
And yeah, you guys, I think some day I’ll be priced out of this, too. But that’s not yet, thank God!
currently, the western dressage has levels equivalent to “regular” second level dressage. for me, i’m on a 15 hand pally aqha gelding. he’s done the breed show stuff in pally, and did it well. I’ve always loved dressage, rode and competed for years before current horse. For this particular horse–the western dressage is a welcome avenue for him. he does NOT have the brilliance of gaits that a wb brings to the table. but, he’s a solid solid citizen who likes the work. (in all honesty, the only way he did well in western pleasure was because of the dressage work we did. he’s not a peanut roller, not a broken gaited horse. he has three clear and true gaits, to the point where decent breed show judges could not ignore his correctness). so, western dressage gives us a new playground. One he enjoys <g>
I really hope that the divide between western dressage and standard dressage doesn’t devolve into a “buy the gaits” difference. I think its an excuse, and I don’t buy it.
I know that the inate quality of a horse’s gaits contribute to their total score. However, well ridden limited horses doing accurate tests showing excellent basic training (relaxation, rythm, accepting contact) can score VERY well in open dressage competition. They will not score better than a fancier horse showing those same qualities, and nor should they…but I have shown my school pony/retraining project/gives five year olds lessons in open competition. After a year of retraining (while working for a living) he received scores at first level just over 68%. With several areas in the tests which could have been scored better had i ridden better) That’s a respectable score and if Mr. Fancy pants from Europe who cost fifteen TIMES more than my pony scores better than us…who cares?
After first level, those big gaits that the rider can cruise on for big scores start to matter less, and the training matters more. The correct but limited horse in second level who shows that the basics are still intact can start to close the gap. There are movements which are specifically used to judge TRAINING, and their scres are doubled (walk pirouettes/turn on the haunches for example). A limited horse can get a 10 on that movement, while the best they may ever be able to get on a medium may be a 5, or 6 on a good day. Mr. Fancy Pants can get a 2 on a crappy turn on the haunches if he steps wide behind, gets stuck, is not collected…all rider caused.
Learn to ride, keep working on the basic qualities, don’t make excuses and judge your success by scores, not the color of your ribbons. Get a limited horse if thats what you can afford, and ride him out of his skin.
Meanwhile, save up for a fancy one, and you won’t need SUPER fancy:
if you are able to make an ordinary horse look wonderful, you can get a moderately talented one with three correct gaits and a good mind to look AMAZING!
[QUOTE=katarine;7187996]
if it’s done with true roots in Dressage, it’s really pretty riding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7fAcv_46Bs
This is one of my friends: she can flat ride a horse.[/QUOTE]
Peggy showed this horse in the Stock Horse Association prior to getting so involved in WD. If I recall correctly he was a decent cowhorse and did very well in reining as a “green” (5 and under) about 3-4 years ago.
[QUOTE=colorfan;7189788]
I am always told to watch for a swinging tail as a sign of a loose back, which means the horse is correctly using its back.[/QUOTE]
I’ve heard that before too but thanks for the reminder. I thought my newly aquired “WB” mare was telling me she was irritated when her tail swings back and forth. Perhaps it’s the up and down swishing that indicates annoyance/resistance?
Shrug. I just look at the horse’s way of going to tell me whether or not the back is loose.
Could be wrong but I believe the Germans call this “schwung” or something like that. 
