That looks like a nice degree of self-carriage for a young horse. But notice that he’s at the suspension phase of the trot. That phase of the stride (as well as the balanced gait) invite a horse to go like that-- neck up and out, throat latch open. Show me that horse at the landing phase of the canter and then we’ll see how he looks then.
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They can just get very high-quality work done in a very short period of time.
From sitting in on several clinics and reading articles it seems to be that their plan is roughly:
Backed at 3 and then tossed out for the winter
Brought back in at 4 - schooling WTC with a huge emphasis on transitions within the gait and introduction to lateral work
Year 5 - half pass, playing with changes, half steps
Year 6 - confirmed changes and playing with the Ps, likely some young horses classes
Year 7 - Developing PSG classes, confirming the Ps
Year 8 - Schooling GP and likely a first show
Year 9 - GP and aiming for first international show
Year 10 - International GP
Freestyle was barely 10 when she showed at WEG. I have a ton of respect for Charlotte but you don’t get a 6 year old going like this tootling around doing 20M circles as a four year old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkPiLcd20NA
Or for a 1:1 comparison, what a Mount St. John 4 year old is expected to look like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJyNx7hO7b4 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4pIzWXg64
If the horse is going to be showing GP at age 10 then the training has to move pretty fast.
I am not sure what you mean by schooling 2nd level. Lateral work? It’s totally appropriate to start a green horse on walk lateral work inhand and under saddle and the trot is easy to pick up if the horse is talented. Lateral work is such a good gymnastic that you should be doing it from the very start.
I don’t like everything about modern competition dressage. But I do believe that a good pro on a talented young horse can get that horse doing things that for us ammies going trial by error on a less talented horse will take years. That’s true for every discipline.
As far as the video this is a nice horse not entirely steady in the contact but all it is going is working trot. We don’t even get to see walk or canter, no transitions.
As far as talent, I once watched a young green Andalusian in a clinic have a meltdown temper tantrum expressed by doing perfect canter pirouettes. Better pirouettes than most horses ever achieve and they were just factory installed. You could move horse like that along much much faster than a normal horse!
Likewise a horse with a naturally high neck carriage and a big trot will look fancier just doing a working trot than an average horse.
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And this is why I still pay for lessons. 😂🤣 If only I rode as well as he does! I am constantly working to replace that natural pull instinct with correct behavior, and am nowhere near where I want to be. But i can use myself as the “wrong” in threads like this, so it’s worth something!
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My personal opinion, and maybe I am wrong… CH and CD are right. They do it this way and they can do it because they don’t do anything wrong when they ride their young horses… they do not allow them to go on the forehand or pull them around if they loose their balance… so every time these young horses are ridden it improves them in the right way… The Pyramid of Training starts with rhythm… and then comes suppleness and then connection… and then suspension… if you have those 4 in the first 2 years when you start your young horse, which is very doable and not even hard for the horse, then you are very close to the upper levels already… and if you have the legyield and transitions established you are good to go… If you follow this religiously you can spend a lot of time with hacking your horse and turn it out… I think they simply don’t waste a lot of time with just riding around the ring without beeing efficient…
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Great article thanks. Nice to see methodical progression
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The OP was talking about bad riding in FB videos, not good professional riders.
I won’t post the sales video of these horses, but it’s not pretty. To me “training 2nd level” should mean they already are doing solid 1st level work, not just that they have attempted some 2nd level movements a few times on a horse that isn’t even moving freely forward. I know people are trying to sell the horse. I feel bad for the horses because many (most?) end up having training issues/physical issues as a result. Such is the world these days unfortunately, most people don’t take the time to do things the right way.
I agree it is possible to actually be training 2nd level on a 4-year-old but like you said it takes a good pro on a talented young horse, which probably is the case about 0.5% of the time.
The video I posted does show canter and walk. ???
For sure, they ride them forward, they do tons of transitions, they make every minute count - as Manni01 said.
Not sure what the video is from - a licensing? In any event, they are showcasing the gaits of the horse. This is not a training video, they are not ridden like this all the time.
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Playing with 2nd level at 4 - remember, this is October, so those 4 year olds are 4 1/2 - and for a talented and balanced young horse that is well ridden, it is pretty common to go from basics WTC 4 times/week in the Spring, to Leg Yield, Shoulder In, and some lengthenings (that may look like a medium) in a manner of a few months. I wouldn’t want to see a 3 year old ridden that way, but there is a huge leap in what a horse can do between 4 and 4 1/2.
I use to breed horses, and have had a couple of really good young horse trainers work my horses. Our program was start them at 3.5, 3 days/week, 20 or 30 minutes max, going forward, WTC, some contact, then they get a break for the Winter. Then start them back up in the Spring, 4 days/week, 30 minutes/day (give or take), and usually within a few months, they were pretty reliably accepting contact, doing some lateral work, starting to do adjustments within the gaits.
I’m not saying see-sawing on the bit is acceptable, wagging the head is acceptable - they are NOT. But to see a 4 1/2 year old doing some lateral work, and pretty reliably on the bit is pretty normal if they are well ridden and properly started. And seeing a young horse that gets a bit behind the vertical, a bit in front of the vertical as it finds its balance is pretty normal - what we don’t want to see is a horse ridden consistently curled or inverted - that just builds the wrong muscles and muscle memory. Light contact, let them find the comfortable spot - and accept that they will be a bit inconsistent for the first few months of riding.
Also realize, what people post for sales videos may not be the normal training routine - the intent in a sales video is to make the horse look consistent! You can always ask for additional video if you are genuinely interested in the horse - but please don’t do that if you are just kicking tires - that just makes a lot of work for the seller.
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Ah the sales ad says training 2nd level? I would always take that with a grain of salt. IME it means the horse went to one Training Level show 
and has started shoulder in.
Exaggerating in sales ads is a problem obviously for buyers but never ever believe what a sales ad says about what actually is being done with the training.
The video I saw seemed to be 6 minutes of trot. I admit I skipped forward a couple places.
”‹
I have to add that this thread does seem to be comparing apples and oranges. On one hand, pro sales videos of high quality horses, on the other bad low level riding.
I guess I’m not going to clutch my pearls about a high end young horse being ridden above his true level for a sales video ( is also the case in jumpers).
I see so much of the opposite: ammie riders with not very good trainers who go slow slow slow and still manage to break their horses down before ever showing past Training Level. Of course they always blame this on turnout injuries but you can see clusters of horses with particular crap trainers that break down especially hocks and back from riding wrong.
Slow is not by itself a solution.
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There is no reason why a 3-4 yo can not learn LY. It starts early on as a drift. It makes a youngster more rideable on trail. The same with S/I, once they can handle the notion of spiral in, and spiral out, holding the bend, it’s a small jump to S/I. H/P may take a wee bit longer.
Anything they learn well at the trot, easily tranfers to the canter.
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Correctly done you can teach a horse to reach for the bit from the get go. You don’t have to be Charlotte Dujardin to do it either.
Correct contact is correct contact.
May as well start out doing it correctly.
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And how many of those horses are sound at 13? Likely more if you can afford world-class veterinary work and farriery, but most of us can’t. Even uber expensive vet care can’t help many of these horses. Similarly, our young gymnasts are fantastic at 10-16 years old, and are seriously hurting at 30.
Some horses can do fine if at GP at 10. I’d say most aren’t.
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I would say it’s not so much about the horse, but more about the rider…
Finally got a chance to read through all of the responding posts. After some reflection, I think my original post may have had two very different questions involved, but I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.
Some of the FB sales videos I am seeing are made by professional, upper level riders, both from the EU and US, riding both young and trained horses. But, these videos are often not European auction videos. I won’t post their videos or pages out of some respect for them, but I’ve noticed how often I think the riders hands are very active. Maybe I need to start following better rides on social media 
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Some horses are better conformed to do GP at ten than others, and there’s not much the rider can do about that.
Yup.
A bad rider can spoil any horse no matter how talented.
The best rider in the world however can’t make a real GP horse out of a horse with no talent.
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Maybe, still there are riders who produce GP horses all the time and some riders never make it…
Don’t conflate the horse who can do GP with the one who can do GP well. Many horses can make it to GP, more than I think people are willing to give credit for. But the horse that is capable of succeeding in competition at that level by definition will have certain physical characteristics that make the work easier. If you need a more black and white example, Shetland ponies have finished the Tevis Cup, but there is no breed of horse better for endurance than an Arabian.
Perhaps then the people who are consistently bringing along top horses, in addition to being gifted with at least a modicum of talent, are also privileged to have a steady stream of essentially perfect animals, secure finances, the best care, and time. The equine world at large is quite good at squandering its human capital after all.
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