Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Barnmice Admin on January 18, 2009 at 12:09am

Hi Shimmer E,
This is a very valuable and controversial issue to discuss and I'm glad you brought it up. May I suggest that you also add it to the Eurodressage and other dressage groups on Barnmice, as we have some very well informed people who should be able to outline what is going on. Enjoy the weekend!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lallanslover on January 18, 2009 at 4:42pm

There is a very interesting, and extensive, article available to view on Sustainable Dressage (easy to google, to save me from having to re-write the article!).

Personally, I have yet to find any evidence that it is ever a valid training tool, indeed I find the technique to be morally wrong. I remain appalled that many high profile riders competing under FEI rules continue to break the rules by using it in training.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mirrabook-Rafter 5 Warmbloods on January 18, 2009 at 6:12pm

There are many articles written over the past 3 years on this subject and it was openly discussed at the 2006 Global Dressage Forum. Eurodressage has a report on that.
The FEI released a report on Rollkur and you can find it at this link PDF Report: The use of over bending (“Rollkur”) in FEI competition. I remember reading an FEI statement that, while they could find no evidence that it was detrimental, that it was discouraged and not to be seen at competitions, but couldn't find it right now. Will provide a link once I do.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Shimmer E on January 18, 2009 at 6:28pm

This very helpful, but what exactly is the REASON to use the technique? What is one hoping to benefit from schooling one's horse in such an unnatural way?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bernd on January 19, 2009 at 9:42am

In one word the reason is: CONTROL

Modern dressage horses get exited very easily. In the attempt to control it while at the same time push it into high tension to provoke extraordinary expressive movements, the rider can use hyperflexion to force the horse into obedience.

This is nothing new. Francois Baucher explained that technique in the 18th century in France and initiated very exited and polemic arguments in France and Germany until today.
Alwin Schockemöhle a famous German show jumping rider used it in the 1970, winning a gold medal in the Olympics in Bromont, Canada over the highest show jumping course that was ever built and probably will ever be built in history.
More recently it became popular with Nicole Uphoff and her gold medal horse Rembrandt. Today Anky van Grunsven is the most successful but by far not exclusive rider doing it.
You can watch it easily on all preparations of show jumping horses, too.
The FEI did a workshop about it and the only result was that the don't know wether it would be damaging the horse.- some vets claim it will. (read Dr. Heuschmann)

here are some of the downsides:
You exploit your reserves. If you need hyperflexion to control your horse while doing extended trot, passage, tempi changes, you have no reserves to hold up obedience in case something unusual happens. Any disturbance like, unexpected music, running dogs or children, opening umbrellas etc. etc. may well push the horse over the edge and make it try to escape and disregard the rider. You can see that easily when many of the top riders refuse to ride their horse in the price giving ceremony. An overbent horse will simply not respect the riders use of the reins anymore as its head is biting the chest already and there is no more to do.

For the same reason, already in the early 19th century the German cavalry banned the use of hyperflexion for soldiers as the casulaties in normal exercise rose too high. By that time (1905) it was kind of fashionable to ride that way because Paul Plinzner prepared the horses of the German emperor this way. While the Emperor had an excuse (he had a crippled left arm and wasn't a good rider anyway, but had to look good), soldiers did it in cross country military jobs;- and canter fast in cross country over fixed fences is the last thing you should do wth a hyperflexed horse. The horse cannot see very far ahead in that position and will make mistakes in estimating how to jump.

Another downside is that you will get poor scores if you do it in the test. So the trick is to try to show a good face during the test, even if you do it in the prep. Anky is very good at that and even she is sometimes caught with an overbent horse in a picture. Many less skilled riders show the mistake more openly.

Another downside is that it make the rider use his reins too much. This limits the paces of the horse and will very easily show takt mistakes in walk. So its actually detrimental to the first goal of expressive gaits. It takes a rider who can really kick the horse into not loosing the movements despite of the riders dominating hands. Usually a normal rider with a normal horse has nothing to win this way.

Still its a method to control an overexited horse, but its a risky way to go.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Shimmer E on January 19, 2009 at 5:49pm

Wow, thank you very much for all of your insight Bernd. That really does explain a lot for me and now I have something much more concrete to take back to my students. I've always taught them long and low first, and elevation comes with strength and skill. We work very hard on creating very calm show mounts who will think about a situation rather than react. I do not believe I will ever include this technique in my training methods.

Thank you very much again!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Susanne Vogt on February 3, 2009 at 8:30pm

Hi,
That is a good decision, it is unnatural for the horse and I completely agree with Bernd. Here is a link, you'll find much more about that controversial discussion, please don't teach your student to do rollkur. The FEI has reports from veterinarians and they agree, it is not healty for the horse. See more at www.classicalriding.co.uk. More infos you'll find also if you are googling FEI convention in Geneva on RollKur. All transcripts etc. are available there.
Take care, Susanne

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Teddy Rekai-Nuttall on February 3, 2009 at 6:42pm

Hi there,
Before you can discuss rollkur, you first must define what you are considering rollkur. Traditional rollkur is rarely used, and is a sustained hyperflexion of the head and neck in an elevated position. What is commonly used in modern dressage training is frequently referred to as LDR- Long, Deep, Round. and is a hyperflexion of the head and neck in just that position, imagine long and low, which is then encouraged to be held in a rounded fashion, with the head held behind the vertical. The FEI discourages the use of Rollkur or LDR by inexperienced riders, and this is extremely true, in the wrong hands nothing good will happen. In the hands of Anky or Isabelle, LDR has been scientifically shown to increase flexion of the thoracic portion of the spine, increase elasticity in the paces, and horses trained in this fashion have actually been shown to be less stressed at home and at competitions. My own preliminary investigation for my Bachelor's dissertation has suggested increased respiratory efficiency during LDR than in classical frame.
I do not like to bad mouth anyone, but I feel I must say that you should look at the sustainable dressage website in order to familiarize yourselves with the debate. The information on this site is from all the right sources, but unfortunately often misinterprets studies. It often presents introductory points of concern as findings of studies, and unfortunately overall the site is overly sensationalist.
I agree that you should not use it in your particular program if you don't know what it is. That could result in just more bad PR. Do familiarize yourself with the basis of the method, and go to clinics with riders that use it, and you will see the benefit that it has IN THE RIGHT HANDS.
This is my thesis topic, so I'd be happy to discuss with anyone interested.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Shimmer E on February 3, 2009 at 8:41pm

Thank you Teddy! I was honestly hoping that someone would present the opposing side to this debate. Althought I'm still not of the personal opinion that Rolkur or LDR would be something I would condone or ever practise or teach myself, it is certainly worth being more educated about.

Thank you again for your thoughts and research Teddy!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bernd on February 8, 2009 at 1:56pm

Hi,

first of all I would agree with Teddy that it is necessary to define what we mean with Rollkur.

What is described as LDR by Teddy has actually nothing to do with Rollkur. When you ride a horse this (LDR) way, it doesn't matter very much wether the head is held a little bit behind the vertical or not. The horse can go in a relaxed way and unless you overdo it, it will not do any harm and can be done by anyone with enough riding experience to sit comfortably in all paces. The horse can take this position without being forced by the rider to do so. It is a well known way of riding, described very often in the regular horse riding literature. When Sjif Janssen (Anky's husband and trainer) presented this to the audience at the Geneva FEI workshop, nobody thought this to be a matter of disagreement.

The Rollkur was renamed to "hyperflexion" to take away the negative connotation of the (German) word "Rollkur" at this meeting in Geneva. It sounds more "neutral or techncial".

However the technique is to force the horse into an overbent position of head and neck on the vertical as well as lateral positions. As I said before the main reason is for the rider to exercise control over the horse. By that the rider will enforce this position by using sharp bits, hackamores, special reins or simply hard power of his (her) hands. After a while a horse may give in to this and take the position by itself, knowing that otherwise it will experience painful power of the rider's hands.
This is the reason why this technique is critizised.

It may or may not have unfavourable effects on the horse's health, but even if it was shown to be harmless, it would have to be considered wrong for classical dressage. (Read Dr. Heuschmann's book for the veterinary discussion. They even did a film for that)

The fact that some extraordinary riders are able to use it without damage does not mean that is a good or even acceptable way of training a horse.

The damage is more on the riding side and the effects are:
- overbent horses can refuse the riders aides and get uncontrolled (like Salinero in the price giving in Aachen 2006)
- in the attempts to evade the riders hands force, some horses will refuse to go forward and eventually start rearing - THE most frequents reasons to have problems with rearing horses
- the tact of movements especially in walk will be damaged and can only be controlled by reducing the width of the horses steps- the main reason why so many dressage horses at top level show poor walk during the test and very nice walk after the rider releases the reins
- the hores will reduce the extension of its movements unless the rider comepensates for this with forceful usage of the spurs of whip - thus encouraging resistance of the horse which in return has to be overcome by even more power of the riders aides
- Some horses will develop a change of their neck shape (in german its called "falscher Knick"). I don't know the English expression, but once done, the horses carreer in dressage is over as it will usually get scores below 50%
- Overbending the horse outside of the dressage arena or the prep area for show jumping will be dangerous as you are limiting the horses eyesight, hence limiting its possibility to accurately judge when and where to jump. Thats the reason why the rider in show jumping will have to release the horses head before the fence,- or else....
- riding cross country an overbent horse can be very dangerous as you may not be able to control it when it gets exited in canter
- lateral bendings can teach the horse to overbend his neck and avoid any bending in the rest of its body. Not very experienced riders may recognize this too late and than this mistake will result in poor scores. Than is can be very difficult to correct even for a pro.
-- I may have forgotten some other effects, but I think it shows that it is a dangerous path to go in return for the higher control that the rider gains when asking the horse to perform very expressively.

Unfortunatley in modern dressage the highly experessive movements gain you good scores in the test. That's the reason why some expert riders trade the negative effects for the higher expression.- Of course you may be able to control the negative side effects by not doing it too often or not to the extreme or by just having a very good feeling for how far you can go before it gets real bad. So if some of the world top riders do it, they may be able to win something and still avoid detrimental effects. Still, if Anky can do it, it doesn't mean everybody else can. In fact I would doubt that even many of the international riders could. Its certainly nothing for everyday use.

The scientific discussion of whether or not it is damaging the horses health is very interesting but sometimes in needs backround knowledge in medial terms to understand it. There are many interesting topics from effects on muscels, bones or even psychological effects.

From a riders point of view I think its wise to stay away from it, but the top stars exampel will nevertheless make many people to copy it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by BB55 on February 10, 2009 at 4:04pm

You should watch the movie "If horses could speak" by Dr. Gerd Heuschmann - it uses animatronics and state-of-the art graphics to demonstrate the damage afforded to the horse by training using rollkuer. There is no 'opinion' whether this is good or bad - this is fact outlining the stark reality that it will damage your horse irrevocably.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Teddy Rekai-Nuttall on February 10, 2009 at 5:07pm

Bernd,
I am glad we can have an open and unemotional discussion about this. Also to note is that Anky's system with partner Sjef, has never been associated with the same training principles as Isabell Werth. Good reading:
http://www.horsemagazine.com/CLINIC/J/JANSSEN_SJEF/sjef_janssen.htm
http://www.horsemagazine.com/CLINIC/W/WILCOX_LISA/ernst&lisapar...

Of important note is that Classical principles are always pushed by the majority of international trainers, including those mentioned. You cannot expect to be able to circumvent training with tricks, but LDR has been shown to improve the horse in many ways. It is important to do the reading.
Bernd, I am curious, do you consider Anky's system to include Rollkur, or would you consider it only as LDR?

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• …
• 7
• Next ›
• Page