I live in a small rural town in the North East of England, with a large horse owning/riding populace. I have returned from a fitness walk around my local town and have just witnessed someone hacking out (I think the american term is Pleasure riding) in draw reins and a bubble gag. Firstly the point of hacking out a horse in training is so that it gets a day off so it does not become sour to its training, secondly these sort of external aids should only be used for short periods of during an actual training session to help build the correct muscle structure. I personnally do not approve of these external aids as there is no real replacement for strong groundwork.

The reason rollkur should be banned is that the fashion for a large forestep created by Rollkur that has given amateur riders the green light to think that hacking out with these external aids attached is fine with no thought of consquence to the animal. We need a lead from the Industry leaders.

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wonderful. I didn't know this existed on the web. Its marvellous. I've seen them sometimes in real performances but I never saw the film. This part is a legend, being quoted in many riding instruction books here.
We should show it as an intro at the next Olympics just as a reminder for everyone.
Many thanks to you Vanessa for digging this our for us.
Bernd
OMG - Yup that's how it's done - now please feel free to compare and contrast with this little world record breaking score that happened on Saturday at Hickstead, here in little Ol' Blighty - Another Dutch rider who at a guess is another BIG fan of Rollkur - what upset's me most is that he know has THE WORLD RECORD Dressage Score - You've got to be kidding me!

I've managed to put the video clip in my video's - but I don't know how to attach it to this reply - Sorry, but please go look.

Thanks,

Kt
Here is the video:

Yeah, that looks soooo awful, my neck and shoulders are hurting just looking at it. Again, you can see such a HUGE difference between the video I posted and this one.
You all are not going to like my reply. This is the best riding I've seen a rollkur rider do. Part of the reason is that often in the video the rider allows the horse's head-carriage to advance to vertical instead of 100% behind the bit, and then the horse's movement improves.
I did not like how much the rider took hold of the horse once at the canter, it looked like the strength of contact that one uses trying to prevent a run-away. On the other hand, at some times in the video, I actually see the horse shift his weight to the rear, though there are times when the horse's weight is sort of in the middle or front.
At least the horse is not doing any airs above the ground.
If this rider uses Rollkur, this is truly a superior performance.
I love the lightness of the horses trained more in the French school of dressage. The French seem to realize that a horse can be fully collected and comfortable if the nose sticks out a little. This adds greatly to impulsion and freedom of movement. Rollkur horses, on the other hand, rarely show this "gaiety" in their movement, for they are usually behind the bit and therefore are not allowed to express themselves in their movement.
I think the most obvious difference is the contact. In Klimkes video you have the impression that the rider can easily control the horse with one (left) hand and enjoy the ride, even when all people make a lot of noise.
In Gal's performance you can see the intense concentration of the rider, his very tight control of the contact and the horses impuls to go (or run). If you put Totilas in the same situation as Ahlerich in the Klimke video the rider would have no such comfort enjoying the ride.

However the reason why Gal rides the way he does is the way how the judges award scores these days.
For example Totilas gets highest scores in extended trot by showing extensive movements of the front legs or very experessive lifting of his legs in Passage or Piaffe.

By classical riding theory its actually too much as the idea was that the horses hoof should get to the ground at the place it points to touching a line from the horses head to the ground (ext. trot). Now this is clearly impossible here as Totilas front legs are pointing almost to infinity.
The amazing impulsion that Totilas shows gains him the high scores. The price for this is a high exitement of the horse being just barely controlled by the rider with a strong contact to the bit. If you added additional exitement such as applause from a large audience it may well shoot the horses exitement level over and above a level that the rider would be able to control.

That's the ultimate reason for the Rollkur. It gives the rider a tool to control an exaggerated impulsion generated by the exitement of the horse. The rider can manage that well within the test -with high concentration- and Edward Gal does it here very well. However its a tight rope walker exercise. Add a little bit of exitement and the horse will explode.
-but as long as the rider can control it, he will get the maximum score possible.
That's the way it is. Its a sport. They want to win. So they ride the way which makes them the winner.
I can't blame him. He's doing what it takes to win and he does it well!

ehm, I would just advice any amateur rider not to try a ride on this horse him/herself. It would be like a normal person trying to drive a formula1 race car. It won't do you much good. - coming to think of it the car may be the easier ride
Bernd, how do the Rollkur people train for that exaggerated impulsion? These horses are obviously very strong, with fit muscles, but all dressage people have to train their horses so they have equally fit, strong muscles. Or does the Rollkur alone trigger the flight reflex?
Hi,

I'll try my best to explain it :-))

Suppose you have such a wonderful horse and you start exercising it. As soon as you start with the real difficult things such as Piaffe, passage, flying changes, etc. you will notice that the horse will get nervous because it feels pushed by the rider (spurs, whip) into something difficult.

Now you have a choice to make:

a) you can try to have it do the passage a few steps. The horse gets exited. Than you stop, reward, wait until the horse cools down and try it another day again, always giving the horse time to relax before you push for the next thing, like holding the passage longer, make transitions to piaffe, get more expression etc.

b) you try to heave it do passage a few steps. The horse get exited. You don't stop. Instead you use the horses exitement to push for more steps, for more expression, getting it even more exited. Now of course you get into a control problem. If you really push for the maximum -after all you want to win the Olympics- you may cross the border at which the horse gets difficult to manage.
That's the moment where the Rollkur comes in. You force the horse into obiedience by pulling its head down, restricting its eyesight, showing him the strength of you reins etc... This way you can manage it

Now, both methods have their pros and cons
Method a) is certainly less stress. The result will be an easier to ride horse. It may be not as expressive though and the whole thing needs time. probably you will not have an Olympics level horse at the age of 9 (like Totilas).

Method b) means pushing the envelope. You risk to sit on horses which will give you control problems. Not all horses you ride will be able to cope with the stress, actually pretty few of them will. The one who won't will have to be given up and in the process to to so, you will face critical situations where you will have to fight with overexited, yet very powerful horses. So its nothing for riders who want an easy life. However, the few horses who will cope with it will give you the maximum that they can physically do -.and you may win the world championship

There are riders who follow method a and still reach the top level, but it takes much more time (that as a pro you may not have-you have to make money) and its more to the "art of dressage" rather the sport of dressage.

And even than, its not always going smooth, even as an artist you will have to push to go to the limits sometime.

It takes a lot of experience to go for the top and decide every day in training how much to push, how to control, when to stop, when to even give up and don't push at a day when your horse doesn't really feel like going for it.

So you may be tempted to take the short cut to success whether its Rollkur, special reins, "unconventional training methods" such as lifting horses hooves by special strips, even doping. Striving for the top holds many rewards,- and many temptations. Rollkur is one of them.

just one more reminder- if you're afraid of fighting with rearing horses, don't push the envelope with the Rollkur or you will be frightend. (Not with the top horse at TV; that's the one who has learned to cope. The risk are the 10 others who didn't)

Have fun
Bernd
Thank you. I understand much better now.
there's extremes of everything and sadly some people watch something and believe in their minds they can too do it without proper training. rollkur or LDR isn't just the dutch tho. there is a great book that talks about the dutch training system and touches on LDR even. it's an easy read and i enjoyed it just as much as my Dressage with Kyra training book. it's called:
Ride With Awareness And Feel
it's from the bartels academy.

i don't sell or promote too may products but this book and the Dressage with Kyra are two of them. you can find it anywhere online but here's my link http://www.horsegirltv.com/blog/?page_id=567&category=4&pro... just FYI.

hope that info is helpful to what's an EVER hot topic of proper training. cheers, angelea ;-)
Hi Guys,

The reason I started this discussion is exactly the point Bernd is making that Fashion, i.e. an over exaggerated front end in the extended movements is what wins the world record high scores, NOT good horsemanship, and whilst Gal is able to Contol his stallion this is done through harsh training techniques and not steady long term training. Whilst the FEI think it is acceptable to score on a fashion and not good horsemanship we will always have this problem. I wasn't really joking about performing in a cavesson bridle and snaffle bit instead of half a ton of iron mongery allowing for Gal's style of riding. All horses have their engines in the back and the fact that this style of riding completely disengages the engine forcing the horse to drag it's way through the test (hence the over exaggeration of the extension) means that you do have more "control". All this leads upto the fact that hobbyist riders are now riding out in gag bits and draw reins and their only achievements will be a few minor extremely local competitions and a very damaged horse. Sorry if this does not make much sense but I've just finished a 12 hour shift a work and have been up since 4.45am.
Regards,
Kt
There seems to be a progression with horse shows. First the horses and riders are not too good and the judges correctly judge them. Then the horses improve, the riders improve, and good or at least decent horsemanship abounds. Then, when everybody seems to have equally good horses and the riders are all decent to superior, the audiences get bored and the judges have a hard time determining the winner.
Then one horse (or bloodline) comes in with electrifying action, especially at the trot. Everyone gets excited, the audiences, the judges, the exhibitors and the announcers. This is EXCITING. The old fuddy-duddy horses without this action get discarded or sent to Western pleasure. The riders and trainers who do not get this action no longer place in the classes, however technically superior. Everything gets shoved to the background EXCEPT the high actioned horses. This has happened to several good breeds in the USA--Saddlebreds, TWH, Morgans, Arabs, Pasos, and other gaited breeds. Now it is happening in the dressage classes, on an international level.
And it never seems to go back to the old type shows where good horsemanship counted and horses could win without flapping their front legs. And the action gets higher and higher.
The Warmblood people had a problem, however good their horses, they were often not as good as a decent TB. One reason is that the female lines of Warmbloods go back to the European carriage horses who were famed for their fancy high action. As long as TBs, with their "daisy-cutter" action were the preferred horses, Warmbloods would have a long hard haul (do not mistake me, there have always been good Warmbloods, they have A LOT of TB blood after all.)
Someone discovered how to get this extravegant action from Warmbloods, it dazzled the audiences at the shows, and suddenly TBs with their low efficient action, went out of fashion, and the warmblood breeders could get much higher prices for their horses.
Good luck in getting your sport back, you'll need it.
Take the time it takes! Do it right...for you and your horse!!!

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