From: Susan
Dear Jessica, I have a complicated question for you. Most of my friends don't ride dressage, which is what I like best, and I have a really good instructor. One of my friends says that she loves dressage, but she takes lessons with an instructor who is NOT (in my opinion, reinforced by what I've seen and read) a good dressage instructor. In fact, I don't think she knows much about it at all. I find that I am having arguments with my friend, because I feel very upset that when we ride together, she is always pulling at her horse's head and trying to "lift the front end". To me, her horse just looks miserable.
I've tried to tell her that her horse needs a good topline to do dressage, and that my instructor has me doing a lot of long and low work with my mare, but Leslie just argues with me and says the only way to collect a horse is to demand collection all the time, and there's no point in riding long and low since that's not what you'll do at the upper levels anyway and it doesn't help the horse collect, it's just slopping along doing nothing. I know that this is wrong but I'm not very good at explaining exactly why, especially since I tend to get upset and then I can't even talk. Can you help me?
I want to know more so that I can explain things better to Leslie. I also want to know if my instructor is right, or if Leslie's instructor could be right. Based on what I have read from you and Mr. De Kunffy and other dressage experts, I don't think she (Leslie's instructor) is right, because her horses and now Leslies horse have very hollow backs and big bulging muscles on the bottom side of their necks. They aren't round and they don't have any kind of toplines, and they never look happy. I really like how you and Mr. De Kunffy always say that the horse should look happy! It's something I never used to think about at all, but now I always notice.
Help please! I think I know what is right, but I'm not very good at explaining it to Leslie. I know that collection is what dressage horses should do eventually, and I know that collected horses have higher necks, but from what you say I am pretty sure that you can't make horses collected just by pulling their necks up higher. I need to understand this better so that I can explain it. I feel that I am right, even though Leslie has been taking lessons longer than I have.
Thank you very very much. Susan
It sounds to me as though your friend might benefit from taking lessons with YOUR instructor. Can you invite her to watch one of your lessons and discuss it with you afterward? Or, better still, could you buy her a single lesson with your instructor and give it to her as a birthday gift or a Christmas present? That way, your friend could take a lesson with your instructor without having to feel that she was being disloyal to her own instructor.
Muscles must be stretched before they can be contracted effectively, and a horse must be worked in a frame that allows it to work its belly muscles and stretch and lift its topline. In the beginning, this frame will be rather long, and much flatter than it will be in a few years' time. A trained horse's shortened, higher frame must be developed over time, as the horse becomes stronger and better able to carry itself and its rider. Balance and self-carriage can be developed, but the process is gradual and cannot be forced without sacrificing the horse's long-term soundness (and short-term mental balance).
A correctly-trained, correctly-worked, correctly-developed dressage horse will become steadily stronger and more able to OFFER better self-carriage. For a young/green horse, work begins in a longer frame; it is counterproductive to demand that the horse begin by working in a short frame with an elevated front end. The "lifting" of the front end cannot be done mechanically, by the rider, through leverage -- that is, it cannot be done correctly and for the horse's benefit!
The rider can, indeed, force the horse to carry its head and neck high, and can even force it to carry its head and neck high whilst simultaneously remaining perpetually behind the bit. But this sort of spurious "elevation" (called "collection" by riders and trainers who don't understand the nature of collection) doesn't have anything to do with genuine collection, in which the horse's shoulders become more free and the front end of the horse becomes more elevated AS A RESULT of the horse developing the strength of its abdominal muscles and the ability to bend ALL of the joints of its hind legs so as to carry more weight behind.
ALL OF THIS TAKES TIME. Even if your horse is of a baroque breed and appears to be collected from birth on, it still needs to have its topline stretched and its muscles and joints and mind developed before it can offer true collection, on demand, under a rider, AND STAY SOUND. (It can be terribly tempting to take advantage of what seems like "instant collection", though, if your horse is a Lipizzaner or an Andalusian or a Lusitano -- just don't give in to the temptation.)
Working in a longer frame does not mean wandering around in an apparently aimless fashion with the horse's nose on the ground. That's not "long and low", that's grazing. ;-)
"Long and low", to be correct, must be organized, directed WORK, not just meandering. It really should be called "long and low and engaged". The horse must be working its abdominals, stretching its entire topline, and REACHING with a neck that is lifted from the base. All of this serves to enable the horse to develop its carrying power from behind. Riders who are in a great hurry to achieve what they fondly imagine to be "collection", and who elect to "skip" the first steps of training, are not really skipping anything at all, they are simply cheating their horses out of the opportunity to become developed as well as trained.
Dressage is rather like ballet, and any good dancer will tell you that the body must be brought along slowly and systematically or it will tear and break instead of stretching and becoming stronger and more flexible. No dancer, regardless of his or her innate talent and ability, can "skip" the first years of work; no dancer can afford to "skip" barre and floor work and go directly to performance. Bodies just don't function that way.
A body, human or equine, can be pushed and pulled into an approximation of the silhouette of a correctly-prepared body, but it can't move correctly within or from that position. It also can't move gracefully or easily -- all of those qualities come from development, discipline, and habit, and all require time. And -- again, think about ballet -- the entire course of training will need to be recapitulated in EVERY work session, before anything new is introduced. That's why good riders and trainers give even their strong, well-developed, well-trained Grand Prix horses thorough warmups, and that's why good ballet dancers will take class every day, as long as they are dancing.
There are no magic formulas or short-cuts that will cause or enabble muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones to develop correctly without correct work over time. And believe me, it's worth taking the time to do it right!
Jessica
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