I’m a stranger in a strange land. This part of the world is eventing country, and the extent of my jumping experience was two semesters of the intercollegiate hunters, which in spite of my team coach’s best efforts, were filled with great mediocrity on my part. (I was, however, wildly successful in the 18” crossrail division. Neener neener.)
So when I overheard the tail end of a conversation yesterday (at my chiropractor’s office – I love Virginia), it piqued my interest. Two women were discussing event horses, dressage work, and bravery.
Dressage work is focused on giving the control back to the rider, one said, which is very true. The horse is adjustable, attentive, and obedient. Why would that ever be a problem?, she said.
Because that sort of work kills instinct, the other said, and going cross-country, while of course I want to be able to steer and adjust a little, if I’m wrong, I want my horse to take over and use his best judgment to get us through to the other side.
It was something I’d never considered before. Certainly, we do want to take over the instincts of the horse for dressage work – if I didn’t, I doubt any 1400-pound prey animal with a hair-trigger flight response would ever set foot in the showring at WEF, or Aachen, or the World Cup. I recalled an open house that Pam, another of her working students and I attended the summer I worked for her where we did our dressage demo right after a cutting horse demonstration. The fellow in charge picked a random rider out of the audience and popped her on top of a marvelous older horse, told her to hang on and get out of the way, and turned them loose on a mechanical cow. With both hands on the saddle horn and the reins (safely) tied out of the way, the horse proceeded to keep perfect pace and rhythm with the cow, all on his own instinct. When we took the stage, Pam quipped that if the cutter’s job was to hone instinct, the dressage rider’s job was to kill it.
The result is a well-balanced horse who would jump off a bridge for me, whose whole world is me and my aids and my work and the task at hand. That’s certainly something, at first blush, that I’d want to bring cross-country!
This woman’s point, though, was an interesting one. If I make a bad judgment call in a half-pass, I get a bad half-pass. If I make a bad judgment call galloping up to a solid obstacle at speed, well… the consequences are certainly much direr.
Now, clearly there are riders out there at the top levels of eventing sport whose horses demonstrate great skill both cross country and in dressage. I watch videos of event horses with Ingrid Klimke, who is, to say the least, no slouch in a dressage test, and they look balanced and supple on day one, and both bold and rideable day two. Is it possible to have an instinct-less horse on dressage day and a keen Alpha horse on course?
As cross country courses get more technical, and ultimately more dangerous if a rider gets into a spot of trouble, does it make more sense to have the adjustable horse, responsive like a Porsche, at the rider’s beck and call from the lightest touch, or the horse who knows when to take over and power through to get you safely to the other side?
I don’t have any answers, just musings. :) How’s that for a cop-out?
From my perspective: there’s enough about dressage work that DOES improve jumping, period, end of story – musculature, the development of carrying power, balance and deftness – that no event rider should be without regular dressage work.
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This is a big debate that's raging in eventing circles right now, started, I believe, by Jimmy Wofford who was one of the first to complain about the increasing complexity of dressage tests for upper-level eventing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with it to a certain extent, but you also raise interesting points, especially about the technical complexity of the new upper-level courses. But here's what I've always thought is the difference: yes, you want a xc horse to be as adjustable as possible out there, to be responsive and in tune with you so that you can put in an extra stride or extend a bit between a combination, but what you don't have to worry about in dressage is the extra complications of terrain and background. So say you have a horse approaching a straight up-and-down fence, which in theory you can control the horse's every movement toward. Except - you're outside, and there's terrain, and shadows, and all sorts of things the horse has to think about.
So you need to say "okay, head toward this jump, at this rate" but let the horse pick his take-off because you've walked the course and know there's a ripple in the ground, or an incline, but he needs to feel that and be savvy enough to account for it. And he's going to need to know to adjust himself in relation to the second jump in the combo, even though you've decided it's going to be a one-stride.
I think there are ways to do dressage that keep alive that equine instinct, but that you'll never be competitive in modern dressage following them. I think also that the kind of horse that could be competitive in modern upper-level dressage simply doesn't have the right brain to be a xc horse. So it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My compliant with Jimmy's argument when it first came out is this -- Eventing is about 3rd level dressage. That, in my mind, is when a horse begins to feel really trained. It's not like GP, where the horse needs to be totally with the rider. At 3rd, there's still a bit of discussion going on, and hence that horse should still be more than able to make decisions on the cross country course.
ReplyDeleteSomething I wonder about- what about the horses that have successfully competed in Grand Prix showjumping and Grand Prix dressage? Isn't is possible that some horses can do both? Or don't stadium jumpers ever save themselves?
ReplyDeleteAnd didn't Podhajsky say all the time that he took his horses out cross country?
I evented a little but it was always very low level- but I didn't ride a course the way I would ride a test- just steered and half halted - it felt almost completely seperate to me- like dressage is one thing, and jumping is another- and there are a few things that are the same, and many things that are not.