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The Geometry of Dressage (H/J's also!!!)

http://www.eurodressage.com/equestrian/2013/11/24/classical-training-geometry-dressage

Classical Training: The Geometry of Dressage | eurodressage Training Your Horse, In my first ever lesson with Portuguese dressage trainer Miguel Ralao Duerte, he pointed out one very fundamental weakness to my daily training. Riding everyday in a very large riding hall, I was using the space like a massive scrap book that I could doodle around in as I saw fi...

Another good read

http://www.sustainabledressage.net/collection/false_collection.php

::: Sustainable Dressage - Collection & Its Evasions - False Collection & Evasions ::: We strive for collection. In dressage everybody talks about collection. There are whole books written on the subject. But what is it? Well, views differ. And for what it's worth, here's my view on what it's not, and why. False collection.

One is just as bad as the other...

Absolute Elevation – The Sister To Rollkur The controversy of rollkur within the world of dressage is not a new one. Also called hyperflexion, it is the practice of forcefully pulling a horse's head into an extreme low, deep and round posit...

I so agree with this!

Riegler is annoyed by "Nose in front of the vertical !"

"Often the horse is just ridden with nose in front of the vertical because people want to see it - and can demand it !"

The former Chief Rider of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and coach of several top riders (like Dorothee Schneider), Johann Riegler, explains in Dressage Sport in Germany with clear words on the topic: "Nose in front of the vertical" :

"What annoys me is that you only hear everywhere: 'Nose in front !'
It depends on the length of neck, which is important. The neck is the balance bar of the horse and the attitude of the neck must fit to the body.
If I have to raise up the neck of a young horse in an unnatural way, just because I have to meet the desired expression "nose in front", then I educate the horse to be blocked in the back. This way the horse gets behind the legs.

You must consider from which work that the nose in front, in combination with the poll in the highest point, is the result : is only out of extreme collection, if the haunches are correspondingly bent and the hindquarters receives all the weight ! Then it fits all together, if the nose in front of the vertical.

But this has only to be put together when it is time and the horse is ready. Often the horse is just ridden with nose in front of the vertical because people want to see it - and can demand it ! This is completely exaggerated and not adjusted to the horse. Anyway, people have a tendency to exaggerate. Whether the back of the horse gets blocked, hardly anyone is able to see it."

*** An interview with Hans Riegler. Check out the November issue of Reiter R***e International, that appears the 16 October.