All of the elements of the Training Scale are evidenced and promoted by the excellence of rider Charlotte Dujardin’s seat schooling uppermost level exercises in a snaffle bridle.

Thanks to BHS Honorary Fellow Carl Hester for narration.

So who invented the dadgum Dressage Training Scale, anyway? Where did this pyramid of concepts come from?

Equestrian literary academics note that the Training Scale originated in turn-of-the-20th century Germany, and was first recorded in a 1912 German army training manual, refined in later editions, and adopted and incorporated into the German National Federation’s guidelines for riding and driving. Now the Training Scale is the foundation of every national federation’s educational endeavors.

As Dressage becomes increasingly popular around the globe, wee (sic!) practitioners continue to attempt to demystify it. For decades, Americans have grappled with understanding of German words that have no English equivalents, often blaming our misunderstandings on having read ‘bad translations.’ When verbalizing my own understanding of the Training Scale, I find it easiest to rely on definitions published by horsemen far more learned than myself, whom I will quote ad infinitum when, eventually, I flesh out the outline of my own fascinations.

Subconsciously contemplating that timeline-less project an early morn surfing the net, it dawned on me who really invented the Training Scale. Striding out before my very eyes came THE inventor of the Training Scale, exemplified here in the first 45 seconds of this excerpt from “Welcome to Flyinge,” youtubed by FlyingeStud (SWE):

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Even an untrained eye will recognize the intrinsic beauty of this spectacle. Rhythm, elasticity, unconstraint, balance, self-carriage, an ebullient desire to move forward, engagement, throughness, straightness, and elevation of motion are the expression of celebration of the day by this three week old foal.

This is the ideal to which is compared, 10 or 15 years later, a mature riding horse when it is judged in the sporting rectangle. This is the everyday Olympic ideal to which we compare our progress in the process of conserving each horse’s spirit and developing each horse’s innate locomotive abilities and qualities.

It is our horses who invented the Training Scale, and who teach it to us.

August 25, 2011. Last Saturday in Rotterdam, Adelinde Cornellisen (NED) and Jercich Parcival won the European Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle Championship with an 88+ score, a talling 4% closer to the ideal 100% than nearest contestants Carl Hester(GB) and Uthopia and Patric Kittel (SWE) and Watermill Scandic. Seven Judges, presided by Fourhage (NED), scrutinized each footfall  of 15 performers, awarding scores above eighty to eight of them, and scores above 70 to all of them!

How did Cornelissen and Parcival prevail?

Parvcival’s Freestyle test which was delightfully choreographed to accentuate  Parcival’s transitions between movements, as well as the movements themselves.  Having no errors to the last line, compared to her nearest competitors, but only somewhat inferior qualities of motion, Adelinde passaged the CenterLine to D where she piaffe pirouetted 360 degrees right, then reversed to piaffe 180 degrees left, and passaged the centerline to X, halted and saluted! Audio-visual recordings of the performance sound respectfully hushed gasps, gushes, sighs, and squeals from the gallery, 90 degrees into the left sweep. I, too, was thrilled, and so not surprised by the score.

Apparently Cornelissen and Parcival have been doing this freestyle for a while; they’ve got it down pat. I read that she is planning a new Kur for London 2012. I wonder what her choreographic collaborators could invent that will get higher scores for use of the arena, degree of difficulty of the movements, music and interpretation. But, of course, it is the exercise of imagination that makes freestyle so much fun.

But, good as Cornelissen/Parcival got, other tests deserve close scrutiny…

Carl Hester rode relatively young —ten-year-old —-stallion, Uthopia, to brand new bespoke music, and exhibited three excellent gaits, in the required GP variations. ALL of the best qualities of motion are intrinsic to, and, thus far, retained in this horse. Although the judges are not supposed  to consider the rider’s position and seat, correctness and effect of the aids, as in other FEI tests, Uthopia could not have danced this test so gracefully without a rider; Hester’s contact is exemplary!

But there were the three little glitches:  irregular step in the first passage/piaffe transition, one too large canter pirouette, and an over reaction from the horse to half-halt influences causing momentary loss of forward motion, each of which cost technical points. And the degree of difficulty of the movements was modest, as it should be for such a young horse. I am looking forward to seeing this horse get a little stronger, and this combination become a little more confident in each other. Uthopia is a star still rising!!!!!!

The judges were right about the bronze, too, from what I can see. Although I have not been following Patric Kittel and Watermill Scandic—I was put off by the blue tongue episode–I do like the way this man sits a horse, and I am pleased by the cadence of this horses motion. This is a more mature horse, 14 I think, and so stronger and more confident. The horse seems to be genuinely enjoying himself. The quality of the horses motion is, however, less than ideal, by the fact the horse’s back is down, by which I mean concave to the rider’s seat, rather than up, as would permit the more desirable flow of energy from the horse’s haunches, across his back, through to the poll. Still, the performance is foot perfect, no irregularities. So ‘Scandi Man,’ I heard Patric call him, deserved every point and the bronze medal he garnered.

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Surfing around the videos embedded above and watching other combinations’ tests at the European Champs can help all of us train our eyes. There is much to learn.

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Yesterday, I was schooling a novice horse, on near perfect footing, in falling rain, when he snorted at me. We had each other’s attention…I continued to listen and heard his ‘oil can’ precursor of schwung, and soon, the softly emphatic rhythm 1-2-1-2-1-2-… of cadenced working trot. We made much of this ….

Then, cleaning tack, I thought to revisit d’Endrody, and to republish this essay of yore:

“Well, Some of Them DO Talk”

Several years ago, I began handling and then stabilizing a former flat racer for I knew not then what other sports.  I noticed the very first day I put my hands on The Saint that he reacted to many of my motions, and often to my voice, with a snort. These snorts were not the snorts of a horse startled from grazing by a child passing in the lane on a bicycle, or the defiant snorts of a herd leader to the newcomer, or the snort of a fit horse who, upon being turned out on a chipper morning, throws up his head and exclaims before moving off to inspect the far of the field. These were low, soft, kindly snorts.

At the time I thought that the horse was telling me of his curiosity, surprise, bemusement, or disdain. But then horses don’t talk to people, only to each other, right? As his new surroundings, my motions, his tack, and clothing became familiar and then routine, the snorts subsided, and I forgot them.

As he progressed to lungeing on voice commands in the indoor hall, and I realized that, as he would go to the limits of the line to loosen up before I attached long reins, he was snorting again.  These were not look over the shoulder, snort, buck up and snort sort of snorts that celebrated a modicum of freedom, or the kick out and snort sort of snorts of a prankster. This horse would walk calmly away from the chambriere, increase the diameter of his path, bend his neck inward, make eye contact with me, and snort a few or several times while remaining entirely calm at walk and trot.

With the indoor hall otherwise silent, I would hear him snorting while he watched me prepare a grid for free jumping.  Of course I thought he was just blowing dust out his nasal passages, or that he had a minor allergy to winter mold.  Or… was this horse saying “Ah, time to get on with playing our games, eh?”  It did seem so, but then horses only talk to each other, not to people, right?

Soon I noticed that upon my first carrying tack to his stall front racks, but before I opened his stall door, The Saint would leave his hay, turn about his hindquarters toward me, lower his head, and snort.  sometimes he did this before I said anything to him, and sometimes soon after I greeted him with, “Hi, Snort!”

So, I was in my library one evening, ruminating about all this snorting. I was fascinated. Knowing that they would at least not laugh (out loud) at me if this was beyond the cutting edge, I considered faxing Equus to ask whether they knew of research on horses trying to talk to people (without being prompted by a pin prick.)

But I became distracted by the need to complete an assignment. So I looked over drawings on the drafting table, and then reached for A.L. d’Endrody’s Give Your Horse A Chance to verify the formula for the distance between two elements with ditches in a combination on a cross-country course to be ridden at preliminary speed. Opening to the index to find that table, my eyes became riveted upon “Snorting…147”.   SNORTING!  What was  d’ Endrody’s concern with snorting? Could I resist?

Actually beginning on page 146. I read:

“Creating of suppleness in the horses behaviour

The secret or producing suppleness is to obtain the horse’s understanding and willingness to obey, since the state of its body depends mainly upon the quality of its mental apprehensions.  The more successfully the suppleness of the animal’s mentality is attained, the more readily does it offer the suppleness of its body.

There is an interesting and convincing proof offered by the horse itself of the validity of this statement.  Horses often give an audible sign when they are changing from opposition into submission by starting to snort kindly.  The rider can best recognize this phenomenon during loosening exercises or regulating procedures at the moment when the change in the horse’s general behaviour [sic] sets in.  It is evident that this ‘talking’ is the expression of a mental function, thus the relaxation of the body, which the rider can perceive simultaneously with the snorting, must also be a direct result of the animal’s mental function.”

Of course I read further and with heightened respect for this authority who wrote about horses ‘talking’ in 1959.

Next day, I arrived at The Saint’s stall as he was sipping his water bucket.  Without waiting for him to finish his drink, I greeted him with “Hi, Snort!”  Then before my very eyes, he raised his chin from the lip of the goblet, stepped (or maybe only leaned) back, flexed his poll, and snorted. Upon my saying softly to him “Well aren’t you somebody?” he resumed drinking.  He snorted to me a few more times while we prepared to go to the indoor to play our games.

I don’t know whether this horse was really talking to me, d’Endrody wrote that some of them do. But I’m sure going to keep talking to horses… and listening.

“If dressage is about anything at all, it is about equine locomotion.”

I don’t remember having ever before felt separation anxiety from a thing…much less a book. But last week, soon after I delivered Charles Harris’s Workbooks from the Spanish School 1948-1951 back to the local Inter-Library Loan portal, I realized I was afflicted. I’d had use of…was possessed by …. Workbooks for two months. The effects of my reading it, re-reading it, pondering it, sorting it, re-sorting, now writing about it, are simply profound. My riding, the qualities of motion of horses I ride, and the competence of riders I influence is undeniably enhanced by this, my first interlude with Charles Harris. It recalled for me so much that I forget I know to practice.

I have to tell you about this book.

Although JA Allen did earlier publish three Charles Harris manuscripts, including a photo essay with Colonel Charles Hope  and Charles Harris self-published a pamphlet, Riding  Safety and Riding Negligence, Harris penned those works intending them for publication and distribution.

Charles Harris himself never intended his Workbooks for publication, but only for recording his lessons, insights and intellectual ruminations during his three years of study in The Spanish Riding Academy of Vienna, which we now know ( and I personally revere) as the Spanish Riding School, or SRS, for his own use, to facilitate his own learning, and for later review.

But by the sagacity of Charles Harris nephew, attorney Robert Sherman, who, not himself a horseman, got to know his uncle so well by audio taping conversations between them during Harris’ waning years, the publication of Workbooks, prefaced by Sherman, foreworded by Daniel Pevsner, FBHS MSTAT Pupil, The Spanish Riding School of Vienna, complemented by a 90 page biography comprised mostly of transcription of the taped interviews, and including all 681 notebook entries with reproductions of Harris’ own pen and green ink drawings and diagrams, was accomplished.

The foreword by Daniel Pevsner states that Harris’s focus, as his career progressed, became riding safety. I note that few entries in the Workbooks are concerned with safety. But surely Harris was surrounded with, made aware of, and adopted, safe handling and riding practices at The Academy.

If a theme is to be drawn from the Workbooks which, I repeat were never intended for publication, it is that “if dressage is about anything at all, it is about equine locomotion.” Harris, already a Fellow of the BHS when he entered The Spanish Academy, became fascinated with the analysis of horses’ gaits, including how a rider’s way of sitting on a horse affects a horse’s gait, not only in the moment, but trains an affected gait.

Harris finds himself disabused of the precept that a riders shoulders should parallel a horse’s shoulders and and a rider’s hips should parallel a horse’s hips  on arcs and in lateral work, as they do when traveling straight. He realizes that any twisting of a rider’s spine impairs “bracing the rider’s back” and that concussion of the horse’s motion, absorbed by a twisted rider’s spine, damages the rider’s spine. Instead, the rider’s shoulders and hips should parallel the ground and be perpendicular to the radius of the arc of the horse’s spine above the horse’s center of gravity.  Many entries explore technique and timing of bracing of the back, to move with, rather than to “follow,” a horse in Free Forward Movement.

In his analysis of gait, he was especially bemused by gait tempo.  He  attempted to sort through the concepts of tempo in relation to rhythm, pace, and cadence, and evidence in the Workbooks is that he never figured out tempo. Or cadence.  I don’t think less of him for this failure…He was a Brit immersed 24/7 in a school where no other human being, except a single fellow student, spoke English. (period)  And, it occurs to me while listening to From the Top on NPR as I type, that he had no musical training, from which lexicon he could have drawn correlative concepts. The failure to realize that tempo is merely hoofbeats per minute, might not even be a failure. Maybe, at the “uh….duh!” moment, he simply failed to record in the Workbooks this discovery.

I did not find myself enthralled by the good luck, bad luck, good fortunes, misfortunes, and controversies of his life as decanted by his nephew-biographer.

But I loved the anecdote of Harris visiting his protegé Pevsner at the studio of no less than Nuno Oliviera where Pevsner was studying while awaiting his own admission to the Academy:  Harris arrives, thrilled to advance his own knowledge in the hall of renownded master Oliviera, joins the gallery, and is so excited by what he sees that he can’t keep his mouth shut…and voices his complimentary insights to other observers. Oliviera cannot hear what Harris is saying, and if he could, might not have understood the languages in which Harris spoke, but is annoyed by Harris’s engagement of the gallery…His, Oliviera’s gallery. So Oliviera challenges Harris to get on a horse and demonstrate his riding competence. Or to “put your butt where your mouth is,” I have heard other  horsemen say. Well, Harris had traveled without riding attire, and upon divulging this, was offered a pair of boots, into which he horned himself, but no breeches. In travel pants, legs already throbbing from ill-fitting boots, Harris mounts the horse presented, and proceeds to walk it about the school, on loose reins, chatting with the onlookers and occasionally stroking the horse. As the story goes, his introductory cues to the horse were invisible to the gallery, and no one seemed to notice that the loose reins had become long reins, then the lightest of contact, or that the horse was moving magnificently, still at walk. So the gallery becomes impatient, vocally impatient, and friend Pevzner says something like…”ok Charles, it’s getting late, you don’t have to prove anything to me. Let’s go to dinner”…which Harris seems not to hear…as the horse walks from a corner to the center of the school where, to the amazement of all those still looking, the horse joyously piaffes, perfectly balanced, invisibly cued, absolutely correctly, for untold strides, after which the horse walks purposefully onward. Disgruntling Oliviera to call out “I trained that horse!” to the hushed and now mesmerized audience. (QED, I would have whispered, paatting the neck of my partner in proof.)

The 681 entries of the Workbooks fascinated me. Of course they are a jumble; Student Harris records his lessons and insights in the order in which they are presented to him, by his instructors, the horses, and the environment, and/or the lights go on for him. But I knew I was on good footing immediately upon reading entry #1, which I failed to record verbatim, because, since my own first introduction to the concept of clarity of gaits, I have held high among all absolute equestrian truths, that a horse’s diagonal canon bones move parallel to each other in natural (as differentiated from artificially affected) trot, in all modulations of natural trot, at all variations of tempo of natural trot of which an individual horse is capable. Harris’ entry #1 is focused on parallel diagonal canons level with opposite parallel diagonals at extended trot. With a pen and green ink abstract diagram to illustrate! First entry, and the editors and publishers swear in writing that this is the order in which the entries were made in Student Harris’ notebooks. And, that’s where I left the green silk ribbon bookmark when I returned the book.

Earlier this week, I was still feeling separation anxiety, when the results of 2011 Aachen Dressage were disseminated, including youtube videos of both Steffen Peters astride Ravel and M.A. Rath aboard Totillas.  I was not surprised to read (and hear) that the spectators at Aachen, the best educated Dressage spectators in the WORLD, whistled for 75 seconds to sound their disapproval of the judges scoring Ravel second to Totillas in the finale Kur. Did the College of Judges hear them? I don’t know. I trust the College of Judges will get the message…eventually, if not by London 2012, hopefully by Deauville 2014.  I was, nevertheless, feeling compelled to weigh in… to post and critique the videos of Ravel’s and Totilla’s tests against our ideals, but was distracted by the needs of horses I steward.

Coming back to this issue ( oh, how I hate that word, issue, in this context. Doesn’t that mean a progeny of a marriage? a child? or a foal?) I decided to go surfing. And soon before my eyes appeared a stunningly superb example of nearly ideal trot, by the body of…really?.. an Orlov’s Trotter ridden by Russian Young Rider Alexandra Korelova in Grand Prix testing at Aachen 2009.

So, toward better understanding of the ideal, I offer this video of Balagur. Actually the horse’s canter is also quite nearly ideal. But I must say that the collected and extended walks are disappointing, not enough, if any, overstep at extended walk, and not through, although still clear, in collected walk. Walk performance gets double coefficient by current rules, as they should, so that’s good enough reason for this performance to have not scored  80. But the trot, collected and extended, passage and piaffe are exemplary, and the canter is right up there!

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Following is excerpted from the current  journal chronicling development of one riding horse.

The Reader deserves a Decryption: SI=Shoulder-in, LY=Leg Yield, HI=Haunches-in, HP=Half Pass, RB=Rein-back, PSG=Prix St Georges, F&D=Forward and Down

AND a note about the nomenclature of lateral movements: Lateral movements are described directionally by the direction of the ‘center’ of the bend of the horse executing the movement, NOT for the direction. So, SI,HI, HP right are named right because the horse, while moving right, is bent right. LY right is named right because, although the horse moves left, the horse is bent right.

5/23… I awoke this Monday to read of a tornado that took out half of Joplin MO and as yet uncounted lives, looked toward the dome of the Basilica, and prayed. And a forecast of “chance of rain after 2pm” Yeah right, I thought, the forecasters are to be trusted, Mother Nature is NOT, at least not this Spring. During breakfast, I youtubed Jeremy Steinberg taking clinic with Klaus Balkenhol in California…beautiful background…then another in which he schooled a PSG horse named Hallmark at Gladstone. There, Jeremy was working independently, it appeared, and schooling trot transitions as an expanded shakule (see-saw) of….collected trot to collected walk a few strides emphasis on walk clarity…to collected trot…several times….to trot to halt to rein-back to canter…back to trot to collected to SI to lengthened, to SI to HP to SI to medium. And all so tactful I can barely see JS influence except his lower leg moves appropriately and timely. (JS and Hallmark go on to canter work) I intend to do a similar trot shakule for SS. And to use canter to continue the restoration process of the canter itself and refresh for trot work. Will be judicious about the walk….warm down with walk and forward and down at trot!

Plan made, hamper and tack packed, I scurried of to give instructions enroute my own horse…trying to stay ahead of Mother Nature.

A few hours later, arriving at HM stable, I expected all to be well. Yesterday was his rare ‘day off’ in which I hand walked and lunged him in a large paddock, and relished the elasticity, the rippling quality of his loosened muscles in motion.

And all was well. HM was anxious to get the bridle on his face and we cavorted on nearly perfect footing through tree pollen laden breezes. The warm-up was usual, although the early canter was not as forward and fluid as I would have liked. I dropped stirrups to do the trot work, conscious of tactful influence, and I was able to sit back and UP through several minutes of trot shakule, which lacked for consistent tempo. In canter work with stirrups I asked for single changes and they came begrudgingly and late. And while doing the change exercise, he stuck out his tongue again. ( He started sticking his tongue out a couple of weeks ago, and after an oral inspection showing no problems, I removed the flash, and have been observing but otherwise tolerating this silliness since) I showered him as the wind came up, and squeegied him off, and set fair while the barn lights flickered through a torrential downpour intermittent small hail driven by a fierce straight liner from the West. (at 1pm, I noted). Much affection offered by horse at my departure directly into the blinding rain. To get to the next horses, on the west side of the storm… west from whence it came…on time. There to find horses and riders “Ready.” Upon arriving home at dusk, I noticed that an awkwardly trimmed silver maple had been “shaped up.” Only to find a huge trunk had been removed,  carried east and deposited firmly between the shed and belfry of my neighbor’s carriage house. Oh, Mother.

5/24 Yesterday’s rain left water standing on the outdoor courts, so I hand walked on agreeable footing for a few minutes while awaiting use of the indoor gym. Eventually astride, HM was already somewhat loosened and tuned in and ready to bend and stretch. The lateral exercises at walk are getting better, one day at a time. The trot warm-up was frustrating; he seemed to be dragging his feet. Then I realized he was carrying himself quite well, feeling his way around and through the unevenly deep footing. Although I want more animation and up-tempo, I accepted his ‘horse sense’ and took the time to let him gain confidence in where he would be putting his feet.

Canter warm-up easier and earlier. SS objected to walk canter depart, even to the extent of anticipating and objecting before the depart cue. … I think the tongue wagging and walk-canter depart resistance are related…we will work through this. Trot lateral work still not through, resistance to throughness HP right. Canter changes clean but each required two cues, rather than one. I need to make more clear half halts, if only as seat corrections…and keep him up hill. Although he did wag his tongue, not so much, and LOTS more after I dismounted…I think he does not want to drool now that one salivary gland is open. Need to get the other salivary glands open. The indoor felt like exercising in a doused sauna, we were glad to walk back out into the shaded breezeway.

5/25 My own instructions this morning came from Katherine Haddad, via blog on The Chronicle website…in which she says a lot of useful things about instructor-student relationships, including agreeing with me that clinics are more challenging for clinicians. Of course, she does NOT say they are potentially disruptive to a horses programmed progress unless clinician and rider counsel thoroughly, verbally.

I continue to ponder her discussion of flying changes:

“Let’s say I have Student A, Student B and Student C in a clinic. They are all amateur riders with a good basic seat on well-trained horses capable of third level. All three students are having trouble riding flying changes.

Student A needs to hear:

“Listen to the timing of the canter. Hear the rhythm of one-and –two, and one-and-two, and one-and-two. Your aid comes on the “AND.”

Student B needs to hear:

“Ride counter canter across the half diagonal. At the centerline, stay relaxed and touch his belly with the left spur.”

Student C needs to hear:

“Kick him! You’re not asking for a change at all. Your spur never touched his skin. Don’t be afraid of his reaction. He knows his job. So ASK him!””” From The Chronicle of the Horse website May 24, 2011, Katherine Haddad

Some students have trouble with the “AND”…which AND? I muse.

Thunder storming this morning… more water outdoors, so HM will need to bend and stretch indoors, today on a lunge. Midday the air was heavy and still, making it difficult for any of us to want to do anything. From the barn I went to my office,  left the tackmobile outside. While I did ever multiplying administrative chores, up came a tornado with hail documented to be as large as softballs, grape fruits. And trashed the trar. Thanks, Mom!

5/26 Thursday already! After riding two others, I got to HM by 11a. Only to find him ‘edgy’ beyond fractious, verging on cantankerous. So many changes in air pressure are unsettling to us all, horses and humans alike. So I took the time to give him a massage and found spasms in surprising places, spasms likely caused by reactions to thunder, lightning, and hail on a steel-roofed and -sided stable, maybe even the reactions of his stable mates to those conditions. Fortunately, I had an hour in which to rub out the spasms, close the massage, and watch his reactions to being tacked, which elicited a myofascial release oriented rub of his head before bridling.

Under saddle, just we two indoor gym, he was playful, incited by  cool brisk air flowing through open doors and jalousies, and hyper-alerted by an invisible, but audibly recognizable terrier (his terrier, the one with whom he curls up for naps in the straw—-yup, puppy’s back to horse’s belly, nostril to nostril) complaining and voicing alarm about who knew what outside. SO I took advantage of HM exuberance, and rode forward. He was immediately impulsed in walk warm up, and shying and bolting and scooting from any excuse, so I put his mind and body to work, required lateral work very soon, and it got pretty good. He trotted out with immeasurable impulse, great activity, a wonderfully swinging back. Canter was quite acceptable. So for trot work I did J Steinberg’s trot shakule exercise, and got the most “through” trot HP yet, BOTH directions.

The canter and counter canter were good, the changes not so good. I was curling forward rather than staying up to permit the change to come through from behind, I was not nudging outside into a softening inside rein as I should;  I had failed to correct my own seat after riding defensively through the terrier alarm. The second walk-trot-halt-rein-back shakule was useful. I concentrated on lengthening and shortening without changing tempo. I’ll do more of all of this in coming days…and I will ‘watch myself ride’ tomorrow! As fractious as this horse was, today’s was a most exhilarating and progressive ride!

5/27….Arrived yesterday a borrowed copy of Charles Harris Workbooks from the Spanish Riding School 1948-51 in which I have read only a few pages of his biography, penned admiringly by his nephew, and the first few of 675 (!) entries of the CH’s notebooks accompanied by superbly draughted pen and ink sketches. It’s amazing that focusing on one only most basic element of seat, I found myself today sitting so much better that I and all of my rides were amazed, liberated, animated, enhanced. This book is a treasure! HM was delighted! The highlights of the work were canter plie to half pass to plie to flying change, and all were good both directions. Then some highly impulsed, very uphill collected and medium trot. In my mind my emphases were first on my lower body: open hip, bottom of thighs heaviest part of leg, maintaining passive contact with calf, upper body erect-as if a puppet hung from above to mix metaphors with Sally Swift, pecs up, eyes anticipating inscription of each figure.

Lots of figures…just the basics but lots of them. And square and even body in all executions. Then I spent some more time in trot shakule, trying to clarify the difference between bigger strides and faster strides. We are not doing so well at that, yet.

And still, HM has a busy and unhappy mouth….thinking of lowering the bit one hole next ride. He’s just been ridden four of the last five days, and he was not unhappy to see his saddle today, or his bridle. So I should keep this pace as long as both our skins remain intact…as summer cometh.

I’ll read more Charles Harris in the next few days…nap next.

5/28/11 Breakthrough…actually a whole week of breakthroughs for HM.

I was hesitant to saddle HM today… During his comeback from rehab, he’s been ridden only every other day, getting stronger and becoming more elastic, week after week. Ready to move-up,  I have ridden him on Mon and Tues, lunged him on Wed, and ridden on Th and Fr…and so it is Saturday, and the forecast is that Sun, Mon and all of next week will be 70 to 93…and humid.

The good horse was at peace with himself, standing square, and craning his muscular neck into the aisle way, looking only a little surprised when I carried his saddle to the rack. Was totally easy in the groom stall. This morning was still temperate, so I Rolfed his head, tacked and strode to the indoor, outdoor still too wet. I no sooner closed the door when the groundskeeper’s trailer rumbled into the courtyard, and the neighbor’s kennel announced annoyance to no one but a single, unaffected stable worker. Luckily I got astride before they revved their engines…and began pummeling the outer walls of the gym with mower expulsions and weed whips. They were totally unaware of our being within, and I was not about to dismount and try to get their attention through the din. They wear earplugs and safety glasses, I and my horses do not.

The walk started out extremely collected and cadenced, if not brave, but immediately even contact. After 1 1/2 circuits each direction, I asked for LY, and out of leg yield came big swinging long medium walk on even contact! and so contact and my own position as recently tutored by CH, were the theme…and more canter than trot, as reminded by Lendon Gray and Debbie McDonald via Dressage Radio this dawn, and again good canter plie-HP-plie>changes clean and clear both directions. And many good clean changes at 10 and 12 stride intervals. I will eventually shorten those intervals as HM becomes stronger and more confident and through the changes, but need to plan a way to do that around too many jumps indoors. It will be easier outdoors.

In trot I felt more motion coming from behind and through his back, sooner. I played with alternating sitting and rising… as frequent refreshment of schwung. The medium trot became more uphill, and I was able to keep an uphill frame in medium and collected walk interludes.

I saw the wagging tongue in the first counter canter left lead, but was not conscious of it later. The wonder is that when I dismounted, I saw significant thick foam evenly on BOTH sides of SS mouth. Soooooooo…either the flexions at the poll are coming naturally and producing the salivary foam, OR the other saliva glands have unclogged…In any case this is the best foam I have EVER seen from this horse. Next is to get both my legs into such a consistent passively adhesive position that I produce lather under my calf. I have to keep working on my seat.!!!!!!!!

5/29 Arrived last evening Britta Schoffman’s 2007 Klaus Balkenhol: The Man and his Training Methods translated by Reina Abelshauser for Trafalgar Square. I’ll review and take notes. Scanning, I have already found, on page 44, what is, even out of context, one of my favorite quotes of all time: “Most alleged ‘innovations’ aren’t really new but were actually dismissed as useless centuries ago.”  

HM was under saddle 5 of the last seven days. A good enough increase of intensity. It was already 84F @10:30am  and there was no electrical power the neighborhood of the stable.  (Mother Nature, what have you been up to this morning?) The only available footing was a fairly steep paddock of adequate dimension. So after battery-powered barbering in the breezeway, bandaging and booting to lunge, we used that paddock for walk and trot only. It was interesting to see HM offer four modulations of walk in each circle he made…the drama of the extended walk downhill was breathtaking. I prayed he did not over-stretch anything. It took a little encouragement to elicit a real working trot…wanted to not step hind into fore print. That particular paddock is just steep enough that even working trot was a lot of hind end work, even for this increasingly strong horse. So I did not ask for canter at all. HM was enthusiastic to graze clover without flies…the vinegar and dish wash detergent actually works, so far, this season. Then I hosed his old injury sites, scrubbed his coronary bands and applied antiseptic ointment. I hope I don’t have to use that footing often.

Siesta with Charles and Klaus now…then dead-head the garden.

5/30 Memorial Day…the electricity in the office blinked off for a minute at 6am and curtailed my reading reports and forecasts. (Again this morning, Mother Nature?)  Tack cleaned and stirrups reversed…temperature zooming, though blessedly breezy from the south…I struck out early to instruct before students’ barbecues, then to ride mine. HM looked great, and I was mounting in the already too firm upper court while the Barn Manager was turning horses to the accompaniment of howling curs, an open mare screaming for company in the front field. Simultaneously, the driver of an empty stock trailer  stopped to admire His Magnificence, then bumped noisily out the rutted lane. All combined making for just enough audio madness to cause HM bolt and dive soon after I was astride.

Then to unwind with LY which connected inner leg to outer rein, each direction, followed by walk modulations. HM was not thrilled by the footing, but I believed it would be ok for his degree of conditioning, so when in trot warm- up he ignored my forward aids, I tapped the whip on his rump from the left …he bucked, I asked again for forward…and got it. That lesson was done for the day. Canter warm-up was forward and upward about the perimeter, with some canter forward and down to stretch the topline. Seems to have worked.

The first work was lateral in both trot and canter. In trot: LY, SI, HI, then HP-SI-HP-SI. more nearly even in both directions. In canter, plie-HP-PL-HP-PL….three times before asking for a flying change. Both directions. o my delight the horse was more through his topline in HP trot both directions, and more up and through and buoyant in HP canter both directions. I do not remember asking for CC today.

Next work: without stirrups, sitting trot with SI, lengthening and shortening, refreshed with canter with forward-feeling departs from trot and what felt like good schwung. Then shakule walk with straight backing. And a long walk to warm down.

I saw NO tongue wagging at all. But only a tiny bit of saliva on both sides. Causing me to wonder “had I been so handsie that he was unable to hang from the poll?”

Riding without stirrups, and with left stirrup accidentally  shorter than right, is good therapy for my own left leg.

Tomorrow’s, Tuesday’s footing, if outdoors, will be even harder…so I don’t yet have a plan. Must play it by ear.

5/31…Hot, but still breezy, and footing still firm, not hard. HM was pleased to be saddled, audible sigh as I settled the saddle and attached the girth. When I removed his halter, he began contracting and stretching his face and under-neck muscles through the pecs, beyond the girth. And seemed he would have continued this self-administered exercise indefinitely, had I not reached for his bridle, to which he then turned to grasp.  Although the upper court was relatively calm, he was hesitant of the footing. After inspecting the margins, I made a long sweep of LY right, which got the left rein contact, followed by a long sweep of LY left, which got the right rein contact, then forward several strides of collected walk, which got him chewing, to a long strided free walk which accelerated the loosening. Then some SI, and HI, and HP each direction at walk, into a medium, uphill walk, from which we trotted. The earliest strides of walk were more impulsed than they have been, and today I used the same sequence of lateral and longitudinal contracting and stretching in trot as I had just used in walk, quite effectively.

In today’s canter warm up I included counter canter spirals, with increasing collection in decreasing diameter, and vice versa and the entire exercise better to the right than left. Also forward and down in canter both directions. Although canter F&D served to stretch- “open”- his neck and raise his back a perceptibly, I did not feel it was coming forward from his tail as I would like.

The walk work interlude of shakule included rein back, collected, medium, and extended walk emphasis on uphill attitude. I did not include 1/2 pirouettes today. Canter work included plie-HP-plie…repeated three times to a clean change…did this both directions twice today, and was not quite as good as the day before- the canter itself did not maintain buoyancy.

We indulged a few minutes of free walk during which I reviewed the preceding. Then I dropped my stirrups and did a shakule at trot that included collected, medium, halt, rein-back, and some trot ‘half steps’.

The shakule’s tempo is improving: this horse is increasingly able to lengthen and shorten his frame without changing speed. I’ll continue to consolidate this exercise, and soon start to use it at canter.

As denouement to shakule, I regained my stirrups and encouraged F&D to the ground in a long rising trot….followed by a segment of medium, uphill sitting into a halt. The went for a trail walk to warm down.

I was not aware of this horse’s tongue even once today. But neither did he foam. I am thinking tomorrow’s ride will focus on refinement of half halts. Tomorrow, I’ll change from unflashed “D” to a flashed loose-ring.

Waiting for the sun to rise, I surfed into this sumptuous promo. Thinking past the medium as message, the horsemanship is magnificent.

Several years ago, I began handling and then stabilizing a former flat racer for I knew not then what other sports.  I noticed the very first day I put my hands on The Saint that he reacted to many of my motions, and often to my voice, with a snort. These snorts were not the snorts of a horse startled from grazing by a child passing in the lane on a bicycle, or the defiant snorts of a herd leader to the newcomer, or the snort of a fit horse who, upon being turned out on a chipper morning, throws up his head and exclaims before moving off to inspect the far of the field. These were low, soft, kindly snorts.

At the time I thought that the horse was telling me of his curiosity, surprise, bemusement, or disdain. But then horses don’t talk to people, only to each other, right? As his new surroundings, my motions, his tack, and clothing became familiar and then routine, the snorts subsided, and I forgot them.

As he progressed to lungeing on voice commands in the indoor hall, and I realized that, as he would go to the limits of the line to loosen up before I attached long reins, he was snorting again.  These were not look over the shoulder, snort, buckup and snort sort of snorts that celebrated a modicum of freedom, or the kick out and snort sort of snorts of a prankster. This horse would walk calmly away from the chambriere, increase the diameter of his path, bend his neck inward, make eye contact with me, and snort a few or several times while remaining entirely calm at walk and trot.

With the indoor hall otherwise silent, I would hear him snorting while he watched me prepare a grid for free jumping.  Of course I thought he was just blowing dust out his nasal passages, or that he had a minor allergy to winter mold.  Or… was this horse saying “Ah, time to get on with playing our games, eh?”  It did seem so, but then horses only talk to each other, not to people, right?

Soon I noticed that upon my first carrying tack to his stall front racks, but before I opened his stall door, The Saint would leave his hay, turn about his hindquarters toward me, lower his head, and snort.  sometimes he did this before I said anything to him, and sometimes soon after I greeted him with, “Hi, Snort!”

So, I was in my library one evening, ruminating about all this snorting. I was fascinated. Knowing that they would at least not laugh (out loud) at me if this was beyond the cutting edge, I considered faxing Equus to ask whether they knew of research on horses trying to talk to people (without being prompted by a pin prick.)

But I became distracted by the need to complete an assignment. So I looked over drawings on the drafting table, and then reached for A.L. d’Endrody’s Give Your Horse A Chance to verify the formula for the distance between two elements with ditches in a combination on a cross-country course to be ridden at preliminary speed. Opening to the index to find that table, my eyes became riveted upon “Snorting…147”.   SNORTING!  What was  d’ Endrody’s concern with snorting? Could I resist?

Actually beginning on page 146. I read:

“Creating of suppleness in the horses behaviour

The secret or producing suppleness is to obtain the horse’s understanding and willingness to obey, since the state of its body depends mainly upon the quality of its mental apprehensions.  The more successfully the suppleness of the animal’s mentality is attained, the more readily does it offer the suppleness of its body.

There is an interesting and convincing proof offered by the horse itself of the validity of this statement.  Horses often give an audible sign when they are changing from opposition into submission by starting to snort kindly.  The rider can best recognize this phenomenon during loosening exercises or regulating procedures at the moment when the change in the horse’s general behaviour [sic] sets in.  It is evident that this ‘talking’ is the expression of a mental function, thus the relaxation of the body, which the rider can perceive simultaneously with the snorting, must also be a direct result of the animal’s mental function.”

Of course I read further and with heightened respect for this authority who wrote about horses ‘talking’ in 1959.

Next day, I arrived at The Saint’s stall as he was sipping his water bucket.  Without waiting for him to finish his drink, I greeted him with “Hi, Snort!”  Then before my very eyes, he raised his chin from the lip of the goblet, stepped (or maybe only leaned) back, flexed his poll, and snorted. Upon my saying softly to him “Well aren’t you somebody?” he resumed drinking.  He snorted to me a few more times while we prepared to go to the indoor to play our games.

I don’t know whether this horse was really talking to me, d’Endrody wrote that some of them do. But I’m sure going to keep talking to horses… and listening.