Advanced Dressage Training E-Book

Angela Niemeyer Eastwood

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

In Advanced Dressage Training, Grand Prix rider/trainer Angela Niemeyer Eastwood outlines the hows and whys of advanced training in a practical, logical fashion, with the aim of helping you to create harmonious partnerships with your horses. Dressage has moved beyond the basics of just riding and training a horse, and now encompasses many complementary disciplines, including psychology. This has always been part of the most successful athletes' repertoires and is now acknowledged as being one of the main contributory factors to excellence in any sport. Technical skills need to go hand in hand with mental commitment, discipline, dedication and resilience. Mindsets can be changed - what is needed is knowledge, support, imagination and perseverance. This book introduces the idea that aids are just that: they let the horse know what the rider wants. When this is understood, the horse should be allowed to do whatever has been asked of him - alone and unaided - until something else is required or the horse needs a reminder. The pursuit of excellence - not perfection - is what dressage is all about. Advanced Dressage Training offers advice and encouragement towards the improvement and development of you and your horse as an advanced partnership, taking you towards excellence in the process.

Leseprobe

ADVANCED

Dressage Training

Medium to Grand Prix

Angela Niemeyer Eastwood with Andrea Hessay

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2015

© Angela Niemeyer Eastwood and Andrea Hessay 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 089 8

Every science and every art has its principles and its rules that lead to new discoveries and to perfection. Why should horsemanship be the only art for which practice alone is needed?

de la Guérinière (École de Cavalerie 1733)

Dedication

To all the horses we have known – thank you.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

The FEI

INTRODUCTION

  1THE HORSE

  2ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, MUSCLES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT

  3THE RIDER

  4THE INDEPENDENT SEAT, POSTURE

  5SADDLES, STIRRUPS, SHOEING

  6THE SCALES OF TRAINING

  7TRANSITIONS, HALF-HALTS AND HALTS

  8WARM-UP – WORK – COOL-DOWN

  9LEVELS: MEDIUM TO GRAND PRIX

10DOUBLE BRIDLES

11FLYING CHANGES

12PIROUETTES

13WORK IN-HAND

14PIAFFE AND PASSAGE

15TRAINERS/COACHES

16CONCLUSIONS: PUTTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER

Appendix: The Talland and Sheepcote Horses, and Hayley Watson-Greaves

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements and thanks are due to the following:

Team Talland, left to AEH; Abi and Charlie Hutton; Pammy and Pippa Hutton; ANE.

The Talland team – Pammy, Pippa, Charlie, Abi and their staff – for their co-operation, time, effort and support.

The owners of Pepe, Sam, Amo, Magnum, Duela, Polly. Details and a biography of Talland are given at the end of the book.

Hayley Watson-Greaves.

The same degree of thanks is due to Hayley Watson-Greaves and her lovely horse WG Rubins Nite for a similar level of co-operation and support. Details and a biography are given at the end of the book.

Sheepcote: AEH; David Pincus; ANE.

To Team Pincus, their staff and horses at Sheepcote, for their time, effort and consideration in helping to make the chapter ‘Work In-Hand’ worthwhile. Details and a biography are given at the end of the book.

Sarah Pook and Top Pride, ISH. (Photo: Oonagh McGibbon)

To Sarah Pook for several photographs, taken by photography student, Oonagh McGibbon, at Sarah’s home in Hampshire during one of Angela’s clinics there.

Kevin Sparrow, official photographer at London 2012.

To Kevin Sparrow for the photography – as always. There is also photography by Andrew Griffin, Oonagh McGibbon, Andrea Hessay and Angela Niemeyer Eastwood (credit given where applicable).

To Olympic judge Peter Holler for taking the time to write the foreword.

We would like to acknowledge and thank the FEI for permission for us to reproduce excerpts and quotations from the FEI Dressage Handbook – Guidelines for Judging and the current FEI Rule Book 2014/15.

We would also like to acknowledge and thank British Dressage for permission for us to extract information and rules from the current British Dressage Rule Book 2015.

Foreword

In 2011 German dressage judge Peter Holler was awarded 5* international O-judge status, making him eligible to judge at the Olympics. ‘Of course it is something very special for me,’ Peter told Eurodressage; ‘I think it shows that people appreciate the expertise and engagement. It is a challenge, but, as dressage is my passion, it is a really great thing.

‘I have a very interesting and engaging working life as a PR consultant based in my home town of Koblenz in southern Germany, where we specialize in marketing, human resources and industry, which brings together my journalistic and academic sides. My second life, so to speak, is as an FEI dressage judge, clinician and trainer for which I travel worldwide.

‘There are many excellent books on all aspects of dressage. However, there is a continuing need for knowledge and understanding in our modern horse world as the traditional horsemen and women disappear from the stage. This book presents an up-to-date treatise on the theories and practices in modern dressage thinking and training, without losing the perennial basics that have stood the test of time.

‘It stands out in its efforts to really explain the why, what and how that are involved in the further education of advanced horses and riders; the sequence photographs in the book bring these aspects to life in a most useful way. It is with great pleasure that I recommend Angela and Andrea’s second dressage training book, Advanced Dressage Training, to you.’

Peter Holler

Peter Holler, FEI Olympic judge.

Preface

Life is not the sum of time spent but the experiences gathered – and experience is what you gain just after you need it!

Unknown

When we embarked on our first book, Understanding Dressage Training, we had no idea of the sheer hard work, mental and physical, involved in translating knowledge and experience gained over many years into words and images that would have to stand or fall on their own merit for years to come. This time we did know what to expect and we still did it! Writing turns out to be quite addictive when you are as passionate about a subject as we are – dressage in all its aspects is still something that stirs our respective souls.

In the fifty-plus years in which we have been involved with dressage, the sport has exploded exponentially, and these days FEI-level classes of upwards of thirty are quite normal, while at international level it usually takes two whole days to get through the Grand Prix. Discussions about whether or not the Grand Prix tests should be shortened to take account of media and spectator interest are currently underway. This is unlikely to impact on Rio 2016, and the two sides are implacably opposed at the moment. Only time will tell the outcome and, as ever, there are pros and cons to be considered.

Breeders are producing more and more amazing horses with often breathtaking paces, and the best riders can produce extraordinary results from such mega equine stars. However, in order for less talented riders to cope with such horses there are some rather dubious training methods out there, so our plea is for riders and trainers to keep the welfare and well-being of their horses at the forefront of what they do.

Along the way many people have specialized in dressage, some almost from the cradle, and a whole generation has grown up without the broader knowledge of equestrian sport that used to be the norm. This brings its own challenges, as riders no longer necessarily have personal knowledge of how to produce a competition horse, in peak fitness, and what that involves. The Pony Club, the Riding Club, hunting, eventing and so on, used to provide that information, which now has to be learned from books, magazines or professional yard owners. There is nothing essentially wrong with this, but it can sometimes mean that a deeper relationship with the horse is harder to achieve, and the result can be that signs of potential trouble are not always noticed early enough.

Our book does not cover equine care other than from a training perspective, but there is a wealth of accumulated knowledge out there that would enhance any equine/human partnership – and it is often that depth of knowledge that makes the difference between an average partnership or an amazing one.

Psychology has always been part of any athletic competition, often subliminally, but these days it is acknowledged as being one of the main contributory factors to excellence in any sport – indeed in any of life’s ambitions. They say that you can plan to fail, or fail to plan. Either way, you have talked yourself out of a positive outcome before you start. Technical skills need to go hand in hand with mental commitment, discipline, dedication and resilience.

Mindsets can be changed – what is needed is support, imagination and perseverance.

We have tried to explain the whys and wherefores of dressage training to advanced level as we understand them. Many have done so before us, and many more will do so in the future, but something that could be said more often is that aids are just that: they let the horse know what the rider wants, and when this is understood, the horse should be allowed to do whatever has been asked of him – alone and unaided – until something else is required or the horse needs a reminder.

Finally, for your own sanity, that of those around you and that of your horse, remember that the pursuit of excellence is what dressage is all about – not perfection! It takes more than one human lifetime to really understand how to train horses and, by the time one might have a few answers, it is time to move on to the next world!

Our hope is that this book contributes another piece to the jigsaw that is equine training.

A and A

Note: We have given horses and humans the designation ‘he’; this is for simplicity only and does not signify any slight against the females of either species.

Our riders have been very generous in showing good and less good versions of some movements, to illustrate a point in the text – so please do not be too quick to judge!

Laura Tomlinson, Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester on their lap of honour at the London 2012 Olympics.

The FEI

The Fédération Équestre Internationale is the international equestrian governing body, and all official international competitions are subject to FEI rules.

The following is an extract from one of the most often quoted articles from these rules:

Article 401 – Object and General Principles of Dressage

The object of dressage is the development of the horse into a happy athlete through harmonious education. As a result, it makes the horse calm, supple, loose and flexible but also confident, attentive and keen, thus achieving perfect understanding with the athlete (the rider).*

These qualities are demonstrated by:

Freedom and regularity of the paces

Harmony, lightness and ease of the movements

Lightness of the forehand and the engagement of the hindquarters, originating from a lively impulsion

Acceptance of the bit with submissiveness/throughness (Durchlaessigkeit) without any tension or resistance

FEI Dressage Rules 2014/15

Team GB at WEG 2014. Left to right: Gareth Hughes, Charlotte Dujardin, Michael Eilberg, Carl Hester.

The victors at WEG 2014: Charlotte and Valegro with Alan Davies.

*Bold type and parenthesis are our additions.

Introduction

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

Stephen Hawking

The front cover of Understanding Dressage Training (published 2011).

We hope that you are interested in this book because you have already seen or read our previous one, Understanding Dressage Training, or, if not that one, then other books that have helped to take you as a rider/trainer to medium level and now you are aiming for Grand Prix. Whether or not you are interested in competing, perhaps you have some knowledge of what is expected of an advanced horse and rider combination? If so, perhaps we can expand that knowledge even further. If not, we hope that you will find the content of this book educational.