Don't Leave Points on the Table

After going through the L Program Part 1, it's shown me a lot about how judges judge and why they have the priorities they do.

Dressage has a reputation for being something you can buy high scores in. The nicer the horse, the better the score, even if the training is bad. How many times we see riders on 6 movers lament about being beaten by a rider who is not nearly as good as they are, but who simply has more money than they do to buy a fancier horse. Hi, it's me, I feel like that sometimes. I've already posted about wanting to spend 4-5x what I spent on TC on my next horse to help myself out a bit. I work for every single 8 my naturally 6.5 mover gets. 

And, well. It's true. To an EXTENT. 

The purpose of dressage, the purpose of the entire sport, is to maintain and enhance the purity of the horse's gaits. Literally the point of this sport is to make your horse move with more freedom, suppleness, elasticity, throughness, and so on. And you know what, it's a hard truth that some horses just hit the ground moving like that, of course they do, we breed top horses to top horses to get... top horses. They move an 8 in the pasture while some horses will never score an 8 on gaits even with Steffen Peters riding them. It's kind of a bummer, but that doesn't bother me all that much, it's just the nature of the sport, unfortunately. 

What does irk me most is when I see riders putting in a sloppy test on a 6 mover, THEN complain that a beautiful, subtle, accurate rider on an 8 mover just bought their score. 

Not born moving an 8

So in response to learning that you CAN buy bigger gaits scores, I present: how to not leave points on the table on ANY quality of horse. Until a rider on a 6 mover's collective scores look like this: 

Gaits: 6

Impulsion: 6

Submission 7.5+

Rider position: 7.5+

Rider effectiveness: 7.5+

They are leaving points on the table and blaming the quality of their horse. Poor horse! He didn't decide to be a dressage horse, he doesn't know how much money was spent on him. 

Remember that impulsion <> energy and submission <> roundness
there is way more to it than that

Here are some things riders have under their control on any quality of horse that directly relate to the above collectives.

Subtle Aids

There is no such thing as "effective but not pretty" to a dressage judge. The subtlety of the rider's aids matters, just as much as the effect of the aids, if not more. It should look like the horse is going through the test on their own and a busy rider negates that immediately. 

The biggest place we see this is with wide hands. Wide hands puts the horse onto the forehand, full stop. The horse should be ridden from the leg and the seat into narrow, quiet hands. I forget who told me this phrasing, but "stop fiddle-fucking around with the horse's face" and ride from the leg and seat. I can't tell you how difficult it is to ride with my hands at the width of the bit, did not realize how much I depended on slightly wide hands to keep my horse on the bit (Tracey had me do that by bridging my reins and TC popped right off the bit at first hahahaha oh god).

This is directly related to the rider effectiveness score. Without subtle aids, even an effective rider will have a rider effectiveness score in the 6 range, maybe 7 if you have a very kind judge. To get an 8 or higher, hands need to be together and still, aids subtle and horse obedient. 

Wide hands, oh boy

Rider Position

Rider position includes alignment and stability, sure, we all need to plank more. But it also includes correct following mechanics, which is what I saw the most when I started the judge training. The way the rider sits should not only not bother the horse, it should enhance the way the horse goes. Good riding doesn't just involve absorption of the horse's forces, it involves transmitting forces onto the horse to positively affect the way the horse goes.

Many times we see horses who have been ridden by riders who prevent the oscillation of the neck in the canter. These riders take their 7 movers and turn them into 6 movers over the years, what a shame, I'm currently working with two riders on horses who have been messed with in the canter, it's a long hard road to get them to use their necks and backs again.

The rider needs to follow the horse's head and neck forward and downward with the final beat of the canter. In addition, the hips of the rider need to close on the back swing so there isn't airtime under the rider's seat bones in the moment of suspension when the hindquarters drop out from underneath the rider. More on this next week, as it's a huge focus of the Mary Wanless Workshop this weekend! I'm hoping to snag some videos of myself riding with different mechanics and do a nice post about it. 

Proper alignment, woohoo! I miss Rico sometimes, he was a way
easier horse to train and ride lol

Accuracy of the Test

This is so silly, but worth mentioning. Accuracy goes into both submission and rider effectiveness. It's especially bad if the lack of accuracy makes the movements easier. Riding three loop serpentines like two diagonals (get parallel across the middle), not going to centerline in the counter canter loop, riding a shoulder-in like a leg yield, making circles larger than they need to be, and allowing the horse to slowly come back after a lengthening all make the test easier. The test is designed the way it is for a reason! 

The submission part is important too, if the horse cannot be accurately ridden through the test, that's a problem with the horse's submission. If the rider's aids have to be loud to get the horse to perform the movements accurately... well, we already went over that. Take your time to practice movements! Even just practicing corners helps, set up two poles or some cones to give you a "corner" if you don't have a court. 

Know What's Expected

The number of people on my IG quizzes (@ohwellspotted) who didn't know that the word thrust was in the purpose of the levels for First level surprised me. If you don't have the necessary level of impulsion for First level, it's not going to be a great test. If the purpose of the level is met, the movements should come on easily! Many people go backwards, they put on the movements and assume that the horse is then ready for the test. Try it the other way and get excited when your not-particularly-talented friesian cross gets solid changes put on within 3 months of starting them (guess who did his first "line" of "tempis" the other day with two changes on a diagonal line?). 

Read the purpose of the levels!

Ease of Movements

Any part of your test that you go "oh god this movement again" is probably not one where the judge is going to score you very high. The movements should appear easy to the horse and that's directly written in the submission section. The judge is encouraged to watch how the horse's facial expression looks when the rider asks the horse to do something. Does the horse look like he's saying "omg YES I know how to do this, I am so good at the sideways thing" or like he's saying "oh god oh god not this again, she's going to be SO ANGRY if I don't get this right but I still have no idea what I'm doing."

You can see the confidence in the horse's face and it feels really good as a judge to see a partnership like the former! I'm so excited to give my first 8 on submission/rider effectiveness to a 6 mover, I just can't wait to reward a rider who values the partnership like that.

Make the Movements Obvious

One of the most common things in lengthenings and stretch circles is hearing "not enough shown" and getting a 5 or lower. These are movements that are possible to get 6+ on even if your horse is basically terrible at them. The way my brain works when I'm practicing judging is that if I have to go "wait did she know she needed to stretch on that circle?" is a 4 and if I have to go "oh dear, at least she knows something has to change" then it's a 5. Make sure that the judge knows what you're trying to do. If it's recognizable as the movement, it's at least a 5. If it's meeting the requirements of the movement (read the rulebook!), it's at least a 6, for ANY quality of horse. Straight 6s is a 60%!

Any time you get a 4 on a movement, your rider scores tank. So we need to make sure we're showing the judge that we do know what these movements are, even if they're not perfect. 

Non-Brilliance Movements

Finally, there are two non-brilliance movements that every judge is waiting to give EVERY HORSE regardless of quality a 10 on. 

Walk pirouettes (or TOH for 2nd and 3rd)

Rein back

Go snag your ten on those movements! Or at least get them to be a solid eight. 

This thing halts like crap and it's all my fault

The judges don't see a 6 mover and think "oh what a shit horse, I'm going to be extra mean, especially because the horse I just had in this ring was so much nicer!" Every judge in the program was so excited to see average horses being ridden well.

At no point were they rude or mean about ANY horse, they were just bummed to see mistakes or the rider not riding well. The only time they got irritated is when the rider was riding against the horse, regardless of quality. They never said anything like "well, that horse is just never going to score well" or "maybe the rider should get on something more talented" or what not. It was always like "wow, what a willing horse" or "I love arabs/paints/ponies/whatever, I rode one as a kid..." or "damn they are a great pair, look at how much she's getting out of that sweet horse." 

The judge has to uphold the standard of the sport, which again, is all about enhancing the natural gaits of the horse. So sure, we are encouraged to recognize quality of the gaits and reward it. BUT a horse who scores a 6 when they hit the ground should be able to score much higher on their gaits as the rider carefully develops them using the principles of dressage. And while the rider is carefully developing the horse, they should keep the above in mind to keep those scores up! There's always going to be a better horse out there than yours, but that horse's rider doesn't have to be a better rider than you are.