A friend told me they have to beat a horse to make it a dressage horse like Romney's.

[pwb]

Does anyone know if that is true?. If so it helps explain the dog on the car roof. Seems to me if elected that is how the Romney's will treat all of us, poorly like they do there animals.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Highly Trained Lippazaner stallions

are not beat , but if Mitt treats animals anything like people ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipizzan

[eShirl]

2. How would your friend know this?

It sounds like BS to me....

[Larkspur]

3. You don't beat any horse to make it an athlete

The upper class dressage horses have been trained since they were born.
Dressage in essence is about getting the horse to bend within a frame and use its hind end to support itself. That's not a horse's natural way to carry itself, but it is not abuse. It teaches a horse to use its natural power to carry itself and its rider it a balanced way. The horse's hind end has the most muscle mass and therefore is the power base for the horse.

Dressage maneuvers were initially devised to make the horse a valuable war weapon by European armies and calvaries. That's why its roots are 400 plus years old. Horses were the tanks of the ancient and Medieval worlds.

Today, dressage is essentially to horses what ballet is to humans. The famous Lippizaner horses of Austria practice dressage.

[magical thyme]

10. dressage in essence is about creating complete harmony between horse and rider

From a physiological training perspective that means first, restoring the horse's natural balance and carriage when the front end is loaded with the weight of a rider, and second shifting the load more the hind end to duplicate a horse's natural carriage and movements when excited. The idea of "getting the horse to bend within a frame" is modern and backwards thinking. The appearance of the rounded "frame" comes as a side effect of the shift in balance to the rear, and is best not viewed as the primary intent. Every trainer -- and I mean every single one -- that I've ever seen put the "frame" as the goal makes the fundamental error of being in the "push-pull" school which has been taken to the extreme of its own kind of abuse in the rollkure. It really reduces the quality of the outcome significantly, even at the Olympic level.

The goal of harmony is to replicate a horse's natural balance when they are "performing" on their own, but at the request of, and under the additional weight of, the rider. Every classical movement, from the most basic to the high school level, including piaffe, passage, pirouette and all the airs above the ground, is based on horse's natural behavior and can be viewed in the pasture by the more sensitive, warmer breeds. I have a photo of my elderly arab gelding doing a beautiful canter pirouette at liberty. He also used to passage a lot. My young arab mare shows passage and potential for piaffe in pasture. I've even had a horse that did beautiful half passes in pasture, playing with me. If you watch them at play when young, you can get a really good idea of where their natural talent lies.

From an education perspective, it is about language and communication: from teaching the horse the basic aids (go forward, stop, go left, go right), through progressively increasing nuance to include forward, but not too much forward, or forward into backward (or up in the case of the above ground airs), or forward plus left or right, or forward but bend your spine into the direction of the movement.

Likewise, the aids begin as somewhat crude and visible, such as using a wide, direct rein to point the horse's head in the direction you want to go, and then as the aids are combined in increasingly more sophisticated complexes, to indirect reining. Until they become, with a really good pairing of horse and trainer, totally invisible to the outside eye.

Horse's can feel a mosquito walk on their body. There is no need to see riders hands and/or legs moving at all. They can feel every bit of a rider's muscle tension and, properly handled, can appear to be doing dressage under a rider on their own or feel like they are responding to your thoughts because even as you think what you are going to do, you're body begins to prepare for the aid, which they feel and respond to.

[ThomThom]

14. thanks for the post

ever one should know a horse
special animals

[KurtNYC]

4. The wealthy are VERY concerned with appearances and details

Empathy is hard to come by in the world of Prince Romney.

[orpupilofnature57]

5. Apathy is their goal.

[Lefta Dissenter]

6. if ridden and trained correctly

Dressage horses are physically sound much longer in life than in any other riding discipline. Sort of like humans doing Pilates all their lives.

[magical thyme]

7. your friend knows nothing about dressage.

No, you do not "have to beat" a horse to make it a dressage horse. In fact, the purpose of dressage (which is just another word for education) is to create harmony between horse and rider, i.e. to replace abuse with mutual understanding and good communication. I am a lifelong horsewoman, and dressage has been my passion for nearly 50 years.

The historical center of classical dressage training, The Spanish Riding School of Vienna, opens every training session to the public, in front of a full audience. There is no beating, no abuse, not even raising of voice, whatsoever. The arena is silent; trainers and the audience speak in whispers. The young horses *are* outnumbered with 2 trainers to 1 young horse, but that is as much a practical and safety matter as anything, with a dozen or more young stallions learning the basics in close quarters. (I even saw one young horse escape his trainer in the crowded arena! Everything was handled quickly, quietly and calmly...with the other trainers either stopping in place, and adjacent trainers surrounding his horse so he couldn't run loose, which cold have resulted in serious injury to both horses and trainers. It was so quick and quiet I almost missed it, and most of the audience did!)

Do some dressage riders and trainers beat their horses? Yes. Just as with any other horse discipline (western, hunt seat, saddleseat, driving, not to mention racing. haven't you noticed them hitting the horses at the end of each race, trying to get more speed?). Not to mention people beating their dogs, children, spouses, etc.

Are horse people "tough?" Yes, you have to be. Handling horses is not for the feint of heart. There are times when you must make yourself "bigger" than whatever has your horse's attention at the time, for safety's sake.

To put things a little in perspective, if you watch a herd of horses interact, they discipline their young and establish the herd pecking order through nips, bites and kicks. That is language they learn as foals, grow up with and understand.

Also, a 1,000 pound horse kicking another 1,000 pound horse is one thing (but at point blank with full force, can break the other horse's bones). A 1,000 pound horse kicking a 150 pound person is a different thing (can easily break bones). A 150 pound person hitting a 1,000 pound horse is a very different thing (full force with a crop can raise a welt, but not do any real injury except to the psyche. full force with your hand will hurt your hand more than the horse).

Some times a young horse can get frightened and/or out of control, very quickly. However, any hitting *should* be disciplinary, and should not result in injury, or welts, or pain. Just an attention-getting, wake up call, for safety. Say a horse stands on your foot; I promise you will not sweetly ask the horse to move over. You will do what is necessary to free your foot before it's totally squashed. It usually involves yelling and smacking the horse (which makes a lot of noise and hurts your hand, but doesn't hurt the horse).

Unfortunately, there are those who don't get that and do hit for the sake of hitting, hit because they don't know how to guide or teach, hit until they raise welts. That is true in any discipline. They may or may not call themselves dressage trainers, but they are not trainers. They are abusers.

[Ilsa]

8. I vote yours as the best and most complete answer.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I learned a lot. I was skeptical of the friend's claim in the OP.

[pinboy3niner]

9. +100

This OP really should be self-deleted.

[malaise]

11. Excellent post

Thank you

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Great information. Thank you.

[riderinthestorm]

12. My husband and I are pros in the dressage and eventing business.

I have nothing more to add to magical thyme's posts about dressage except that every movement you see dressage horses perform under saddle is something they perform naturally in the wild.

Every movement.

Furthermore, you can't "beat" any horse into performing at the level that Ann rMoney's horses are performing. Virtually any horse will quit long before you get those kinds of results if its because of being beat - they'll lie down, rear up, become violent at being tacked up, they won't leave the stall or be caught outside in turnout - they have a hundred ways to thwart a trainer whose abusive.

Dressage is an old "art" like fencing that's practiced by virtually everyone who rides since its the foundation of trust and harmony. At the rMoney level, yes, its big bucks but for most, its their sport and can be done relatively inexpensively. The sport thrives because of the big money owners, riders and trainers keeping this ancient art alive (and as a pro in this biz, I appreciate that) but it really is accessible to just about anyone who wants to become involved with horses.

[Arugula Latte]

15. Not true. I took riding lessons with a dressage expert when I was a kid.

It's actually a more humane of training a horse -- much better than yanking on their mouths and using cruel bits the way a lot of Western style riders do. You give them very subtle cues with your legs, seatbones, and subtle rein pressure. They yield to it.

When you look at dressage riders, their movements are almost imperceptible, but they are cluing the horses nonetheless.