PRE/ Iberian horses and Classical Dressage

28/03/2024

Happy Easter everyone!
In yellow and purple lights Master Rafael Soto and Invasor performing parts from their fantastic GP Freestyle from OS in Athen 2004, added with some Spanish walk, enjoy! : )

Get your FREE eBook at http://www.academic-art-of-riding.com24 november 2007 - Paris BercyLes 4 Ecoles d'Art Equestre Real Escuela Andaluza del EquestreRafae...

10/02/2024

A must read, Pedro Torres at Equitana 2018 - Working Equitation to Dressage .., enjoy! : )

“Then I started to think in a different way. How can I get the feeling a little bit faster? Otherwise I have to wait until I am sixty years old! Then I started to learn techniques, like I would ride for many minutes with my eyes closed. Because when you close your eyes, the other senses wake up. It’s a bit like blind people, they can listen better, feel better. This is when I started to think, okay if I close my eyes, my body has to understand the movement, and if I understand the movement and the balance, then I don’t have to be so strong. I can help in the correct moment, because if you help in the correct moment, you don’t have to be so strong.”

(...)

https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2018/11/pedro-torres-working-equitation-to-dressage/?fbclid=IwAR3eCku2YeW2aZ4vaTY04w9UjWCreqKmeq4ZUe9k4-rMKy6RqI6caj1YV2Y

Pedro Torres – Working Equitation to Dressage… Posted on November 23, 2018 by horsemagazine I’m going to the Pedro Torres Masterclass at Equitana with all the warning bells ringing loud and clear in my ear. When I first met Pedro a decade ago, he was World Champion of Working Equitation, an ho...

31/12/2023

Happy New Year! * ¡Feliz año nuevo! * Onne Année! * Ein gutes neues Jahr! * Gott Nytt År * Onnellista uutta vuotta! * Annum faustum! * Gelukkige nuwe jaar * Gelukkig nieuwjaar! *Godt nytt år!

24/12/2023

* Feliz Navidad * Merry Christmas* God Jul * *Fröhliche Weihnachten *Joyeux Noël
We wish you all a Happy Holiday with lots of PRE/ Iberian horses and classical riding!
Åsa & Tango BRH

08/11/2023

Interested of the horse biomechanics? This is a great article who explain the connection between the sling muscles and self-carriage, enjoy! : )

"Unlike the human shoulder girdle where the collarbones (clavicles) attach the arms to the body, a horse has none. Without a collarbone, a horse has no bony connection between its front limbs and trunk. Instead, strong muscles connect the inside of its shoulder blades to its rib cage, which act like slings and suspend the chest between the horse’s two front limbs. The 'sling muscles' consist primarily of the serratus ventralis thoracis muscle assisted by the pectoral muscles.

Contraction of these sling muscles lift the trunk and withers between the shoulder blades, raising the withers to the same height or higher than the croup. When a horse travels without proper contraction of its sling muscles, the horse's motion looks downhill and on the forehand.
(...)

The sling muscles are extremely important to the self-carriage of the dressage horse. The goal in dressage training is to teach the horse to use its sling muscles throughout the workout. With time, these muscles get stronger and the persistent elevation allows the horse to push and hold its hind legs under the center of gravity through its motion to be even more pronounced and uphill.

The toning of the sling muscles increases with a rider who balances the shoulders throughout training while also balancing with half-halts. This raising of the frame, if balanced correctly by the rider, will allow those muscles to become stronger and more elastic and aid in the horse learning to hold its own frame.
Riders tend to think crookedness comes from the back and hind legs of the horse. However, it is the horse’s serratus ventralis thoracis muscles and its shoulder blades that also play a role in the crookedness equation. Since a horse is stronger on one side than the other, it allows one shoulder to fall in on a turn or drift out on the other, depending on the stronger or weaker side.
“These muscles,” Clayton explained, “fan out from the shoulder blade onto the ribs and on to the vertebrae at the base of the neck. When they connect they raise the withers so they emerge into a higher position between the scapulae and also raise the base of the neck.”

https://www.swannequineosteo.com/blog/2017/12/5/equine-biomechanics-research-the-significance-of-a-horses-chest-sling-muscles?fbclid=IwAR16dmIZRk6nbgGiG_r7rwv25dKO396sLVzINDemuqjPYUXc4_M57bY8s6M

Below is a fantastic article written by Betsy LaBelle detailing Hilary Clayton's recent research; it makes very interesting reading and I apply these concepts to my treatments. Nice to see that osteopathic ideas are being backed up by research! Seventeen years of collecting data on gait analysis fo

03/04/2023

A great article with Master Rafael Soto - It’s all about the balance, enjoy the read! : )
“It’s all about balance, like life. What is life, it is balance – and you need to find the balance when you are riding. Show the horse, this is the balance you need to have, and now I will let you do it. And the horse realizes, oh I can do it. This is what makes a horse beautiful to watch, he is so natural that it looks as if the horse is doing it alone.”
(...)
“When I watch people ride, often they overdo the straight lines, straight and go and go and go. I don’t know what they are searching for? Thirty times straight lines, for what? The horse has no balance on the first, the second, the third or the last time – come on, do something. Every step you make with a horse should be for something. My work is more intense, short and a break, intense, short, and a break. Not so long and boring, one round after another, always the same – I am warming up – he doesn’t need so much warming up. Let him free in the paddock, suddenly he is in balance, he doesn’t need such a long time to warm up his muscles.”

https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2018/06/rafael-soto-its-all-about-the-balance/?fbclid=IwAR1uwuoGwyU1SHnQK-G991RSlndLKEzuHIKohc9-tehvGmSW_hB6Nwm_Lng

Rafael Soto – It’s all about the balance Posted on June 12, 2018 by horsemagazine Words by Christopher Hector & photos by Roz Neave It’s easy to put people in neat little pigeonholes, as in, Rafael Soto, oh yes, the Spanish guy, master of in hand work and piaffe… Well yes, Rafael is all of t...

18/02/2023

Pura Raza Española in a Rolex advertisment from 1993

24/12/2022

* Feliz Navidad * Merry Christmas* God Jul * *Fröhliche Weihnachten *Joyeux Noël
We wish you all Happy Holidays with lots of PRE/ Iberian horses and Classical riding!
Åsa & Tango BRH

10/12/2022

Just so wonderful, a little Christmas video with the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse by Charlie Mackesy

26/09/2022

Interested of the horse biomechanics? This is a great article who explain the connection between the sling muscles and self-carriage, enjoy! : )
"Unlike the human shoulder girdle where the collarbones (clavicles) attach the arms to the body, a horse has none. Without a collarbone, a horse has no bony connection between its front limbs and trunk. Instead, strong muscles connect the inside of its shoulder blades to its rib cage, which act like slings and suspend the chest between the horse’s two front limbs. The 'sling muscles' consist primarily of the serratus ventralis thoracis muscle assisted by the pectoral muscles.
Contraction of these sling muscles lift the trunk and withers between the shoulder blades, raising the withers to the same height or higher than the croup. When a horse travels without proper contraction of its sling muscles, the horse's motion looks downhill and on the forehand.
(...)
The sling muscles are extremely important to the self-carriage of the dressage horse. The goal in dressage training is to teach the horse to use its sling muscles throughout the workout. With time, these muscles get stronger and the persistent elevation allows the horse to push and hold its hind legs under the center of gravity through its motion to be even more pronounced and uphill.
The toning of the sling muscles increases with a rider who balances the shoulders throughout training while also balancing with half-halts. This raising of the frame, if balanced correctly by the rider, will allow those muscles to become stronger and more elastic and aid in the horse learning to hold its own frame.
Riders tend to think crookedness comes from the back and hind legs of the horse. However, it is the horse’s serratus ventralis thoracis muscles and its shoulder blades that also play a role in the crookedness equation. Since a horse is stronger on one side than the other, it allows one shoulder to fall in on a turn or drift out on the other, depending on the stronger or weaker side.
“These muscles,” Clayton explained, “fan out from the shoulder blade onto the ribs and on to the vertebrae at the base of the neck. When they connect they raise the withers so they emerge into a higher position between the scapulae and also raise the base of the neck.”

Below is a fantastic article written by Betsy LaBelle detailing Hilary Clayton's recent research; it makes very interesting reading and I apply these concepts to my treatments. Nice to see that osteopathic ideas are being backed up by research! Seventeen years of collecting data on gait analysis fo

20/09/2022

Take your time to read this great article about bend, straightness and balance by the International GP-rider and trainer Felicitas von Neumann-Cosel which can be seen riding the PRE stallion Aragon GAF in the pictures, enjoy! : )
"Almost everyone has come across these comments from judges or trainers: “Too much bend in the neck.” “Not enough bend in the body.” “Shoulders are falling out or in.” “Loss of balance in the corner.” “Need more angle or too much angle.”
The common ingredient that would help solve these problems is the understanding of how to develop a horse who can bend equally in both directions without losing self-carriage and lightness, in order to be able to maintain balance through a turn or lateral movement.
A horse who is bending properly has to flex laterally in the poll and neck while keeping the neck centered between both shoulders. He has to pick up his rib cage on the inside without bulging too far out to the outside. His jaw, shoulders and hips will align with the line of travel, almost like a little shoulder-in and haunches-in at the same time. A horse who is uniformly bending gives the appearance of having a curved line throughout his body. The famous sentence by dressage master Gustav Steinbrecht “ride your horse forward and straighten it” relies on the rider’s ability to create relative straightness through curved lines."

https://dressagetoday.com/instruction/how-bend-affects-your-dressage-horses-straightness-and-balance/

International dressage competitor and trainer Felicitas von Neumann-Cosel explains this important piece of the training puzzle.