One of the huge advantage dressage riders have in Germany is that they – and their trainers – all work along the lines of the German Training Scale, a sophisticated guide to the training of a horse that not only sets out the exercises to be ridden, but why you use those exercises, and when. This series, created with the assistance of Australia’s most successful dressage trainer, Clemens Dierks, will introduce you over the next six issues to the elements of the training scale: Rhythm, Losgelassenheit, Contact, Schwung, Straightness, Collection.
The training scale in a sense is a progression, working from the simplest to the most complicated requirements, but this is not entirely true, since elements from further along the scale are required to achieve the aims of the earlier principles. It should probably be seen more as a matter of emphasis.
To achieve takt or rhythm, the first step on the scale we obviously need to have a certain degree of acceptance of the bridle, a degree of straightness, and in its most elementary form, even a degree of collection. In these early stages the rider is developing the horse’s power to push, to propel his body, later as the work becomes more sophisticated, we develop the power to carry. This progression occurs not only as the horse’s training progresses over a period of time, but within each working session.
Remember when we are talking about rhythm, we are talking about the natural rhythm that is suitable to that particular individual. As the handbook of the German FN, The Principles of Riding – Book 1, notes:
‘To achieve this, the rider must ride the horse forward evenly, with an elastic but still and deep hand. ‘Forward’ does not mean ‘faster’. In a faster tempo the horse would be running and would break his rhythm. ‘Forward’ means engaging the quarters and asking the hind legs to actively propel the horse’s body forward. The regularity of movement in all three paces is the foremost objective in this phase of training.’

‘Takt’ not ‘rhythm’, there is a difference. The German word is takt
and the definition is ‘beat’ – beat is the clarity of the steps

In the wonderful book he co-wrote with Coby van Baalen, the German master trainer, Johann Hinnemann remarks:
“If a horse ever starts making rhythm mistakes and moving unevenly the rider should immediately return to easier work so that the horse can find his rhythm again. Rhythm is the foundation of movement and never should be compromised – not for one second.”
Let’s join Clemens Dierks in his little gazebo perched above his outdoor arena, as his wife Judy starts work on her latest star, Frontier – a four year old gelding by Falkrich, and bred by another German who has made Australia his home, Gerhard Quast.
“The first thing is ‘takt’ not ‘rhythm’, there is a difference. The German word is takt and the definition is ‘beat’ – beat is the clarity of the steps, rhythm is more an identical uniformity of the strides. I explain to students that a lame horse can have perfect rhythm if it repeats its lameness perfectly, but the steps are not clear – not a clear four beat, or two beat or three beat. Takt is the word; beat is what you look for. The horse with good takt is very hard to find – they really stand out when you see them.”
Can we make takt?
“We can un-make it. A lot of people ruin the takt of the beat by riding too fast, by over-riding, by interfering with the natural paces. Horses have takt by nature, but riders interfere with it by trying to create it. If you have a good horse, you have it, you can only lose it…”
So what is Judy doing with this young horse now?
“She is walking him, forwards, downwards. Not as long as some would like to see, but with our horses we try from the beginning to get them through the neck, through the poll, over the back, so they can stretch forwards down and go on the bit and into the bridle from behind. When they give the feeling that they want to stretch a bit, we allow that. Walking gets them going, it lubricates the joints, it’s an essential part of the warm up.”
At this point Judy comes to a perfect square halt – how did she do that, she didn’t seem to do anything special?
“Yes she did, she made a very little adjustment before the horse was able to stop wrong, she gave him a little touch up on the inside hind leg.”
Now Judy has started to bend the gelding, asking for a little travers, a little half pass, still in walk. As Clemens explains, this is an aid to achieving that first aim:
“Travers and half pass in walk, these movements free up the walk and helps them to get very beautiful four beat walks. If you have a horse with a tendency to a lateral, two beat, walk, this is one way to fix it. If you have a horse that is inclined to be lateral in the walk, do a lot of half pass walk, because they can’t do it in half pass, they have to go into four beat.”
“It is very important the distinction between the rhythm and the beat – look at this horse see how he has to put down each foot individually, he cannot do it any other way.”Judy has moved on to a relaxed rising trot:
“Just a nice rising trot with a very nice beat, with the tendency to stretch forwards downwards, the next step on the scale is losgelassenheit – you can see this horse is a bit fresh, he is holding himself a little, it is not yet loose enough - that comes in time. Watch for the rhythm, the swinging over the back. If you are a calm rider and can sit properly, then the horses will relax, by keeping them in this steady beat, you can create the next step.”
“This horse is still looking around, he is looking at Roz taking photos, he has a bit of nerve, he is not a dumb horse. Right from the start we are working to get the hind leg up and under so that the horse goes forward, to the bridle from behind, trying all the while to get the feeling that he likes to stretch forwards and downwards.”

Where is the horse getting the rhythm – from Judy’s seat?
“The horse is maintaining the rhythm because Judy can sit within the rhythm. You can’t ride rhythm into a horse – they have it – you can only ruin rhythm by bad riding. When you let them loose in the paddock, you see that they are quite nice. When you ride because there is an argument here or there to get the frame or whatever, you can get bridle resistance and that can create unevennesses, and the loss in the rhythm and the tempo. Only a totally submissive, loose horse can really show perfect rhythm.”
It was time for canter…
“We are still just warming up. There must be a very clear three beat, and a nice moment of suspension in the canter. A lovely big canter with the hind leg stepping under. They have to find the self-carriage and balance, it all takes years. Some horses have more pushing power; some have more power to take weight. The power to carry, to take weight, comes with work – the power to push also comes with work, but some horses find it easy to carry than push. Like this horse could carry weight, it is a big horse, he maybe finds it more difficult to push, so we have to work on the hind end.”
Why do we see so many four beat canters?
“That’s just riders, they don’t keep the horse active enough, when they collect they don’t use their seat, they bring the horse back from the front instead of closing the horse up from behind. Some horses have more talent in the canter than others but basically they go as well as you ride them. Even with a horse that has a natural tendency to four beat canter, with good riding you can improve that, bad riding you make it worse. This first work is just gymnastic body building work, then we are ready to move to the next stage, losgelassenheit.”
Next month – in the Horse Magazine – Clemens Dierks talks about the second principle in the German Scale, Losgelassenheit…

“Straight lines and on a circle, a lot of them will drop in one way, and I feel you have to wait until they are going straight and a little relaxed before you can put your inside leg on and teach them to stay away from the inside leg and all that business. Relaxing, not wanting to run away taking the bit. I like to get them to go walk, trot and canter on a loose rein, now they still might be dropping in on the circle, but if they are going on a loose rein they are starting to relax, as long as they are not grabbing the bit.”
Alas for us, we were not able to follow Craig's advice, thanks to a combination of the wet weather hitting Upper Pakenham in a big way, and Vanda being heavily involved in her uni course. So Rupert had his spell, and when the arena dried out enough to work on it, some gentle lunging to introduce him to the new way of going.
Roz and I have always been great fans of the lunging line - it is a way of shaping a horse where you are 100% concentrated on the horse, you don't have the distraction of having to worry about your position, and he doesn't have to work out what the person on his back is doing. We feel that until the horse will happily give his back and go deep and round and loose, there is not much point in putting a rider on his back - especially as the very fact that a rider is on his back is likely to encourage him to go upside down.
As you can see, Rupe was very upside down. Roz lunged him in the loosest of side reins at first, and then gradually tightened them so he would not hit the bit and give himself a fright. Once he was comfortable in the side reins, she switched to running side reins (Vienna side reins), that encourage the horse to lower his neck and raise his back. Of course the crucial factor in all of this is that the horse must be going forward all the time. Tying them up in a stable just teaches them to back off and drop the bit and that will cause problems further on in the training program.
Rupert took quite some time on the lunge before he even thought about letting go and softening and going round. He would put his head down for a quarter of a circle, then back up in the air in chook position, then investigate the chances of going low again, up again, that's horses. We just kept quietly poking along until he worked out how much more comfortable it is with his neck down low and his body free and swinging. Roz worked him at first for just ten minutes, because this sort of work is quite hard, building up to twenty minutes, and making sure she equally divided the time to the left and the time to the right - but only after he was comfortably going forward on the lunge. At first, it is better to work them just one way until they really get the idea without confusing them by asking them to go the other way.
After looking at him work in the running side reins, we felt that he was still feeling a bit restricted even when he went low, so we switched back to the ordinary side reins, and he seemed much more comfortable when he did go low, and more likely to stay there, so we gave up on the running side reins and just stuck with the ordinary old side reins.
Hopefully in a month or two, when Vanda has finished her studies for the year, he will be ready to go into some serious work…

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