THE HORSE MAGAZINE

Next out was a lesson for a young local instructor Biata, and her Prix St Georges horse...
Prix St Georges is a big step for a horse – the end of childhood and the beginning of being real?
“I think it is a big difference because of the tempe changes and the pirouettes, everything goes much faster for them. Many riders who have not ridden Prix St Georges before, forget to use the short sides to prepare the horse.
When do you like to start riding the movements of Prix St Georges, at what age?
“Some in 7, some when they are 8, but at least they must do secure flying changes, and the three gaits must be clean and loose. They must be able to do the half passes – then you can start. I mean you have already started with a 6 year old, shoulder in and travers, so they are just the tempi changes and the pirouette that makes it different. If the rest is easy for the horse, you can put these new things into the plan.
The horse you were working with this morning, that is an 11 year old horse?
She started this year to ride Prix St Georges. She has been working with me for one and a half years. She comes once a week, once a fortnight. We had to fix the flying changes so that they are easier, because she had to work too much with her upper body and her spurs, so that the flying changes, were not the same to both sides, and the horse was jumping to the side and not straight. Today I was trying to get the horse with more pressure in the trot, but still loose. She is a rider that sometimes I really have to yell at her to wake her up. The horse is a little bit relaxed, and she is a little bit relaxed – she should take more risk when she rides the trot exercises. In the walk, the walk pirouettes, showed us the same thing we saw in the canter pirouettes, she was not giving enough half halts, and the horse was not secure enough, he wasn’t turning the front legs around the hind legs, he was just turning in the middle. She just let the horse go – she didn’t have the control.”
How do you start to teach the pirouettes?
“First the horse must be in front of your inside leg and you must get the control on the outside rein, so that the horse is turning on the outside rein, and giving to the inside rein, so you can be soft with the inside rein and not obstruct the horse. Start by just asking for a quarter turn, so you keep the control. What she was doing was a three quarters turn instead of a half, she did the same in the walk, she didn’t control the horse so she over turned in the walk pirouette, and she did the same thing in the canter pirouette. So I think it is better just to do a quarter pirouette, and keep the control, and do another quarter pirouette, with maybe one jump more, then you can come out of the turn early enough. You could see it in the right canter pirouette, she didn’t give enough half halts on the outside rein to collect the horse, she just started in nearly working canter and then wanted to turn, so therefore the horse was too stiff with the hindlegs. It was not collected enough, with enough bend in the hocks so he was able to keep on jumping in the pirouette. She just pulled him back – he was stuck with both legs, nearly broke one! You cannot do a pirouette like that, we have to train on the circle to get the feeling for the canter for the pirouette.
The sequence changes – how do we start to introduce them?
Just some on the diagonal, without counting, and when they have quality like a single flying change, then they can keep on going to the four and to the three tempis. But she got so excited counting for the four and three tempis, that she lost the feeling of the good quality of the canter. So we lost the quality of the flying changes – that is why we went back to get the feeling, to prepare the horse for a flying change so out of a good quality canter, we get a good quality flying change. We did this on the long side, away from the wall, and there she should prepare her horse for one flying change, and then she felt she hadn’t prepared enough on the diagonal between the flying changes because she was too busy with the counting.

Horses t reach their limit in Prix St Georges?
Many, if not we would have many more Grand Prix horses – they are not sharp enough, or too lazy, or too tense, then you cannot make a Grand Prix horse out of them.
Do the good Grand Prix horses go quickly out of Prix St Georges?
“I don’t think so. I think the good Grand Prix horses are a little bit hot, and they show the talent for piaffe and passage, because this is the big step from Prix St Georges to Grand Prix. Most of them are too hot and too excited at seven or eight, to do the walk in Prix St Georges. Like Inara, you have to get every single exercise first for Grand Prix, then you put it together – and that is the big thing that it comes one movement after another and another. Passage, then piaffe, then passage, then extended walk, this is not easy for the horses to learn – that’s why they need time.