Visiting trainer, Stefan Wolff found another interesting horse to work with at his most recent clinic at Clemens and Judy Dierks Training Stables. Linda Foster’s Mauritius is a rising star on the dressage scene. The gelding, by Medallion, out of a Donnerhall mare, has just moved into Prix St Georges ranks, and is scoring well. The rider, Linda Foster is also establishing herself in FEI ranks, with her third horse to make the grade.
Linda has been riding dressage since she was a child:
“I rode from the age of 4, then had a fall and refused to get on anything with four legs until my parents organized lessons for me with Vicky Robertson. I was with Vicky from age nine to 24. It was always dressage. My ponies in Pony Club would buck me off when I tried to jump them, so I was always in the dressage arena, trying to get control. I guess I am a little bit of a perfectionist and dressage is my forte. When I was 25, I started working with Matthew Dowsley, then Clemens and Judy Dierks – with them, our progress has soared.”
“I went over to England when I was 19 – I worked for David Pincus for six months. I had a few offers to stay, but my mother came over to drag me back to finish university. I was intending to go back… and then I met my husband.”
“We have a family business that I work in part time, when things like EI crop up it’s something to fall back on. I do the accounts a couple of days a week, but other than that, it’s full-time with the horses. Mauritius is actually my third FEI horse. The first was Copperfield, a chestnut Thoroughbred, he got through to Prix St Georges, inter I, he could do the Grand Prix movements but it was a bit too much for him to put them all together. Then I had APH Socrates, he went through to Grand Prix until he was sold to Japan, and now Mauritius.”
Back in Clemens and Judy’s arena, it seems that connection remains the number one issue for our riders, and once again, Stefan is working to get the horse more through, more connected and yet again we discover how simple yet subtle this business of riding is:
“Be careful, the hindlegs get quicker but the impulsion is not going through the whole body. Get the hindlegs more connected to the front. You don’t have to worry about the activity, the activity is sufficient, it just has to connect to the body of the horse. Not just for two steps, there must be a constant connection, and make sure when you bring him back, you don’t lose the flow of the movement. You can only bring him back as much as you have him from behind. Don’t bring him back and slow the movement. Now bring him back but within the forward movement…”
Now there’s another series of thoughts that could make your head spin if you thought about them too long…
“Think a little bit more forward when you collect. Keep riding, keep riding, get the collection in forward, collect him and go, collect him and go. Shorten the reins – light hands – and make him more active off the leg, you need a better acceptance of the leg. Don’t interrupt the movement when you collect him. Don’t get passive in your leg, you are shortening the stride too much in the collection. Be a little more demanding from behind – now light…”
And the strange environment was no excuse:
“Make sure you are not as defensive as your horse. Say ‘ok you are a little scared, but I am here to motivate you to go’. Collection does not mean less impulsion, just that you transfer this impulsion.”
And there was always a correct time for the correction:
“You start working when it is too late. You have to act and let him re-act. Be earlier than him.”
The next exercise was shoulder in:
“Not too much angle – and then you get better bend. Both your legs have to move the horse towards the bit, even though the horse goes sideways. In the half pass, the legs work primarily to the bit, not sideways. Within the sideways movement the horse needs to be connected with the reins… In the half pass, down the hand, and close your legs, both legs straight towards the bit.”
“Don’t attack with the driving aids. Worry more about a compact horse, use the leg to bring the back up. When would you bring him back? You can only bring him back when he is connected, otherwise you just hollow the back. Use your leg to make the whole thing more confident.”
“The driving that you are doing to get out of the half halt, is the driving you should be doing to get into the half halt. When you hesitate with your body and legs when you get in half halt, you lose everything. Don’t do more when you get out of the half halts than you do when you get into the half halts – rather the other way around.”
And all the time, Stefan wants the horses softer, more accepting of the aid:
“Soften the neck, the position is good but the suppleness is not there. Once he is in rhythm don’t chase him out, just let him carry you forward. And now in the extended trot – keep the collection.” (There’s another mindblower…)
Later I chatted with Stefan to get his take on the lesson with Linda and Mauritius:
“The horse has nice gaits, good ground covering quality. He has a little the tendency to come back, bring the neck up and hollow his back. So he comes easily behind the bit, which makes it pretty hard for the rider to keep constant impulsion in the horse. Especially when you come to the moment where she is about to collect the horse, the horse tends to come back and lose the impulsion. It’s a little bit hard to get him working from behind so you can convert impulsion into collection. It is important in that moment that Linda makes very sure that she keeps the impulsion from behind alive, or steady, when she brings the horse back into collection.”
You worked through that today?
“No we didn’t work through it. I think the first day is always there to open up problems and to start working on the major problems. Linda is here for at least three days, so we will continue to work on that. She got it - especially on the straight lines – she had a couple of nice moments. Of course in the half passes it is always harder to get the big rhythm, so we’ll keep working on that problem.”
You were trying to get a more even connection, even in the lateral work?
“Absolutely, the important thing in the lateral work is that you keep the basics correct, which means in the half passes we are not only thinking about driving the horse sideways – the sideways-moving horse must keep the straight work into the rein.”
If you are losing that, should you stop the lateral movement and go straight forward?
“You can try to refresh the impulsion and the straightness within the half pass, but if you don’t get a result – with this horse it is not so easy to get the impulsion back, then you can use a couple of forward steps on a straight line, then enter the half pass again, so you end up doing three strides half pass, three strides straight, constant change between straight steps and half pass steps, which can make it easier to get back the big rhythm.
After the second day, Stefan was still focussed on connection:
“There we had the problem again of the connection. The horse has a little bit the tendency to hollow the back and therefore it is difficult – especially in the lateral work – to keep the big rhythm, because then it is harder for the horse to keep the back up and keep the rhythm. So we really did the same as yesterday – to have impulsion - but to make sure this impulsion is not disappearing somewhere but is connecting into the bit – so that there is the possibility to half halt the horse.”
It was interesting, Linda was doing extended trot and you were saying ‘keep the collection’…
“Extension is not chasing forward, in extension you keep a big part of collection in the horse. A proper extension depends on collection, so that the horse does not get out of balance. That’s the important thing that the horse stays in a total, proper balance and rhythm, and just lengthens the steps.”
The other concept is to separate your hands from your driving aids?
“That was especially for this rider because when she half halts she always slows the rhythm and the speed down. The hand in this case interferes with the natural movement and makes it slower, so we always have the problem that the horse does not swing in the half halt and keep the rhythm and have the higher cadence – it actually loses a bit of movement. So this was just a way that I tried to explain to Linda that the rein in the half halt is not to interfere with the movement – the movement should stay free and independent in the half halt, we are just asking for a higher level of collection.”
You were saying to Linda that the amount of forward you are giving at the end of the half halt, should be the amount of forward that you give going into the half halt…
“A clear half halt is ridden in such a way that the leg and the seat are driving the horse forward into a stronger contact and then the hand just restrains, and that is the aid that brings the horse in the higher collection. With Linda, what was missing was that the rider first drove the horse into a little more contact – and then the hand came back, so it was not possible to have a proper half halt – that’s why I was trying to get Linda to push the horse more into the half halt…”
And Linda was very happy with the progress of her horse…
“He’s a beautiful horse. He has a heart of gold. The sky’s the limit with him. I’ve had him since he was five. He was a colt, Matthew Dowsley had him at his stables, and I was desperately looking for a horse. I was tossing up between two and went for him – the ‘wow’ factor. He’s one of the most honest horses I’ve ever ridden.”
“He is doing Prix St Georges, and he’s done a couple of Inter I’s. Recently he’s been doing quite well at Prix St Georges – but he is training Grand Prix, he does all his ones. His speciality is piaffe, and the passage is getting stronger. We’re just waiting for the go-ahead from Clemens, to say ‘ok you can go out and do Grand Prix now’. But we are quite happy to potter around training and getting it closer to perfection.”
I find it interesting with horses that the things that are their beautiful and strong features can so easily become problems – when you look at his wonderful front, so lovely out of the shoulder and up, yet as Stefan was working with you, it was that beautiful neck that presented the problem because it can suck back so easily…
“It has always been something we’ve had to work on, right from the start. At the young horse competitions, we took him out and he got well over 90%, but on the 20 metre circle, that you had to do on the long rein, he just sat there, and I had this great loop of rein! It’s like he’s born to be on the bit, but it is a bit of a curse – it’s difficult in the training, but as Stefan says, it is difficult to train these ones, but in the long run they are the better ones. I just have to work it out, and get the connection right, and then it is amazing.”
Stefan’s teaching about connection is very subtle, it is always flowing from one emphasis to the other?
“Absolutely. I think because it is so subtle, this horse has such good rhythm I think, I don’t want to disturb the rhythm – that’s in the Training Scale, always keep the rhythm – but in his case you have to disturb it a little bit to get the connection and to drive him out to the hand. It’s very subtle and difficult…”
We want him to go bigger and longer, but we don’t want him to go more forward…
“Exactly, when you are riding, Stefan is saying ‘make him go more forward’ – then he says ‘don’t let him run away, bring him back’ – then ‘not too far back’, and you are up there thinking ‘It’s terribly hard but I am going to get this.’ It haunts you, even when I’m driving home from a lesson, or going to sleep last thing, I’m thinking about that feeling, those moments you get when it is right, and try and reproduce that the next day. That’s what I love about dressage, it’s the intricacies of it, trying all the while to perfect it – and every horse is teaching you something. With this horse, it’s the connection that he is driving home to me.”
I think the other thing is that Stefan is so much a rider’s teacher – you know he spends hours in the saddle every day…
“He rides along with you and can see those moments even before I feel it! He can see I am starting to lose it, before I can feel it. Then I correct it, but it is a little bit late then, and that is the brilliance of Stefan. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, he fixes this and this and this and this, and then it all comes together. WOW! Then you think… oh, how did I get this.”
That was an interesting concept, that in the half pass you had to be driving equally forward into both hands and that it was as much about driving forward as going sideways?
“And that is to do with the connection with this horse. He can do all the tricks, the tricks are not a problem but it’s the connection to keep the quality – rather than the horse just going sideways. Keep the connection to get the quality – that’s the hard bit.”
It’s true though, there is no point in going ahead with the movement once you’ve lost the quality…
“Exactly, we often think ‘oh the half pass is not right’ and we keep going sideways, keep going sideways, and you are actually practising the bad things. Better to go back and fix the connection, or the trot, or whatever, and then go back into the half pass.”
What are the areas you have to work on?
“The connection, that’s always been something we’re continually working at, and it always will be. When we get the connection right, the trot comes out of nowhere, and the passage is there, and he can piaffe. His canter is one of his specialities, it’s huge. He can also be a little bit spooky, just a little bit, just a little distracted. When the connection is there, and he’s on the aids, it all comes together.’
It was an interesting concept of pushing more into your half halt – I think Stefan said the push you are giving coming out of the half halt, should be the push you are giving going into the half halt…
“I think sometimes we all fall into it, when you half halt you are thinking a little bit backward, that’s the horse’s moment to slide out from underneath me rather than thinking forward and up and out to the connection. When I go out, if I over-push him, I just make him go long again. That’s something that will be revolving around in my mind, something to correct.”
“The half halt has to come from behind, doesn’t it?”
We say that, the activity must come from behind blah blah – but hanging it altogether and getting the result is still something special…
“Absolutely and the moments when he says – Jawohl – yesterday I wasn’t sure what that meant – I thought it might mean ‘more’ but it was ‘good don’t do any more’ – now I know and I think, Wow – now I’ve got it! Then I try to re-produce it, and I just miss it, but I can feel when I miss it now, and think, oh no, try again. It’s very exciting.”