One of Germany’s most respected coaches of dressage horses and riders, Hans-Heinrich warns – be careful, do not do too much with the walk…
We make the transitions at first in trot and canter, but we don’t do anything in the walk. In the walk the horse will just go with long reins so we have a very good forward walk. Don’t go too early to work in walk. For the young horse to find an absolutely super rhythm in walk is a very long way off, when we start too early to shorten the walk, then we have the problem that the rhythm can be lost. When he learns to work with a very active hindquarter in trot and canter, and he understands this, then we can start a little bit to hold this activity in the walk, but he must have the activity from the hindquarters in the walk absolutely perfect. When it is not perfect and you have problems, then later it will be too difficult to collect this walk
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At first the horse must learn to go in a short walk then again forward, forward, then again short walk. Then the horse understands, when I go in short walk, my hindquarters must work. When you have a walk with problems, then out of ten very good riders, one and a half of them can correct the walk once it starts to go diagonal. When you have a horse with a natural tendency to go lateral in the walk, then you stay away from the work in the walk.
When you look at the young horse classes, the material classes for horses three and four years old, and you can see some have an absolutely super walk, the judges say look how much the hind feet go over the front, and the judges say ‘that’s absolutely super, that’s ten’ but if you ride the horse, you have the feeling, this walk is good now but with such a big walk when you go to collect the walk later, and you don’t have the activity from the hindquarters you can’t get the walk back, you have real problems.
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