Jean Bemelmans was born in Belgium, but he learnt his equestrian skills in Germany, and one of his mentors was the late Dr Schulten-Baumer, who was also one of the first to take the sort of stretching he had learnt in the jumping world into the world of dressage… the result was hugely successful as Nicole Uphoff and Isabell Werth were to demonstrate…
“The horse has to give you success, you cannot take it.”
“I am so happy that at one time I worked with Dr Schulten-Baumer, when he was a little older and finding it hard to work with his grand daughter, Ellen.”
Ellen Schulten Baumer and Lesoto competing at Aachen in 2005
“He said, Jean can you come and help? That for me was an honor, so I went two or three times a week and worked with Ellen, and then we went to the show together.”
Sugar for Lesoto at the end of the test from Dr Schulten Baumer
“There were so many good things Dr Schulten Baumer told me – and he was in the same way as Mr Schmidtke who was my first teacher.”
“All the horses have to go over the back, they have to go long and deep, the forwards has to be very good, they have to come, they have to go, like you want, you have to play with all these things.”
“Some people think that if you let the horse down low and long, then they cannot do exercises any more. No, no, no, it should be possible to go low and deep and make a half pass and you should be able to put the nose where-ever you want. This is nothing new, Harry Boldt told me this many years ago. I know I have said this before but – Who is a good rider? Not the one who can do piaffe / passage, you can take someone from the street, teach them ten lessons and if the horse can do passage / piaffe, he can do passage / piaffe.”
Borja Carrascosa Martinez and Ein Traum working with Jean
“The good rider is the one who sits on the horse, and you tell him, I want the nose five centimetres down and now I want the nose ten centimetres further, now I want it up… If you can control the frame, to have the horse anywhere you want to have him, then you are a good rider, and then you don’t have any problems.”
Borja and Ein Traum winning in Doha – Stefano Secchi image
“Nowadays, I find there are many riders who think about their horses, but they are not thinking about themselves. Is the rider prepared? Are they doing sport themselves? Are they sitting independent of the reins? Are they doing sitting exercises every day? Can they use their body – tense it, flex it, loosen it – can they work with their body. That is something that is maybe forgotten. We sit on the horses and ask them many things – but do we ever put the questions to ourselves?”
Stretching for riders – Ashlea Day, Andre Brennkinmeijer and Borja demonstrate…
“Look at other sports, how much stretching they do. A football player is not just practising kicking a goal, he has to make his body ready. Personal fitness is very important, and if the rider has personal fitness, you can to give it to your horse too. That’s easy, sometimes it is a bit boring to just do transitions – come, go – but for me, I bought this mare, and I love to ride her and I love also to ride new exercises, like flying changes, but I also like to go on a straight line, make her trot big, make her trot a little bit slow, make it go forwards, make it go back, put her a little bit up, a little bit down, to play with her. These are my languages, my languages are my body, the contact, and we have a nice conversation together.”
“All this is not new. just come back to the basic and try to have the easy things under control, and I think sometimes we forget that. If you see good riders, like Hubertus Schmidt, it always looks good. If it looks good, it is good.”