Chris Hector asks German Dressage coach, Monica Theodorescu, what is the secret to winning Dressage Medals?
The Gold Medal Team at Seoul – Ann-Kathrin Linsenoff, Monica Theodorescu, Nicole Uphoff and Dr Reiner Klimke
For a while Germany was unbeatable, then you slipped from the pedestal for a while, now Germany is back – aside from having a very good coach, what is the secret?
“There is no secret, that is the secret!” – Monica is laughing – “First of all we have fantastic horses, you watch more of the breeding than I do, but I think it is amazing the quality of the horses that we are able to use. Then I think we have a lot of the best riders, and again there is no secret, it is just correct training and riding. For me there is no ‘modern’ or ‘classical’ riding, there is good or bad riding, correct riding. That’s what I try to tell everybody, don’t go crazy, we had that and it didn’t work. One of the many things my father (the late Georg Theodorescu) said was every exaggeration is wrong – that I use as a principle, it’s probably for life also, but for sure it is true for the horses. Only just leaving them in the field and riding long and deep doesn’t get you anywhere, but also asking too much, too hard training, that is absolutely wrong.”
Monica riding Whisper and her father, the late Georg Theodorescu
“Too high scores, too little, too much, every exaggeration is wrong, we’ve had that in dressage and it showed that it was the wrong way, it only lead to frustration. Now I see the riding in many countries is just getting better and better. General Stecken said, riding correctly is sufficient.”
Monica and Fleur
“Perhaps in the past we fell back a little because I remember there were many trainers who said, oh the Dutch, we have to do it that way. No, we don’t have to do it that way. Since I’ve been the coach, I’ve told many riders, we don’t complain about the judging, we have to show that we are better.
Kristina and Desperados
It already started in London in 2012 just before I came into the job, already Charlotte (Dujardin) and Carl (Hester) and Helen (Langehanenberg) and Kristina (Bröring-Sprehe) had started to change things. We don’t complain about that one, or that one, we show that we can do it better with correct training and work.”
Helen Langehanenberg and Damon Hill
“What I see that very often in my clinics in different countries, and also in Germany, there are a lot of riders who sit well on a horse, and you think they are quite educated riders, but a lot of them don’t know what they are doing on a horse: what aids they are giving, they are not so conscious of what they are doing or what they want to do. They are not sure what they aim for on that day. We should say, today I want to work on this, and achieve this, more suppleness on the left or the right. They just ride along and do some exercises without really having in mind – ok, diagonal and straightness, on serpentines ride the loops properly, get the bending, get the outside rein, where is my inside leg? There are so many things to think of. But many riders they just ride around and see what happens.”
“They don’t have a plan that they are focussed on, they have a long term plan – they are focussed on getting to Grand Prix, but not what they are doing on that day…”
