{"id":22666,"date":"2018-01-06T14:00:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-06T03:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=22666"},"modified":"2023-04-09T13:38:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T03:38:06","slug":"george-morris-jumping-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2018\/01\/george-morris-jumping-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"George Morris \u2013 Jumping Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the intriguing things about the equestrian tradition, is how much of it is handed on from generation to generation by gifted horsemen, developing and becoming richer in the process. Back in 2008, we talked to George Morris and asked him:<\/h1>\n

But is the sport better?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Aachen in the old days, going through the water as well as jumping it…<\/em><\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course lots is better, much is quicker, and of course you could write a thesis on what was better, what is better, what could be better \u2013 yes, the sport has lost a lot, but the sport gained a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Aachen hedges in 2004<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it has lost the most to me is time. We used to have time for our horse, we used to have time at home, at horse shows, which were great social gatherings. There isn\u2019t now the time, and that colours everything that happens with a horse, and with a horse show. Time and space \u2013 my sport of jumping is taking the country to an arena, and you take away time and space and the space gets smaller and tighter and the time gets quicker, there isn\u2019t time to manicure and manage natural fences. Natural fences present an unexpected problem to a horse that hasn\u2019t been given time in his schooling to learn to deal with them. That\u2019s our biggest enemy now, time and space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"morrisAachen<\/a><\/p>\n

George Morris and Night Owl at Aachen 1960, when the fences were natural<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The horses have changed a lot \u2013 I was talking to Melanie Smith Taylor about the almost total domination of the sport by European Warmbloods\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEverything has become universal. Universal riding style, universal training, universal horses, universal courses, it is a very much smaller world, and what has happened to the horse is that it is the American Thoroughbred with substance and scope, and the European horse with Thoroughbred refinement \u2013 it\u2019s one horse now, and you don\u2019t see the differentiation. Even if you saw a Thoroughbred horse now, it would be a boned horse, or if you see a Holsteiner, it is a blood horse. It is the universal horse but that has happened because the world has shrunk. This Brazilian helps that French girl, that German helps that American rider, it is one much tighter smaller family. In my day, the Chileans were a force to be reckoned with, in the early thirties, the Japanese won the gold medal in jumping. It was very separate and very distant, very individualistic. In a very funny way there was more universality in those days than these days. Lots of things are different, but as we say, everything changes but everything remains the same\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

When you went looking for horses in Europe in the 70\u2019s and bought Calypso, were you looking for a European horse that looked more like the Thoroughbreds you had grown up with?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we always gravitated \u2013 as you did in Australian and New Zealand \u2013 to the Thoroughbred horse. I really was the first person in the very late 70s with Melanie Smith that really started that ball rolling. The odd horse had come over from Europe by accident, but it was an odd event. We were in Aachen, I had Melanie Smith and Michael Matz, two individuals, and we bought a wonderful horse from a Spanish rider, Val de la Loire. At Aachen I bumped into an old Dutch dressage trainer, Harry Hillhice, who I\u2019d grown up with in the United States, he was a professional dressage trainer in the United States, training ladies, early early on at Oxbridge. At Aachen he said, \u2018George, I want to show you a couple of horses, they are a very short distance away. We\u2019ll have dinner and bring you back by 10 or 11 o\u2019clock. We went with Harry, I got into the beer \u2013 which in those days I did more than I do now \u2013 and got very tipsy very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MelaniSmithGeorge\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Calypso\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Melanie Smith and George Morris went looking to find horses in Europe and discovered a super-star, World Cup Champion – Calypso<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at a little horse, he must have been 15.3, a little stallion, Vivaldi, and I convinced Melanie and her mother and the owners to buy this little speed horse. He wasn\u2019t very expensive, he wasn\u2019t very big, but I loved the horse. I woke up the next morning and said to Melanie \u2018What did I do?\u2019 Luckily this little Vivaldi turned out to be a world beater as a speed horse \u2013 a metre forty maximum. That horse led Melanie, and Neil Eustice, who was her owner at the time, to re-contact Harry Hillhice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t there at the time, I was in America giving a clinic, and I think Neil Eustace was on an antique trip or something, and he called Harry who said \u2018I have a horse for you.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t there, Melanie wasn\u2019t there, she was the demonstrator at a clinic of mine in Kentucky. They looked at the horse, and the owner, Neil Eustace was a great guy, I wouldn\u2019t say a horseman particularly, but he looked at the horse in the stall, and bought the horse. I said to Melanie, you have to ride the horse, you have to get over there and sit on that horse, because it could be dangerous to your health if it is not a good jumper. She jumped on an airplane, got there and loved the horse. So they bought Calypso.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy early 1978, the ball was rolling in America for the European horse. The Americans fell in love with Calypso, they liked Val de la Loire and Vivaldi, but the horse America fell in love with was Calypso. In the late 70s I bought another Dutch horse, Olympus, also by Lucky Boy, and he was a very handsome horse \u2013 more of a half bred type, and I was one of the first to show a European horse in the Hunter division, and he was never first, and he was never fourth, he was always second or third. Now all the Hunters are European. That was the tipping point, 77, 78, with those Dutch horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Vivaldi and Calypso were by Lucky Boy, a Thoroughbred stallion\u2026 were you deliberately looking for European horses that looked more like the horses you were used to seeing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEven today when I look at horses in Europe, I gravitate intuitively\u00a0\u00a0 and instinctively towards the Thoroughbred horse, that\u2019s our base, that\u2019s our background, that\u2019s our upbringing \u2013 so they bring out horse after horse after horse, I say \u2018that one\u2019 because that\u2019s the blood horse. The big footed, straight pasterned, no wither, clunker, I say \u2018 I don\u2019t want to see that one\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Beezie Madden, George\u00a0describes her as a ‘giant talent’\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

What was Calypso\u2019s big strength?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cActually when she got him home to Connecticut, I went up to see Calypso, and I said, I liked his bounce. He\u2019s not a big horse, I like his type, he was a pony type, but a Thoroughbred pony type, and he wasn\u2019t particularly good in front. I was suspicious of him up there, but once Melanie got him to Florida and she entered him in the first preliminary \u2013 the class preparatory to open jumpers, he was a winner. He was very very fast, he was very careful, he had sufficient scope, although he was the type, you didn\u2019t know if he had Olympic scope, or World Cup scope, until he did it, but he won me very quickly. The initial impression was that I wasn\u2019t crazy about his front end.\u201d<\/p>\n

You worked on that front end technique?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo no, in my system we don\u2019t work on a horse\u2019s front end. A horse jumps with a style, that will get better, that will get worse, that will maintain. If well ridden, consistently ridden, gymnastic jumping, course jumping, it takes care of itself, or it doesn\u2019t take care of itself. God made that \u2013 and this horse being very very intelligent, that style got better. If that horse was a chicken or stupid, that style would have got worse. You can\u2019t fix that. That horse just got better, he was a very smart horse, he was just a winner. He hated to touch fences.\u201d<\/p>\n

You were talking about your admiration for Gerd Heuschmann, do you think it is time for all the equestrian sports to take a step back and look hard at how horse friendly the training methods are?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI am very critical myself of the way people walk, trot, canter horses, even riders who are great over fences, who have a knack for jumping, I am often critical of their flat work. I was educated by icons \u2013 Richard W\u00e4tjen, a German icon before the War, taught me. Bert de Nemethy, an icon for all the world, taught me. Gunnar Andersen was my last teacher \u2013 the great Danish man that even the Germans bowed to. I never had lesser teachers so I was taught the difference very early, and that makes it very difficult for me to look at lots of riders. I\u2019m not saying I am better than they are, just that I was very well-educated to what was correct for the physical and mental apparatus of the horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they taught me has always stood me in good stead. It\u2019s worked for me and my students. I first saw Gerd Heuschmann\u2019s book reviewed in your magazine, which I always read, and I don\u2019t read many magazines. I read that very thoroughly and I was very intrigued and I loved it. Very quickly I got a copy of the book, and while I\u2019m not a vet and some of it was very vet orientated, I was in total agreement with the whole book. If I am in total agreement with some horse literature, I say \u2013 yes. If it is something that that contradicts what I really believe inside, I say \u2013 no. This book, cover to cover, I said yes, yes, yes. He\u2019s writing and taking pictures of what I\u2019m thinking. We have to take a really hard look at what we are doing physically to horses, and what we are doing to horses mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AuthenticBeezieIntite\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBasics are basics are basics \u2013 the horse has to properly work his body, and at the same time properly working a horse physically works him properly mentally. You can change horses over time, amazingly \u2013 it\u2019s impossible to make a bad horse a good horse, you can make an adequate horse a pretty decent horse, you can make a good horse a very good horse, you can maintain a great horse so he doesn\u2019t slip. Anyone can ruin a horse in a heart beat\u2026 and what is happening is this vicious circle of working incorrectly, veterinary need, working incorrectly, more veterinary maintenance, that\u2019s a vicious circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember with de Nemethy, lame horses. I don\u2019t remember with de Nemethy, vets around the clock. In the 50s and 60s I don\u2019t remember missing horse shows because of veterinary problems. Yes, we had the great vet, Danny Marks at a Championship, but we didn\u2019t have vets in residence, we didn\u2019t have injections maintaining, maintaining, maintaining, maintaining. I personally have never used massage or acupunture \u2013 I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s wrong \u2013 but I exercise my body, and I think that\u2019s how to deal with animals \u2013 to properly exercise their bodies on a daily basis. I have great friends who are vets, and I respect vets, but I think this obsession with vets, is preceded by incorrect riding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was lovely at Rotterdam watching Beezie Madden warm up her horses \u2013 it was just so uncomplicated, so forward, and yet she was doing some quite complicated lateral work at the same time\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is simple. The classicists from Xenophon through the Renaissance to France, to Italy, to Germany, they were brilliant. Imagine people inventing the impression of impulsion, the exactness of straightness, imagine inventing half pass, piaffe, passage, all the classical movements that make the horse better to ride. The classicists taught us the rules centuries ago, and I am very reluctant to go off the track of these rules. As a rider and a horseman, every day here at Aachen, I have ridden Beezie\u2019s horses, and Beezie has such a fabulous attitude, she is so humble that she watches what I do with her horses \u2013 Beezie Patton Madden, who won the Grand Prix of Aachen last year. I don\u2019t stray. I\u2019m not saying I am Reiner Klimke, or Ludger Beerbaum or Bill Steinkraus, I never was that talent, but I don\u2019t like to stray from what the classicists taught us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But you worry at some of the new techniques, the technique of hyperflexion\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Masters from the very beginning taught us there were two types of flexions. The first is lateral, where the horse turns his head slightly, yields his jaw to one rein. The second is direct flexion where the neck is straight and the horse yields his lower jaw to both reins. This flexion, especially this lateral flexion, is a very good technique because it relaxes the jaw, which in turn bends the poll which is a seat for resistance in the horse. Ancient classical principle, flexion de la bouche \u2013 the problem is that some of today\u2019s riders took that great technique to an extreme, so that it has become a defect. That happens with every technique\u2026 Bill Steinkraus said to me, ‘We invented the crest release, now I bet you wish you hadn\u2019t\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

You are still riding horses here at Aachen\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBeezie lets me ride them because she has a lot of horses here. I ask her, and she lets me, and I think she likes it. I do it at home too, with Laura Kraut and different people. Beezie has a very big day because she has four horses here at Aachen and a lot of classes, so to help her get through the day, I ride one a day. She watches and she is still learning from what I am doing with her horse. I\u2019m now 70, this is my 50th year of riding a horse at Aachen. Still every step I am on a horse, I\u2019m thinking about what is happening with the horse, what I am doing, what could be better, where is there resistance, how to break up the resistance. It\u2019s not that I am hacking the horse, I\u2019m a very intellectual rider because that is the only way I made it. I am not a natural confident rider, so I had to make it by brains. I have to bring Meredith Michaels into that whole idea, because Meredith was always very gutsy against the clock but Meredith had to work at it, and Meredith was always very very smart, and that\u2019s her greatest asset. People ask what\u2019s your most important aid on a horse? Some say seat, some say leg, some say hand \u2013 no, it\u2019s your brain. That is Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum\u2019s greatest asset, she is very very smart. She went to Princeton, and that\u2019s no easy thing to do. That\u2019s how I ride a horse, by thinking. Every second I am with a horse, I am thinking\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

You said that the great horses were God given, does God make the Beezie Maddens \u2013 was she like that when you first met her?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBeezie Madden always had a giant talent. She\u2019s got everything, giant talent, an emotion that never quits, cool as a cucumber, like Meredith, she\u2019s super intelligent, she is very to herself in her work. She rides any any any horse, and she is respected around the world by the top men, she can ride any horse. She is very special.\u201d<\/p>\n

And George Morris is very very special: A horseman and a thinker. The sport of jumping may be better in some respects, worse in others, but it is very much the better for the contribution of George Morris. Long may he continue to influence its development.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Breeding a jumper in Australia? Go to www.ihb.com.au<\/a> and select a stallion – like Balou du Rouet…<\/em><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Or Grey Top<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Or Edward, sire of King Edward<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the intriguing things about the equestrian tradition, is how much of it is handed on from generation to generation by gifted horsemen, developing and becoming richer in the process. Gifted horsemen like George Morris…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,6],"tags":[1018,71,1097,67],"class_list":["post-22666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-show-jumping","tag-beezie-madden","tag-george-morris","tag-melanie-smith","tag-showjumping"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22666"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66035,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22666\/revisions\/66035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}