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The American dressage trainer is not afraid to speak his mind – as you will find in this interview with Rebecca Ashton\u2026<\/p>\nThe American dressage trainer is not afraid to speak his mind – as you will find in this interview with Rebecca Ashton\u2026<\/p>\n
Jeremy Steinberg is a great clinician.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is Jeremy Steinberg?\u201d<\/em> I hear you say. In the past he\u2019s been the coach of the United States Youth Team and been New Zealand\u2019s High Performance Coach. He is a brilliant communicator, carrier of the flame for the old dressage masters, and has some powerful insights into what is good, and what is bad in modern competition dressage.<\/p>\n So why haven\u2019t you heard of him?<\/p>\n Travelling the globe to conduct close to 50 clinics a year leaves him less time than he\u2019d like to campaign a horse for international representation. Also, the American is not prepared to change his whole life for a sport that he depressingly admits might be heading in the wrong direction. Happy to say what he really thinks, the young clinician is fresh, thought-provoking, incredibly knowledgeable and confronting. He\u2019s worth listening to.<\/p>\n I caught up with Jeremy on a recent visit to Australia where he was conducting clinics at Heidi Scott\u2019s lovely little property in Glenorie on the outskirts of Sydney.<\/p>\n How did dressage start for you?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI grew up in Seattle Washington riding with a guy called Dietrich von Hopffgarten. I knew at the time that he was good but I didn\u2019t realise until later in life just how good he was. He really knew what he was talking about and I probably shouldn\u2019t have argued with him as much as I did!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDietrich\u2019s wife Kim Beardsley von Hopffgarten was a brilliant rider who rode for the US in the 1982 World Championships on a Thoroughbred, Woodmix. She was probably about 5\u201910\u2019\u2019, willowy, soft, elegant and just beautiful. It was the first time I had really seen anyone look like that on a horse. Her horses were light, soft and pleasant. It was a whole different level of riding and I was blown away. I was 15 at the time and I didn\u2019t even think it was the same riding that everyone else was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one in the States at the time had a barn of Grand Prix horses like Dietrich did, so I thought I\u2019ve got to go and ride with him. I wanted a job because I couldn\u2019t afford lessons. He looked at me and said, \u201cI don\u2019t hire men. Men don\u2019t take orders from women well and I don\u2019t want men riding my horses because they\u2019re too tough.\u201d His wife and her sister ran the barn because he was always away on weekends. Eventually he offered that, in return for lessons, I could mow the lawn around the barn, dig some ditches and do \u201cman\u2019s work\u201d but I couldn\u2019t work in the barn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDietrich had grown up in Germany and his mother was a prolific horse woman who was involved with the Trakehner Verband. They were in Prussia and she was on the flight across country to the West that took the two groups of horses away from the invading Russians who were going to eat them all. He was a bratty kid and so his mother took him to Von Neindorff\u2019s and kind of left him there when he was about 17 or 18. Egon von Neindorff raised him and was his biggest influence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think he really wanted to get out of Germany eventually because of the memories of the war that had taken his\u00a0father.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI started working with him late 80s, early 90s and I stayed with him until he passed away in 2005. I got a little bit of help from others but I never thought anyone was as good as Dietrich with the development of the horses. I did get some help from Klaus Balkenhol when he was the team coach. He\u2019s such a great, positive person to have in your corner. He\u2019s a real confidence builder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Dietrich passed away I was really lost trying to find someone to help me – I still struggle with that now to a point. I\u2019m not a fan of a lot of the changes in the riding and I\u2019m pretty outspoken about it.\u201d<\/p>\n How do we get dressage \u2018back on track\u2019 do you think?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t think you can. Perhaps I\u2019m too cynical or jaded but it\u2019s become this big machine with so many moving parts and I don\u2019t think you can change it. I think it\u2019s unfortunate because so much of what I look at and think is correct, is being traded out for flashy. It\u2019s not that flashy in itself is bad. A big, flash moving horse can be correct and classical, but I look at some horses such as Totilas and see the way it moves has certain underlying faults that people are so willing to overlook and ignore instead of it being an ongoing discussion. Sure this one is by far the best one around, but these things still aren\u2019t the ideal. We idolise them to the point that everybody looks at everything they do as perfect, and they strive for that with their own horses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s unfortunate that so much of what I look at and think is correct, is being traded out for flashy. It\u2019s not that flashy in itself is bad. A big, flash moving horse can be correct and classical, but I look at some horses such as Totilas and see the way it moves has certain underlying faults that people are so willing to overlook and ignore instead of it being an ongoing discussion\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBack to Totilas, I looked at the horse and I watched him work in person quite a few times. It was magical: the piaffe, passage, how rideable he was, the calm of the horse\u2019s eye was beautiful under Edward Gal. There was never a time you looked at that horse and thought it was abused or stressed. It really was special and amazing to see, but there were things that were wrong, like the flying changes could be short behind, the trot extensions weren\u2019t right, with the hind leg never matching the front leg. If you said that, you\u2019d always get this combative response, whether from the masses or the judges – \u201cYou don\u2019t sit in the judges box and you don\u2019t have judging training.\u201d Can\u2019t we at least agree that certain things should get 9s or 10s, and recognize Totilas it is one of the most amazing horses we\u2019ve ever seen, but admit that everything was not perfect?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cValegro is in the same boat. It\u2019s not anything against Carl or Charlotte because Carl must be doing something right to keep all these Grand Prix horses rolling out, and to teach a rider to ride successfully at that level. But if you look at Valegro and take note of some of the things he does; that\u2019s a very odd rhythm and tempo in the pirouettes, he\u2019s a little out behind in the passage sometimes, the frame doesn\u2019t always compute to me exactly right. Do I still think it\u2019s the best horse in the world? Without a doubt. But we do have to be careful about idolising.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at Valegro and take note of some of the things he does; that\u2019s a very odd rhythm and tempo in the pirouettes, he\u2019s a little out behind in the passage sometimes, the frame doesn\u2019t always compute to me exactly right. Do I still think it\u2019s the best horse in the world? Without a doubt. But we do have to be \u201cI also think the judging is not standardised. For example, Anky started this trend years ago on Bonfire where the flash and the mechanics are more important than the mental calm and relaxation. You could really compare horses like Gigolo and Bonfire; you had one which was really awkward and weird but had a strange looseness, suppleness, elasticity and calm to it. Then you had Bonfire who was mechanically just banging things out and was way more frantic in the way it worked. You looked at them and though they were both the best in the world, there was always the discussion if you were Team Bonfire or Team Gigolo.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I respected how technically good Anky was and again the way she could produce these horses and keep them sound. Salinero, 19 years old and looking better than ever, where there\u2019s us Americans saying our horse is 15 and we\u2019re retiring it because it could never get better than this. What a bunch of hog wash. Ahlerich, Rembrandt, Salinero, Bonfire, Gigolo. I look at all these horses and they kept going and the riders kept them sound.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnky started this trend years ago on Bonfire where the flash and the mechanics are more important than the mental calm and relaxation. You could really compare horses like Gigolo and Bonfire; you had one which was really awkward and weird, but had a strange looseness, suppleness, elasticity and calm to it. Then you had Bonfire who was mechanically just banging things out and was way more frantic in the way it worked\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cAnky started this new Dutch training system that it\u2019s okay that the horses work under this tension and it created this situation of a lot of people reproducing a similar thing and on the other side, a lot of people saying \u2018no we don\u2019t ride like that\u2019. This derisive schism has developed, and not just two sides but three, four, five sides. They just keep branching off. You see the judges and the trends and the riders and the trainers, every time there\u2019s a new top horse it becomes the new system and the new way of riding instead of sticking to basic principles of what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cParzival was always a real pet peeve of mine. I\u2019ve never met Adelinde personally but I\u2019ve heard stories that she\u2019s a pretty cool person. She\u2019s a smart, sharp, educated girl. I\u2019ve just liked everything I\u2019ve read about her and I think, god there\u2019s this kid who is so brilliant and I see the riding and the coaching she\u2019s getting and it\u2019s two completely different things. She is a product of this system that Anky created in Holland that it is an okay way of riding that the horses get brutalised into submission. Adelinde got that horse to Grand Prix, and more power to her, because the thing was an arsehole and broke her arm. The judges were scoring her high because that\u2019s what they were accustomed to seeing, and decided it was okay. It\u2019s top of the world and in some ways it was more correct than Totilas, which is why there was this, \u2018Which one is going to win?\u2019 and will it be another Bonfire versus Gigolo \u201cClash of the Titans\u201d\u00a0situation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAdelinde is a product of this system that Anky created in Holland, that this is an okay way of riding, and it\u2019s okay that the horses get brutalised into submission. Adelinde got that horse to Grand Prix and more power to her because the thing was an arsehole and broke her arm. The judges were scoring her high because that\u2019s what they were accustomed to seeing and had decided it was okay\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cThis type of riding culminates at the Olympics and all of a sudden Valegro comes in, and again it has its own little things that are wrong, and Parzival comes in with little things and tensions, but both are on top of the world. Then you put these two horses together and the judges make a decision. I like Stephen (Clarke) but I thought that what he said after the final Olympic tests was a real problem. All of a sudden, he says the judges were all in unanimous agreement, and the scores reflected it, Parzival couldn\u2019t win because the tension was too high, and Valegro was so much looser and softer. So when the horses were finally compared to each other, you couldn\u2019t ignore that fact that Parzival went with this tension, but the sad fact was that Parzival went with that tension its whole career and it went unnoticed or at least unspoken. If you spoke about it you got bashed because you\u2019re not allowed to have an opinion that differs from the general\u00a0masses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll of a sudden Stephen Clarke and the judges have agreed that Parzival is not this score anymore; he\u2019s not a Valegro, which wouldn\u2019t have happened if there was no Valegro. Parzival would have won, he would have still been on top and everybody, instead of wanting Charlotte for clinics which they all do now, would have wanted Adelinde the way they wanted Anky and Nicole Uphoff back in the 80s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, Adelinde almost gets pushed aside just on this one comment, and ever since the Olympics, the horse has never competed with good results. The problem is, you take this really smart girl and you say to her, \u2018All of a sudden, we have decided the tension of your horse will not score anymore. The rules haven\u2019t changed but having judged him to a certain standard all these years we have decided to judge him at a different standard because there is a Valegro and we\u2019re not going to hold you to a certain level of judging we\u2019ve held you accountable for. We are now going to hold you accountable for things we previously ignored.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBeing a smart person, she goes out and finds a different trainer to change the way she rides and it has fallen apart. It\u2019s so sad to see this system has raised someone like Adelinde, a sharp girl who was probably getting bad advice or exposed to bad judging, to produce this horse which was relative to what was being scored, the top of the world and in one day, one horse show, her whole life is shattered now because the judges changed their mind on how they\u2019re going to score something because they\u2019ve seen another horse they like more, instead of owning a standard and holding everybody accountable to the same standard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe rules are pretty clear about the way the horse sits, the lift of the front hoof and the cannon bone relative to the hind hoof and the fetlock in the piaffe anyway and the way the tempo works in the canter pirouette versus the rhythm. It\u2019s right there in the rule book. There\u2019s all these things that just seemed to quietly go unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo when you ask can we change it, I look at how that trend goes and I think there\u2019s no way. The masses are so strong. I know a lot of people keep trying but they get burnt out and they get shot down. For me I get, \u2018Well you don\u2019t show at that level.\u2019 I don\u2019t want to show at that level. I watch it, I know everyone, maybe one day when my horse is there and things work out. I like my life how it is and if it can work into my life I\u2019ll do it but I don\u2019t want to change my life to compete because I could be the next Adelinde. I could be riding to a standard and getting scored, and the next day the judges change their mind. I know the judges get upset when you criticise or say something, but somewhere along the line there has to be more discussion and on their end more open mindedness to listen to criticism because they end up dictating the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe rules are pretty clear about the way the horse sits, the lift of the front hoof and the cannon bone relative to the hind hoof and the fetlock in the piaffe anyway, and the way the tempo works in the canter pirouette versus the rhythm. It\u2019s right there in the rule book. There\u2019s all these things that just seemed to quietly go unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cYou can still like one horse over another but if you can\u2019t tell me what\u2019s wrong with the horse as well, then your opinion is not one I can validate or respect. There has to be room for further growth in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard you talk about the art of dressage versus it as sport? How do we judge both? Via the freestyle?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI love freestyle. I don\u2019t think it necessarily takes away from the technical side of things. Tests don\u2019t necessarily need to be this repeated pattern over and over. If the judges can\u2019t see that the horse swings in the tempi changes on the diagonal, maybe our judges need better training. The only exception to that could perhaps be the collected walk or a lateral walk. You can get very clever doing it on a curved line, not on a straight line or doing it away from a judge. There are little things like that but the overall quality, you\u2019re going to see. You could even write rules that state your collected walk has to be on a short side. I do like the idea of compulsory patterns and you could make freestyle rules where certain patterns have to be shown sequentially like in figure skating.\u201d<\/p>\n Does the sport belong in the Olympics?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo. I feel like dressage has out-lived its welcome in the Olympics, which is sad. They\u2019re talking about the need to get more nations in and make it more open for everybody, and we have to show more fairness. I think they\u2019re living a pipe dream because developing nations cannot get involved unless they spend millions of dollars. So it\u2019s not like this amateur-friendly sport that we\u2019re talking about opening up to more nations. What they\u2019re really asking is – can more rich people come and play with us? In a developing nation, trying to get an athlete in, you really still need to have funding that puts them in a different category to the general population of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not hoping it leaves the Olympics, and I don\u2019t think you can fully buy your way into the Olympics. You do somewhere have to ride a bit, but you don\u2019t have to be the best rider in your country to represent your country, but if you do represent your country, you\u2019re considered one of the best riders in your country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI equate it a little bit to running and Usain Bolt, who\u2019s the fastest man on earth right now, no questions asked. Put Nikes on him, put tennis shoes on him, make him run barefoot, he\u2019s probably going to run faster than you, and pretty much everyone else. He is an athlete. It\u2019s him and him alone. He could have been raised in Poland, in the Philippines, anywhere, but if he runs like that, he\u2019s going to go to the Olympics and he\u2019s going to win the gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if we had a pair of shoes that we could buy that could make you run almost as fast as him, maybe not quite as fast, but right up there and it made you the fastest person in your country? You had to be a runner, but you didn\u2019t have to be the best runner, and you could buy the shoes and the shoes were really expensive, and most normal people couldn\u2019t afford them. Everyone was out there with shoe makers trying to make more of them, or breed more of them. You get to go the Olympics and maybe you come third or fifth but you get to come home and say, \u2018I was fifth at the Olympics and I got to compete with Usain Bolt. I\u2019m that level of an athlete.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile, if I take your shoes off and put you and Joe Schmo in a normal pair of Nikes and Joe Schmo blows you out of the water, but Joe can\u2019t afford those expensive shoes. You\u2019re not the better athlete. So when I look at the horse sports like this at the Olympics, I think it isn\u2019t really fair anymore. It\u2019s always been a bit like this, but it is getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t when it was military based. The trend started to change in the 80s, but even then it was still relatively fair. People were going with off the track Thoroughbreds. I know it can still happen, like Valegro, but that\u2019s not the norm. Now the quality of the horses is so high that you can have a lot of money and be competing with Charlotte, saying I\u2019m almost as good because I\u2019m competing against her. But you\u2019re not. The medals should go to the horses. Riders shouldn\u2019t be able to take them home and say they\u2019re an Olympic athlete. The horse is the athlete. The rider\u2019s the steerer!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not an athlete competing against the best athletes, it\u2019s the wealthiest competing against each other. A lot of times I look at our country and we\u2019re not alone, the Germans are terrible about it\u2026\u2026it\u2019s like everything\u2019s for sale as soon as the Olympics are over. I mean they don\u2019t all get sold, but they put a price tag on them. One of our horses left for Denmark, so that Danish rider now has a nice, trained horse. I get it, but it\u2019s not a fair sport when she paid how many millions, and is now competing trying to get a slot from another Danish rider who is a better rider. I\u2019m pretty frustrated with the Olympics!\u201d<\/p>\n Any standout issues in the clinics you teach here?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo. I don\u2019t see anything nationalistic about how the horses go here. You and the New Zealanders are so far removed in this part of the world that I don\u2019t think you realise quite how good some of the riders and horses are, relative to the rest of the world. I mean there\u2019s bad riding everywhere in the world, but I\u2019ve been pleasantly surprised by some of the standard of riding. When I see someone like Brett Parbery ride I think, \u2018That guy can sit\u2019. He\u2019s a beautiful rider. He would stand out in Europe just in terms of a quality rider just sitting on a horse riding around, not doing anything magic. That horse he has at Grand Prix, it\u2019s not a bad horse, but it\u2019s very normal horse and the fact that he gets out of it what he does says something about the quality of riding. That\u2019s not an average rider who can do that. That really impressed me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I see someone like Brett Parbery ride I think, \u2018That guy can sit\u2019. He\u2019s a beautiful rider. He would stand out in Europe just in terms of a quality rider just sitting on a horse riding around, not doing anything magic. That horse he has at Grand Prix, it\u2019s not a bad horse, but it\u2019s very normal horse and the fact that he gets out of it what he does says something about the quality of riding. That\u2019s not an average rider who can do that. That really impressed me…\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n When you teach, do you tend to start with the horse or the\u00a0rider?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI go back and forth. Like I had one rider yesterday who said they wanted to work on their position. I was happy to put them on a lunge line and take their stirrups away, but the horse was kind of a jerk. We needed to sort some of that out before I could put them in that situation, not because he would hurt the rider, but because it would send the horse\u2019s training so far back. The rider wasn\u2019t doing anything right and that was hindering the horse, but temperamentally the horse needed attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere was another one today who wanted to work on some of the energy of the trot and instead I just adjusted the rider\u2019s body, took her stirrups away, got her more upright, got her legs further back, and got her in a really good dressage posture, which most people tend to ignore. By the end of the lesson, the horse had all the power it needed, was hotter, was more up in front, just by adjusting the rider\u2019s\u00a0body.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you read a lot of dressage books?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI teach a lot of theory. There are two types of dressage that we really deal with. There\u2019s applicable, real world dressage and there\u2019s theoretical dressage. I take offence at people who don\u2019t have a strong theoretical dressage background because I think it\u2019s not skin of your teeth, shoot in the dark. You\u2019re dealing with an emotional being that you could potentially traumatise. You could take this living being and ruin it for life if you do the wrong things at the wrong time. Whereas if you have this real theoretical approach, even within your \u2018real world\u2019 work, you\u2019re trying to keep pure to this theoretical thought.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve read almost every dressage book that I\u2019ve been able to get a hold of, but I find less and less nowadays. They seem to be more autobiographies and fluff and pictures about \u2018how great my training program is\u2019. Like Johann Hinnemann\u2019s book a few years ago, that was just shameless promotion of him and Coby van Baalen! There was nothing of substance in there, just pictures of them and their students talking about how great their training program is. It\u2019s fun to flip through, but it\u2019s not like reading \u2018Dressage Formula\u2019 or a Paul Belasik book or Steinbrecht – the guys who wrote about the mechanics – even Podhajsky who wrote a lot about horse psychology. His books were interesting because they were somewhat autobiographical, but they were more biographical about the horses, not about him. He takes you through a lot of history; these are the horses, this is how they\u2019re functioning, these are the personalities, this is how we trained them and why. You don\u2019t see that much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you think people are too keen to throw their leg over the horse and just have their riding lesson rather than study?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have an issue with that in some ways. I mean, if you\u2019re an amateur rider, you\u2019re doing this for fun. Even though it\u2019s going to enhance your experience, it\u2019s not your job as the amateur, normal rider to know all of the history and all of the theory. That\u2019s your trainer\u2019s job to be telling you, \u2018You know what, you\u2019re at the stage you should read this book, or watch this video or go back and look at this horse from 1986.\u2019 I think as a trainer, if you put yourself out there and you\u2019re taking money off people, you really do need to have an upbringing on that. It\u2019s so embarrassing to me the number of riders who could tell you who invented Apple or Microsoft but can\u2019t tell you who invented the shoulder in. There was stuff before modern times! I\u2019m not embarrassed that the kids don\u2019t know this, because they\u2019re kids and I\u2019m an educator and it\u2019s my job to teach them, but I\u2019m embarrassed by the fact that their trainers don\u2019t know this stuff. They\u2019ve never heard of the Duke of Newcastle or la Gu\u00e9rini\u00e8re or what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had an acquaintance in New Zealand who argued with me that it wasn\u2019t important. I get where they\u2019re coming from, that it\u2019s not important to them, but it is important for the idea of what the sport\u2019s about because if you don\u2019t understand what you\u2019re teaching other generations, the ideas get lost or they get bastardised. If you look at what they did for the shoulder in back then, that shoulder in had nothing to do with angle. Leg yield was a whole separate exercise whose definition came along later.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow, every test you get back and every person you talk to asks, \u2018Does my shoulder in have enough angle?\u2019 Where\u2019s the education? That\u2019s not what a shoulder in is. How is it supposed to be applied to the horse physically and effectively? Leg yield is just as important and something that needs to be done to horses, but if we don\u2019t understand how it affects the horse and the application difference, then the line is getting blurred between the two, and the judges are judging the two as the same movement and the only time they are different is based on – it has to be this tracking because I\u2019m judging it from C and I\u2019m looking at the neck, or I\u2019m looking at the crossing behind, but I\u2019m not looking at the overall effect on the horse, the engagement of the inside hind leg, or the elongation of all the muscles on the side of the horse.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you read the rule book, the preamble says something along the lines that the FEI is here to uphold the art in the sport. And you think, where\u2019s the art anymore? If all of these people hundreds of years ago were creating this art that we are now trying to mimic or keep alive, they were the ones who created the standard that works and has been proven\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt\u2019s evolving in a way that\u2019s almost out of control, based on how our rule book\u2019s been written. If you read the rule book, the preamble says something along the lines that the FEI is here to uphold the art in the sport. And you think, where\u2019s the art anymore? If all of these people hundreds of years ago were creating this art that we are now trying to mimic or keep alive, they were the ones who created the standard that works and has been proven. Now it\u2019s just trending more and more towards saying it\u2019s outdated or it doesn\u2019t work, and that\u2019s just because people don\u2019t want to study and take the time and learn and follow the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you think the Spanish Riding School still upholds the\u00a0tradition?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe one thing I do look to them for, one thing that I do think gets overlooked and that is all the piaffe \/ passage these days with the horses that don\u2019t sit. A lot of competition horses are so far out with the hind legs in passage, that the riders get lower and lower to the ground as the neck gets higher and the croup gets higher and the rider is sitting in the middle on a bouncy trampoline. Then in piaffe, it\u2019s as if the horses hit a mud bog or something, shuffle for a few strides or they\u2019re trotting in place with no lowering of the croup. I\u2019ve never seen Parzival piaffe where the front hoof is higher than the hind hoof. If judges and trainers had to pass basic physics classes before they were allowed to judge or train, it would really change the pool of people, because if you see a horse where the hind hoof lifts higher than the hind fetlock, where it actually starts to go higher or equal to the front hoof, then you can\u2019t tell me that horse is loading on the hind legs. Thirty years ago, if you said, \u2018I train passage before piaffe\u2019, the dressage mafia would kill you, you\u2019d be considered insane and that you didn\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, which is true. You can\u2019t teach a horse, once it has learned to open its pelvis and push its hind legs out and trampoline its back, to load its quarters. It\u2019s almost an\u00a0impossibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest thing with the Spanish Riding School is keeping the idea of airs above the ground alive because it shows why piaffe is here. It\u2019s used to generate the levade, which is where the rest of the airs come from\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe biggest thing with the Spanish Riding School, is keeping the idea of airs above the ground alive, because it shows why piaffe is here. It\u2019s used to generate the levade, which is where the rest of the airs come from. If you look the piaffes these days, there is only a handful where you would think, \u2018That horse could levade.\u2019 One of the last, big, amazing ones was Matador, Kyra Kyrklund\u2019s horse where you just thought, \u2018Wow\u2019. You could imagine it could just levitate from that piaffe. Max, her other horse, kind of sat like that as well. It\u2019s few and far between these days.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverywhere you go today, you see five-year-olds where people say, \u2018Oh it shows piaffe, passage talent,\u2019 and they\u2019re passaging around with a hollow back, legs everywhere and in slow motion. That\u2019s not piaffe \/ passage talent. It\u2019s impressive, but it doesn\u2019t have anything to do with what we\u2019re trying to do – which is load the hind legs. Everywhere you go, people have these horses \u2018passaging\u2019 who have no concept of what piaffe steps are. They\u2019re trying to train it from the passage and it\u2019s never going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI saw something the other day on some young horses with big, extended canters and the moments they\u2019re catching on film where both hind legs are on the ground, and both front legs are still in the air and the comment was something like, \u201cLook at these horses with these amazing canters.\u201d But it\u2019s not that amazing then. It\u2019s telling you that the inside hind leg isn\u2019t engaging far enough under. It\u2019s telling you that the body is too artificially in the wrong posture if that\u2019s being\u00a0encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that you\u2019re never going to get a bad moment. It\u2019s not about saying those moments don\u2019t happen but to accept them as the norm and overlook of the fact that it\u2019s going on, instead of saying, \u2018This isn\u2019t right,\u2019 is just bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeremy is committed to holding up dressage based on classical principles and is not shy on calling those out who stray. He is very clear about what is required from each horse and rider and the best progressions to get there. His ideas are based on decades of study, both in theory and in the arena. Long may he and others like him work to keep the dressage honest!<\/p>\n Thank you Rebecca for this great interview!<\/em><\/p>\n This article first appeared in the February 2016 issue of THM.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The American dressage trainer is not afraid to speak his mind – as you will find in this interview with Rebecca Ashton\u2026 Jeremy Steinberg is a great clinician. \u201cWho is Jeremy Steinberg?\u201d I hear you say. In the past he\u2019s been the coach of the United States Youth Team and been New Zealand\u2019s High Performance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25586,"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":[4],"tags":[1243,1403,535],"class_list":["post-25585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dressage","tag-dressage","tag-jeremy-steinberg","tag-rebecca-ashton"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25585","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=25585"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58657,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25585\/revisions\/58657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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