{"id":3404,"date":"2017-10-03T04:31:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T17:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.89.31.130\/~thehors5\/thm\/?p=3404"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:54:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T00:54:33","slug":"brilliant-basics-with-ingrid-klimke-the-young-horse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2017\/10\/brilliant-basics-with-ingrid-klimke-the-young-horse\/","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant Basics with Ingrid Klimke: The Young Horse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ingrid Klimke preparing the four-year-old Damon\u2019s Divene for the Young Riding Horse class at the Bundeschampionate. If you wanted to see a young horse ridden correctly, this was it.<\/h1>\n

Words Chris Hector Pix Ros Neave<\/h1>\n

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The mare was just so forward, it was the perfect example of how not to become obsessed with what you can see in front of you \u2013 ride from the hindquarters into the hand, and maybe at times forget about what you can see: as everyone tells us, ride from behind into the hand.<\/h1>\n

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Looking at the training session at home:
\n<\/em>\u201cAt first it is important that you do rising trot and always try to keep contact \u2013 an active, normal working trot and ride her from behind, stretching into your hand and guide her and show her that the way is free to take her neck down and stretch her nose forward.”<\/p>\n

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“Step by step, you always try to go on long lines, and big circles, come with your leg, give again, she gives, you give, pat her and explain to her \u2013 yes, that is the way, now try to stretch more and give your back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A couple of times in the class at the Championships she became distracted and looked around\u2026 but you didn\u2019t correct her strongly, just kept riding\u2026
\n<\/em>\u201cShe was looking at the people, reacting to the strange noises, because at home, she usually feels very safe in her routine. She is only young, and I haven\u2019t done very much with her, but at home she knows exactly her schedule \u2013 but when she heard the loud speakers and all the other horses, she was looking, and I said, come on, trust me. It is just important to keep her forward, from behind into your hand, that\u2019s very important, don\u2019t start just trying to pull her neck down, it is more important that she stays in rhythm, and into your hand. And you hope that with the forwardness she feels, oh ah, I get the rhythm, and she starts to feel secure and starts to stretch again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Here when we were watching you work her at home, it\u2019s the beginning of the working session and she is a little deeper\u2026
\n<\/em>\u201cFrom the stretching this is the best, there she is really round with her nose as far as possible, this would be the stretching in the beginning – more when you want her to really stretch much more down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLater you try to take her up and bit and ride her a little more in self carriage. If you only canter her in the light seat and only ask her to stretch, you must be careful that you don\u2019t do it too long so she falls on the forehand, because she needs to learn to stay in her natural uphill balance. First you try to make her back very round and supple, and when you feel, oh now she is loosened up, then you can sit. Try to sit not too heavy, try to sit in the middle in balance with her, and feel that she has the chance to carry herself and her canter stride is big and not too much on the forehand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou see her hind leg very much jumping underneath, and here, she carries herself quite nicely in the turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this stage are you worried about straightness, or just forward?
\n<\/em>\u201cForward yes, but forward and not running. It is important that there is balance, and you feel the stride is going round and uphill. Not so fast that she is trying to catch up and running out of balance\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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If she gets a little crooked, are you worried?
\n<\/em>\u201cNot so much in the beginning because that will come. When they are three and four, they have a hard time sometimes to go on the circle and then when you come to a straight line, they start to go like a snake because they are looking for a secure line to follow. If I feel there is too much crookedness, then I always think of \u00a0aligning the front to try to keep the shoulder. She comes with the inside leg a bit, I try to bring across the outside shoulder, and ride her in the rhythm and balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The length of the canter stride at the Bundeschampionate was fantastic\u2026
\n<\/em>\u201cI really could feel that she was growing, and on the one hand you want to open up and go forward, and on the other you mustn\u2019t rush. She mustn\u2019t feel stride, stride, stride to catch up, no take your time and try to open up, really use the inside hind leg on every turn to make her carry on the long side, but then the next turn is coming\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a canter like that do we thank Ingrid Klimke for her good training, or her sire, Damon Hill for his good genes?
\n<\/em>\u201cI think both, it comes from Damey definitely, it is in his nature because he has got it as well, and I know from the personality, she is so like him. So much trying to please you and willing, always listening to the rider and thinking \u2018what do you want me to do?\u2019 That\u2019s totally Damon Hill\u2019s attitude. She wasn\u2019t spooky in a way that she wanted to turn or go out of the arena, she was really interested. \u2018Spooky\u2019 I think is negative, more attentive, sensitive, once she realized there was not a wild lion in the bushes, only some people, then she was right away saying \u2018okay I\u2019m fine because I know everything will be safe\u2019. I think young horses look for safety, they must know that you guide them, and give them security, but don\u2019t put too much pressure on them because then they hold themselves and stop breathing. It is important that they breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With a young horse is it more important to have that natural canter than a trot?
\n<\/em>\u201cYes, the canter and the walk are both gaits you can\u2019t improve by good riding, you can improve them a bit, but you are not going to all-of-a-sudden create a spectacular walk if the walk is not by nature so good, and it is the same with the canter. But the trot, maybe you can\u2019t get a normal trot really expressive, but you can get rhythm\u00a0 and you can always improve it. The more they learn to sit on the hocks, the more strength they get, the more they come into self balance and they build strong hind leg and back muscles, through lots of transitions, half steps in and out, then you can really improve the trot a lot. Look at all the eventers, which Thoroughbred has a wonderful trot? My horse, Braxi (Butts Abraxis) is the best example, he can trot like a little pony but then all of a sudden he opens up and he really knows, \u2018ah, I have to lengthen\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And at the Bundeschampionate, we saw that correct preparation is its own reward \u2013 Divene was the Champion of the Three and Four-year-old Mares and Geldings.<\/p>\n

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\n

Want to breed to one of the most successful D line stallions of all times? De Niro, plus there’s lots of \u00a0other top\u00a0<\/i>European\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/span>stallions to choose from,<\/i><\/span>\u00a0go to<\/i><\/strong> www.ihb.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

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

In this at home training session, Ingrid explains how she prepared Damon’s Divene for the young riding horse class at the Bundeschampionate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20349,"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":[375,20,90,374],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dressage","tag-classcial-principles","tag-dressage-training","tag-ingrid-klimke","tag-young-dressage-horses"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","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=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67264,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions\/67264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}