Education of
A series that follows the training and development of a young stallion.
Toti The
By JP Giacomini
Regardless of the discipline one intends for the future of a young, athletic sport horse, most trainers will agree that the early years of work are focused on the basics. Although there are many roads that can “lead us to Rome,” this column will present the ongoing education of the 2012 Warmblood stallion Totil Hit, also known as “Toti.” From backing to his debut in competition, trainer JP Giacomini will present the techniques he uses for Toti, working in hand, on the lunge and long lines, free jumping and under saddle.
One of the big questions surrounding the training of young horses is the development of the gaits. The increased quality of the locomotion of the better-bred modern horses has put a lot of pressure on riders (and owner/breeders) interested in com- peting in the Young Horse Dressage classes to achieve spectacular movement with horses of younger and younger age. Big walks, trots and canters undoubtedly win classes and raise the value of the winning horses dramatically. This is good for the horse business, but is it good for the horses?
Training Journal #8
Developing Expressive Gaits – the Classical Way
A
few important questions arise from this situ- ation: is this search for ever more spectacular gaits actually productive for the later training of
a future Grand Prix horse? Does this training approach produce horses performing well in their late teens in the show arena and staying sound into their twen- ties and later? How and when in the training should we seek the increased locomotion now referred to as “the expression of the gaits?” How does the selection of very big moving horses help them when they need to perform all the collected movements later in their training?
Look to the Masters The why, the how and the when are the key questions that determine our training guidelines. If we want to be successful at training our horses and also want them to stay sound and happy, it would be useful to start by reading and studying the masters’ advice, a long lost practice in my opinion. We do this for a simple reason: the great majority of classical books that have survived the test of time (from la Guérinière, Dupaty de Clam, Baucher, Steinbrecht, Raabe, Decar- pentry, Podhajsky, Oliveira and Henriquet, to name a few) were written by “men of wisdom” who spent a lifetime trying their best at training horses, who made many mistakes and found solutions but, most impor- tantly, came up with a few consistent principles that emerge from astute observation and a long practice. The economic context of horsemanship has changed, breeds have evolved and the cannons of equestrian aesthetics along with them, but horses are still horses
Warmbloods Today 37
Shelley Giacomini
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