POINT OF VIEW
for training in any discipline. Perhaps dressage authors have not described its biomechanical implications with enough detail for its importance to be well understood by trainers. This lack of explanation of the correlation be- tween a cultural idea and the mechanical concepts of equine athleticism has resulted in the concept of light- ness to be devalued for too many modern dressage rid- ers, coaches and judges. People don’t practice a concept when they have not been given a good reason for it. One of the sad consequences of this lack of interest in
lightness is the alarming number of “accidents” that side- line top dressage horses, particularly when they involve suspensory problems, either in the front legs or, worse yet, in the hind legs. Health problems that demand one, two or three-year recoveries imply deep damage that can only come from mechanical wear and tear created by the constant tension of spasmodic muscles. This is generally the effect of working a horse for too long in asymmetrical, unbalanced equilibria, or under constant constraints that maintain the horse in a position he cannot handle safely for long. The other big issue related to the lack of lightness is the absence of the corresponding collection that has been replaced by forced compression. The brilliant move- ments we see in the trot and canter of modern horses are due to the power of the hind legs used in very big gaits, while the front legs are only moving as an effect of the
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momentum of the horse. When the gait is slowed down and the push diminishes, the elevation disappears and the bracing of the horse on the hand (and its corollary, the slowness of the front legs) makes the movement dis- appear. Hence we witness very poor piaffes from excep- tionally well-bred horses who should perform this move- ment with their knees horizontal. Only lightness in all the gaits and the transitions between them (the absence of resistances), performed with sufficient engagement be- hind, allows the front legs to move alternately forward (extensions) and upward (collection) while maintaining the diagonal timing of the feet.
Lightness Understood In practical terms, lightness is the absence of resistance to the aids while the horse moves with a relaxed topline. We can think of “lateral lightness” (permitting upright- ness, turns, bends and lateral steps), “longitudinal light- ness” (permitting the control of speed, the rounding of the topline for the purpose of regulating collection) and “vertical lightness” (permitting the elevation and lowering of either end of the horse to modify weight distribution). This is the general order in which we should work on
those forms of lightness, but it also depends on each horse’s prevalent difficulty. Some horses are stiff later- ally and we must start with lateral flexion, while others have balance problems and vertical lightness is what they
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52 September/October 2017
Hipogrifo, then an eight-year-old Lusitano stallion, in piaffe. The standing front leg is vertical; the standing hind leg is flexed down. The pelvis is tucked (see tail inser- tion) and the haunches are lowered. The lifted diagonal is flexed up, though not at its highest point at the time of this photo. Passage, taken at the maximum height of the right diagonal. The standing hind leg is flexed down in the pushing phase and the lifted diagonal is flexed up. The back is clearly swinging as we can see the left foot of the rider lowered, while the lift of the back and shoulder on the right has lifted the right foot of the rider. Hipogrifo’s transition into a very active “school trot” (the ca- denced version of the collected trot). The horse is well engaged and moving uphill into the hand. The standing hind leg is still flexed, but less than in piaffe and passage. In this transition to extended trot, the horse is pushing uphill (hind foot stays on the ground a little longer than the diagonal front foot, just before the suspension phase). The horse’s head position advances with the amplitude of the gait. The horse stays in his flexion, but the gesture of the front legs adapts to the gait by more elevation or more extension and the hind legs by more engagement or more lift. The tail is soft in all the gaits. The mouth shows a light saliva “lipstick.” The angle of the bit is due to the fact that I always ride with a very loose curb chain and a loose noseband.
Hipogrifo photos by Shelley Giacomini
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