Italian master and pioneer of dressage) to Baucher in the nineteenth century, they all used flexion and relative overbending in their training of horses. That said, those deep flexions only have value if they respect the param- eters of lightness and relaxation I mentioned above. The horse must achieve this position in complete relaxation and find it as comfortable as if he was taking this position on his own. The difficulty of all training is not to achieve this or that


movement or position, but to get the horse to adopt it in response to the aids in a relaxed manner. I was recently working one of my horses in hand, flex- ing him laterally at the poll to release some tension I felt was present in his TMJ joint. This was not proving easy. Then an- other stallion screamed from the nearby barn and my horse instantly elevated his poll to its maximum and turned his head 90 degrees to the right, holding that position without any effort for a few seconds. This demon- strates it is not the position or


Warmbloods Today -Jan-Feb-2018-20171208OL.pdf 1 12/11/17 12:17:53 PM


This magnificent fourth- century BC marble statue is in the museum of Albacete.


the movement that is difficult; rather it is to motivate a re- laxed response to the aids that is the challenge. Critics of dressage need to take a larger view in order


to form valid opinions on the work of one rider or anoth- er. What matters is the shape of the back under the sad- dle, the quality of the contact, the relaxation of the entire forehand, the expression of the horse, his general pos- ture and straightness and the freedom of his movement. The actual position of the head and neck is a momentary tool chosen judiciously by the trainer at that instant of training. Abstract rules of correctness can only serve as general guidelines that are meant to be broken on oc- casion, according to the problem presented by the indi- vidual horse. As Nuno Oliveira said so many times, “What matters in dressage is not purist riding theories but that the trained horse presents no resistances to the aids and looks happily at his rider at the end of his lesson.”


JP Giacomini has trained close to 20 Grand Prix horses and worked on thousands of remedial horses of various breeds. He studied under Nuno Oliveira and later at the National Portuguese Stud of Alter Real. He has produced international winners in all three disciplines and invented a unique training method called “Endotapping.” JP breeds and trains Iberian Sport Horses his wife Shelley at Baroque Farms USA in Harrods- burg, Kentucky. He can be reached at jpgiacomini@gmail.com.


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