Learning our alphabet is the first step of learning any language. And dressage is no different. Except that learning our alphabet isn’t quite the right phrase, really we need to be learning our horses’ alphabet.
As horses are movement itself, and the best way to access a horse’s brain is through his body, learning our horses’ alphabet actually means learning the alphabet of our horses’ movement.
First, the gaits. The step pattern, the footfalls, the sequence of pure gaits. How will we know if we have a pure walk or a good quality canter if we don’t know what the pure gaits consist of?
Humans are born with the ability to make every common sound heard in every language, from the Welsh ttthhh to the Xhosi nk. Babies learn, by imitation, to repeat the sounds they hear the most around them; they perfect those, the voicebox adapts and they may lose the ability to create other language sounds.
I learned to speak French in the Ecrins mountains when I was 10. I have a regional accent that most native French can pinpoint to that area, and I always get a very warm welcome when I go back to that region.
Glacier des Violettes- the best mountain HVS in the world runs up to the left of the glacier- Ailefroide
But there is one telling detail that a true linguist would spot, one omission- my rrrrrr is weak. I can just about roll my rrrr, but not quite like a native.
In the same way, horses are born with every variation of every gait at their disposal. Some will come easier than others, some are bred selectively, such as the tolt or the pacing gait, but all foals can do all gaits at the beginning. They learn first by copying their mothers, and their peer group, which gaits are the easiest for day to day life. And then in training, we reward them for the four pure dressage gaits, and every variation thereof. But we can only do that if we know how the four pure gaits are meant to look , feel and sound.
The reason these specifically defined pure gaits have been selected as the most desirable over the centuries is because time has shown that these gaits are the most efficient for the horse to carry a rider in a healthy biomechanical posture.
And we have to understand that aberrations of these gaits are not healthy, and should not be ignored, let alone rewarded. How many lateral walks do we see in FEI dressage tests, not only ignored but scored highly, against the directives?
Then we need to remember that horses are born crooked. Just as humans are born right handed or left handed, the symmetrical, perfectly balanced horse has not yet been born.
Training is therefore first rehabilitation, followed by therapy, and finally it can become gymnastic.
To complete the training of the dressage horse we need to be able to speak to his body in sentences, in combinations of aids that combine targeted exercises and accurate patterns to enable the horse to develop strength and suppleness.
CDK talks about the daily vocabulary of training; like a virtuoso musician practising their scales every day, a trainer must help the horse to run through his full physical repertoire every session- all bends, all gaits, every length of neck, every length of stride, all directions of travel.
Run through, not drill.
Simple repetition does not bring about improvement- targeted focus does. When doing scales we did them fast, slow, staccato, slurred, syncopated da deee and deee da, forwards and backwards. Every variation, to avoid strain and boredom.
The quality of each movement will vary according to the horse’s level of training, but a fragment of each exercise will be possible in every horse from the very beginning.
This can be achieved from the ground, in hand, or from the saddle.
The brilliance in the virtuoso comes from a solid foundation, from the long hours spent perfecting the details of the basics.
Perfect practise makes perfect.
So know your horse’s alphabet, and help him to write three dimensional poetry in motion.
