At the end of the Second World War, the tractor was taking over the Agricultural sector and the future was looking grim for our friend, the horse. Then something very exciting happened, equestrian sport, previously reserved for male military officers, started to boom all over the world! The first World Showjumping Championships were held in 1953, then the first Eventing and Dressage World Championships were held in 1966. Suddenly the horse was back in demand, and the hunt was on for riding horses, for competition horses for the newly popular sport.
Read Part 1 of this series here and check out Part 2 here NEW

Gill Rolton was the original Golden Girl of Equestrian Sport. As a member of Australia’s gold medal winning team at the Barcelona Olympic Games, it was her bubbly personality that captured the imagination of the Australian public – here at last was a horse person that the media loved to interview. Four years later, Gill was again a cult hero, this time for her courage in continuing to ride across country with a broken collar bone and ribs – at one stage four tough AFL clubs were using footage of the ride to inspire their players!
Read Part 1 Part 2 and now Part 3 NEW

One of the great things about the teachings of Andrew McLean is that he insists that when we are training horses, we are not dealing with fellow human beings wearing shiny fur coats, but with an animal: an animal with a mental capacity and mind-set that is very different from our own. I don’t know how many times I have heard otherwise sensible people gush ‘Oh my horse loves his work now’, and dear me, do they get uptight when you suggest that they are anthropomorphizing and attributing attitudes to an animal, that it cannot
possibly have. Read more here

Hayley Beresford was one of Australia’s most exciting young dressage talents, and I guess it is no surprise to see her making her mark on the world’s toughest dressage circuit – in Germany. But how on earth did Hayley make it from Australia to Germany to working with World and Olympic champion, Isabell Werth?
Find out here!

Franz Venhaus attacks THM - The reply

The big question about this year’s Dressage and Jumping with the Stars was just how it would survive the transition from November to April, and looking around the faces in the Werribee indoor as the first day kicked off, it was looking pretty good, and the numbers swelled as the weekend went on. Its new spot on the calendar was not a problem.
Read on here

A brilliant lesson is one of those magical moments. A moment when the three vital ingredients come together… Take one talented, well-prepared horse, one intelligent and highly motivated student with equestrian feel, and add a brilliant, involved, enthusiastic and insightful instructor who passionately cares about the craft of riding and sit back and watch the chemistry bubble...
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

Travel, it is said, broadens the mind, and there is nothing like a tour around Germany’s Studs to open the eyes of even the experienced breeder or rider. Although, it is wise to carefully pick the places you visit, as one of our Horse Magazine tour group, Robbie Soster, remarked to me at the end of day one: ‘I’ve been in Germany for a month and I haven’t seen horses like this before…'
Take a visit here and stay for Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4

Holstein… the wind swept marsh country in Germany’s north has its own rugged beauty, and here you have the feeling of time standing still. It’s an impression that is reinforced by our first stop-over, the Haselauer Landhaus in the little town of Haselau on the outskirts of Elmshorn. Haselau has been serious horse country for some time now – back in 1570, the brothers Benedict and Wulf von Ahlefedt fought a great battle at Haselau over the grazing rights for more than 100 horses on the fine pasture outside the dikes along the North Sea!
Start yourJourney through Holstein here and continue to here and then end it here

As a group, we in the Australian dressage community, have a well-deserved reputation for being easily won, we tend to fall madly, head-over-heels in love with the latest pair of shiny black boots just off the plane… Alas most of these whirlwind affairs end in tears. But this time with Steffen Peters, this – as they say on the soaps – is different. And hopefully it is not some passing infatuation, but the beginning of something big and lasting. And wonderful.
So what is so different about Steffen Peters? Find out here. Part 2 in the series can be found here and read Part 3 here

How much fitness work do I need to do? It’s a question I get asked a lot as an instructor and when people ask me they are normally referring to their horse. I also get asked if I still do the same amount of fitness work on my top-level horses now that the CCI events are short format. Everyone has different ways of getting their horses fit (and themselves for that matter) and people are often limited to what they can do by the available facilities they have at home or where they agist their horses, and time! If you work full time and keep you horse an hour from home and also have a spouse and kids you don’t have much time!!

When THM editor suggested that I write a “How to” series, providing eventing advice and tips for upcoming riders, my first thought was that I’m a bit under-qualified for the task – after all, I haven’t ridden at an Olympic Games like Rebel, or piloted countless horses to 3 and 4-star victories like Shane and Stuart. In fact, looking back through the years, (particularly as a junior, when I considered myself something of an equestrian connoisseur), I shudder at the mistakes I’ve made. Yet mistakes are an inescapable part of the sport, and the success of riders like Rebel, Shane and Stuart will not have been without the odd faux pas: Indeed, one of the keys to riding at the top level is learning from your (and others’) errors. Another crucial factor is experience: That is, sitting on a number of horses of varying ages, talents and temperaments, in a range of different situations. Considering the above, I decided that maybe I could offer some useful advice, after all (even if it’s sometimes in the form of ‘what not to do’). Read more here then move on to Part 2 and Part 3

One of the great strengths of the German dressage scene is the depth of training talent. It’s not just the publicly acclaimed super stars but the solid base of ‘journey-man’ trainers, that gives the dressage scene its strength. One such trainer is Jonny Hilberath from up near Hamburg. Jonny was thrust into the limelight at the most recent WEG in Aachen when his Mexican pupil, Bernadette Pujals amazed the world riding her Weltmeyer stallion, Vincent. The pair were 10th in the Special and in the Kür – and for many serious dressage fans, their happy partnership was one of the highlights of the WEG.
Time then to find out a little more about Jonny Hilberath – Dressage Trainer…

I guess the first thing you have to say is how dramatically the standard of dressage has improved in South East Asia. I last attended a SEA Games in Thailand, in Chiang Mai, back in 1995. They were riding elementary tests on horses that - at least in some cases - did not look well. Mariette Withages told me that when she first judged in Bangkok, some years earlier, she refused to let any of the military horses compete, so poor was their physical condition, and was told that she was not taking into account ‘cultural’ factors. Culture? Yes, the Thais believe in reincarnation, and why should they take care of someone so bad that they come back as a horse! Mariette must have been reading my mind, and with a wicked grin said ‘see you will probably come back as a dressage judge!’ I remain unconvinced that I’ve done anything that bad.

Miguel Tavora is a Thinking Horseman, a curiously old fashioned appellation for what, one suspects, is a heavily endangered species. Miguel doesn’t routinely mouth platitudes about the Great Masters of Dressage – he actually reads, and re-reads, them… in English and, if necessary, in French. Not forgetting his study of the equestrian works of his countrymen in Portuguese, or the writings of their near neighbours, the Spanish.
Follow the series with Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

This article first appeared in April 1989 - it is just as interesting 18 years later!
Who better than the world's leading trainer of showjumping horses to look critically at the style and effectiveness of some of the world's most successful showjumping riders and their horses. Join the great teacher for an insider's view of what makes a champion jumping style!

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