I think you are going to love Ulf Möller at Dressage with the Stars. For a start he is one of the world’s great experts when it comes to getting young horses going. Ulf was the star rider in the Verden Auction team where he still holds the record for preparing the greatest number of horses sold at the auction for over DM100,000. Since then he has been the manager at the PSI dressage barn, working with Ulrich and Bianca Kasselmann – and during that time has produced a string of winners at the toughest young horse show of them all – the German Championships, or Bundeschampionate. Ulf has also two World titles to his credit, taking out the Six Year old prize on the extraordinary Sandro Hit, and this year waltzing away with the Five Year Old World Championship with Don Davidoff.
But Ulf is not just a young horse rider, he was a tough Grand Prix jumping competitor, and is currently competing at Grand Prix dressage. He is also a very charming, funny guy who loves to talk about horses. Ulf will be accompanied to Australia by his wife Eva herself a well known professional rider and the winner of the Three year old riding pony title at the 1996 Bundeschampionate riding Jo Hinnemann’s Top Yellow and the Three year old mare or gelding riding horse title on Bouton, the following year.
Here is Ulf, in his own words (since he is also fluent in English) talking about how you get a young horse right to win a championship:
If you go to the Bundeschampionate, that is the aim for the young horses for that year, and you really have to make a plan for yourself – this is the biggest event in the year, and you have to work for it.
If your horse has not been to many shows, then maybe you should pick a show nearby and go there only to train, so that they get used to the atmosphere. The important thing is that everything is prepared, when you arrive at the championships, everything has been done – you cannot do the training you should have done at home, at the championships.
Okay if the horse is a little powerful because of the atmosphere, then you have to make a little more work, but really quiet work, not with kicking and the whip. All the people are sitting around – and the judges often watch the warmup – you must make a good impression. In my case I represent our stable, the breeding values of the horses, you represent a lot of things, and it is important that you make a good picture.
If I have to compete in the afternoon, then I like to train in the morning, to take the stable power out of the horse, so you can go into the ring in the afternoon with a dry horse. It is very important that the horse is not wet and sweating. I really like to ride in the morning, just normal riding, longer reins, shorter reins, and forward – especially in Warendorf the warmup ring is so big that you have enough space to go really forward and that takes the tension out of the horse.
For us training here at PSI, the most important thing is our racetrack, that is like gold for the young horse. On the track you can feel that they relax and you can use your legs. You can use your seat and ride from extended back to collected. The transitions are so important, forwards, backwards – all this I do in the morning of the class, and in the afternoon I just sit on the horse for ten to fifteen minutes, not with the horse’s head down, but up, how I want it in the test. I walk a little bit, then head up and I ride how I want it in the test, but only for a short time.
It is important not to give the wrong impression in the warm up arena. I can remember once I had a five-year-old stallion, very powerful, and on the Wednesday afternoon we were allowed into the arena where we ride the test, and I had to give him some kicks. Half an hour later I hear all about it from other people – they told me that the judges had already talked about it. Now I remember that, you really have to have yourself under control. You have time enough; you have the whole day for training, even if you have to take the horse out two times before the test. You really have to stay cool and relaxed and the horse will look good – that is the most important thing, that the horse does not look under pressure.
How you ride in the qualification classes depends a little bit on the horse. If you have a horse of top quality, then you don’t have to take everything out. If you have an average horse, maybe you really have to take everything to get to the Championships.
It depends on the horse. Sometimes in the warmup, as you go around before the test, you ride and you feel that the horse is relaxed and concentrated, then you can try to take everything. But if you feel the horse gets a little nervous, then you have to calm down and ask for less. That’s the most important thing – you saw it in last year’s Bundeschampionate finals, everyone is nervous – the rider is nervous, the horse is nervous, the atmosphere with everyone sitting around makes everyone nervous. In the end the rider and horse that win are the ones that are cool. Sometimes not the best horse is winning but the rider and the horse that are relaxed and quiet. Like everywhere in the world, the horse that wins is maybe not next year’s superstar – that star might be a bit too nervous, that’s normal.
Del Piero is a good example. He is such a quiet and relaxed horse, that when it really rained at the Bundeschampionate and they had to move from the outside arena to the inside arena and everything was brand new, he stayed relaxed, and he won. If the horse is running away and nervous, then you can’t ride forward. It is a lot of luck. You can try everything, but when you get inside the horse becomes nervous. When I won with Sandro Hit, outside he was really nervous, and when I got into the arena, it was like he was at home, then you can ride. Or last year with Placido, you have the feeling as you come around the corner and whoosh, the horse started with an extension like you’d never got before, this is luck, you cannot plan for it.
Fitness is absolutely important because the horse that is tired cannot look impressive but you cannot let it work against you – that the horse is too fit, and too powerful. You cannot say today I work twenty minutes, next week thirty minutes, then I work one hour. It’s a feeling – it is not that you can say today I do this because in five weeks I want a good result. You can’t describe the feeling completely, but as a rider you feel, today I can do a little more work, then next day you have not such a good feeling so you do less work. It is more a feeling than a plan that you could write down.
I like to take the horses out on the racetrack at home every day. Normally if the weather allows me, I start on the racetrack and I start forward. When you ride into a normal arena, 20 x 60 metres, and you want an extension on the long side, the horse starts to stop before the corner by itself. On the racetrack you have the space to go forward, to come back, to go forward – not at a special point, but where you want it. This is very important for the test that the horse doesn’t get so schooled that it starts to stop half way down the long side because he knows there is a half halt before the corner.
It is better to train on the racetrack or in a big jumping arena. It is the same with flying changes – if you do it every time in the arena where you can see it in the mirror, the horse waits for that – on the racetrack the horse cannot know where you plan to do a flying change. When the canter is really good, you do the change, but not because the mirror is coming up. When you teach the changes on the racetrack the horse will relax more and more and then you can do it where you want. Change the places where you work. It is great for us when we have a big show here at PSI because the horses can learn a lot at home – the worst thing for a horse is when you change something at home. When they go to a show, everything is new but change things at home and they get really excited, this is top training for them.
For young horse classes you just need your horse in normal condition, because the most important thing is control – control is a mixture of power and condition, and your ability to influence the horse. When you work at home, like I did today with Welt Hit, 25 – 30 minutes, then you have enough condition for the championships. Maybe that’s what some people do wrong. They say the championships are the main thing and we really have to train the horse up for them. Why? In the end it is no more than a normal test.
In the tests for the 3 and 4-year-old horses, you ride for ten minutes. The problem is that most people take the power out outside and this is wrong. They need power inside. Normal work in the morning, in the afternoon, once or twice around and you can go in with the horse fresh. So you do not need special condition for the horse.
In Germany we have three-year-old classes and for me it is a little bit wrong that the 3 and 4-year-old horses do the same thing. For the 3 year olds they should pay more attention to a good relationship with the mouth and a good feeling. The neck must be a little bit more up for the 4-year-old horses, and you ask a bit more. Okay for the five and six year olds the important thing is that you ride the tempo they ask for, that the horse is carrying himself and this is only possible with an active hind leg.
In the six-year-old class the biggest thing is the flying changes, they ask for four flying changes and this is what makes the difference. The half pass, for example, they look at that but the changes make the winner and the loser. In the five-year-old class you have the half pirouette in walk, you have the counter canter, and if the horse is nervous he will change out of the counter canter. Of course they are looking at the frame and the transitions, but in the end, it is the more difficult things that make the difference.
As a judge, you must have the feeling that the rider is not changing anything for the transition to the bigger trot, no change in the seat, no change in the aids – in a top transition just the neck becomes a little bit longer, a little bit more frame, if all this happens, then you don’t need a huge extension to score a ten. There is often a problem with the horses that win the 3 and 4-year-old classes with a big canter, big trot, big walk; they often have problems in the 5 and 6-year-old classes. For a horse like Welt Hit 6, everything is easy, because the canter is impressive but not too big – so it is easy for him to do counter canter, easy for him to do big working pirouettes, but if you have a horse that goes down the long side in five or six strides because they have such a big canter, they have problems in the future.
What I look for is the hind leg. I want to see the hind leg working and especially making a big flexion in the hock, this hind leg can work, this hind leg can carry the weight of the horse when you want more collection.
In our 3 and 4 year old classes the horses have to be ready to be ridden by the test rider, but if the horse is carrying himself on the hindquarters and the neck is free, and you can flex him every way, then normally the back is okay, then the test rider can sit. It depends a little bit on the test rider. For myself I like to be able to use my leg, so if you have a horse that might be ridden by a small girl, then I sit on the horse maybe the horse gets a little bit of fear in the beginning. You have to notice that and give the horse one or two minutes more, and if this is a quality horse with a good brain then it will lose the fear. You cannot specially prepare the horse for the test rider – you must just have a good feeling for yourself and normally the test rider will have this feeling too. If the horse is relaxed, if the rider can use the aids, the horse waits for the half halt, then it will feel good for the test rider too.
The head of the horse is the most important thing. Its brain and its attitude, those are the most crucial things.
If you have a really top horse like Sandro Hit, a horse that is really impressive, then you can have a fault and still win because everything else looks so great. If you have a horse that’s maybe not such a type, then you are not allowed to make a mistake if you want to win. Then you must ride everything from point to point, start the extension exactly here, and stop exactly there, you are not allowed one trot step in the walk, everything must be absolutely correct – and that makes it difficult in the finals because every horse gets a little bit nervous. The top quality horse you can allow a mistake because the judges love him. You work the whole year for the championships and you must find the right point, to go into the arena. But if your training was really good, the horse relaxes very fast. I rode Don Davidoff at a qualification, and for a breeding stallion it was a very difficult place, with horses out in the field, next to the dressage arena was the warmup for the jumpers, so a lot of things and he started crying a little bit. I go in and he is not concentrating, but it takes ten metres to bring him back, but this you can allow with a quality horse like this. The judges gave him a 9.0 and after the prizegiving told me, okay he was crying two or three times in the test, normally we could give him a ten. The quality is really outstanding. If you have a small problem and the judges really like the horse, they will let you win. And if the horse is in such a good shape, then you should show the spectators that you can ride it in front of a big crowd with only one hand. If I qualify to ride in the finals, then I try to take that chance. If I feel that the horse becomes a little nervous, then I go forward and this relaxes the horse very fast – and the spectators love it because most of them want to see big canter, big trot. My horse goes forward and shows the big trot, but you didn’t do it for that reason, you did it to relax the horse.
The crowd thinks it is for them.
Last year at the Bundeschampionate, I had a little problem with Placido to get him to stand at X, and in the final, he stood, then I went straight up the centre line to the judges and smiled, ‘now I show’. With this good start I have the chance to win, so now I take this chance. The judges know us, they know we normally show a good horse, but if the beginning is good, then you can say, okay I try it. Sure things can go wrong, there is a lot of luck – when you try 100% extension you take the risk the horse will canter, or a really extended walk, the risk is that the horse starts some trot steps, but if you do not take a risk, you cannot win.
If the choice is between the horse with the big trot but a little mistake and the horse with little movement and no mistake, there is no question; the quality must be the thing. That is the thing with a qualification and a final. If the horse has a problem in the qualification but is really quality, and I am judging, I give him the chance to compete again in the final. Maybe he qualifies number eight, but he gets the chance to show what he can do when he is more relaxed.
Normally you have a warmup class where the horse can get used to the ring.
In the Bundeschampionate, you have to go directly into the qualification, and this can make it more difficult but they should give a top quality horse a chance to go again.
Last year in the 6 year old Final, I was 8th or 9th into the final on Placido, but it was enough to get there – one step after the other. First we want to qualify for the Final, if not, you can try to qualify by coming top in the Small Final, and if the judges want you, you can win from the small final.
The good thing in dressage is if you have a small mistake then you can take it away by going forward, if you are a jumping rider then the fence is down.
I really like the Bundeschampionate. I really like to compete there because it gives you the chance to spend more time with the horse. Here at PSI, I have not the time but there I can ride in the morning, I can walk as long as I want, talk to the other riders, give the horse a little bit of work then I can walk again. At home we don’t have that time. Normally my horses are better at the championships than they are at home, because I have more time with them. The groom has more time for the horse, they can clean it three times a day, they take more care – here we have 150 horses, and in the end, every horse is the same, there we have more time and the horses feel better.
I like the championships and I really like to go there. I know a lot of riders – even from our place – who really fear the championships because they make for themselves too much pressure. If you don’t love it you cannot be successful. If you go there and make pressure, oh I hope the horse works good, you are nervous and you ride all screwed up and you cannot be successful. You might qualify for the final but you cannot smile to the crowd, so the horse might good but not special. The horse looks special if you can ride in there and say ‘Here I am!’