George Morris on Clashing Aids

More and more people concerned with the current ‘rollkur’ debate in the world of dressage, are starting to realise that one of the problems in the warmup methods of the Dutch riders, is the simultaneous application of go-and-whoa – in other words, the poor horse is subjected to clashing aids. There is no trainer in the world more famous for spreading the notion of clashing aids than the doyen of American jumping trainers, George Morris. Both jumping riders, and dressage riders – indeed all riders – should listen hard to what George has to say on this topic:

“I was taught about clashing aids right from the beginning with Gordon Wright who traced back principally to Fort Riley and the French School. All the old French books talk about hand without leg, leg without hand, which is the principle of coordination of aids. The most elementary, fundamental principle: clashing of aids versus concert of aids.”

“It’s like driving a car, when you step on the gas with a brake on, that ruins horses, that is far removed from coordination of aids. When you ask the horse to turn right and at the same time limit him with the left rein – that mostly belongs in the realm of beginners who don’t have yet a coordination of aids. That coordination has to be very diligently and slowly taught to beginners.”

It can become very close – when we ride a horse into a halt, we push into a restraining hand for an engaged halt?

“That is a later stage. It’s like going to school, often teachers and horse trainers, try to teach 8th grade to 3rd graders, that’s why the French School is so clear. First is hand without leg, leg without hand, and later on, it’s four pounds of leg, one pound of hand, four pounds of hand, one pound of leg.”

So we can have simultaneous aids if we are very sophisticated?

“Yes, but that has to be progressive, you can’t ask a beginner rider, or a very green three year old horse to understand that closer connection in the driving and the restraining aids.”

When you started training with Bert de Nemethy, was that more of a German way of thinking, with the aids more closely connected than the French School?

“No, all the Schools in the end are the same in a sense. When I got to de Nemethy, I was then a very advanced rider and the horses he had were very advanced horses. They weren’t green colts learning to steer, learning to stop and start, they were already made horses with made riders.”

He rides for Brazil, has lived all his life in Europe – so is Rodrigo Pessoa’s perfect style American or is it European? There’s no such thing any more says George Morris: “There are no styles – just good horsemanship.”

“De Nemethy stressed the coordination of the aids which is the exact opposite of clashing of aids.”

There was an extreme Italian / French line in America, that taught that you just left the horse alone and didn’t even interfere with what lead he took?

“With the disciplines of showjumping, eventing and dressage, there is too much emphasis on collection and precision for that way to work. The courses of the old days, even my early days at Aachen for example, were very big fences, but mostly single fences and very far apart – massive fences. Now today it is too intricate, too quick, it’s the difference between the Grand Prix Special and Intermediaire. It’s too technical, it’s too quick, too balanced, too much collection for the strict Caprilli way of thinking that came in my country to Vladimir Littauer. He taught no contact and all of that – but really that’s history. It was history in the fifties.”

“Young horses and young riders are the same, old horses and old riders are the same, as a teacher, as a horse trainer, I look at them the same. Right from the word go this was where Gordon Wright and Littauer always had conflict – this is where a boy named Paul Cronin and I always had conflict. Paul was a great friend of mine but he was a student of Littauer, so we couldn’t agree. Right from the first lesson I teach contact from the leg of the rider to the rib of the horse, contact from the seat bone, contact with the hand. Right from the first lesson they understand that contact is the first step towards communication with the horse, through your body, which we call aids.”

“I realised that in the 50s when I started with Gordon, that the Littauer, the Caprilli, that very extreme non-interference – didn’t work, I didn’t win the McLeay that way. There was Bernie Traurig, who was Littauer’s greatest student, but don’t forget Littauer was a Russian émigré who was a high school dressage rider under James Fillis in the Court of Nicholas II. He came to the United States as a very highly schooled dressage rider who realised he would go broke doing that kind of riding in New York City.”

“On Long Island they were limited riders, they wanted to hack, fox hunt, and that’s when he adopted the extreme Caprilli ideas – very very far forward, very passive leg, no contact with the horse’s mouth – because that’s how he got bread and butter.”

At the highest level of showjumping, are your horses on the bit?

“There’s no question. You take Nelson and Rodrigo Pessoa, Ludger Beerbaum, Beezie Madden, Markus Fuchs – those people in a heart beat could/should do a Grand Prix dressage test.”

You have Americans and Europeans in your top list, is there no longer an American style and a European style?

“No, no, no – universal truths prevail, honesty, good horsemanship always prevails. That’s why you see the Europeans now galloping out of the saddle in straight lines, in the saddle for jumping and turning, they’ve lightened up. The Americans have more collection, they’ve deepened up, because that’s what works. That’s what accommodates the horse. All those dressage exercises shoulder in, haunches in, they physically supple the horse, make the horse more obedient. So the sharp ones learn how to do that, because it makes the result better with the horse. There are no styles – just good horsemanship.”

This article first appeared in the THM August 2006.