“Whether the horse is an Andalusian or a Trakehner, I don’t think this is the big question. If you have five Trakehners, then you have to find the right system for each of those five Trakehners. It doesn’t matter what you have – Andalusians, Hanoverians, Trakehners, you have to find the right system for each horse.”
But within the over-all framework of the Training Scale?
“In Germany we have the classical training scale, and we always work on that scale, but there are many ways to Rome, and it doesn’t always go directly to Rome, sometimes you have to make a little turn on the left, or a little turn on the right…
If you have a perfect horse with a perfect character with no problems, then you can stay on the classical scale of riding, and step-by-step you come to the Grand Prix. But you can have problems, you can have a nervous horse, there are many problems you can have, then you have to find out the right way to come to the end with that horse.”
“All the horses have to go over the back, they have to go long and deep, the forwards has to be very good, they have to come, they have to go, like you want, you have to play with all these things.”
“Now they sometimes ride the horses short, and this is not what we learned.”
“The neck of the horse, from the wither, down, with the nose in front and always the goal was in the end to ride the horses low and deep with the nose in front so we had enough contact. So the power from the hindleg could go over the back to the rider, from the rider to his hands, to the mouth of the horse, so that we can feel the impulsion of the hind legs in our hands.”
Carl and Charlotte, they loved Valegro and built him up, and he gives more
“I am 100% convinced that the biggest part of success is that you understand your horse. You have to be a horseman – not only riding because you want to be successful and you use the horse to be successful for you. Look at Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, they are not thinking in this way, they didn’t start with Valegro to be an Olympic winner. They love him and they built him up and suddenly he gives more, and more, and suddenly he gives them a win in the Prix St Georges, and then he gives them a little bit passage, piaffe, and this is the way.
As a trainer you cannot look at the technique only, first you have to look in the eyes of your horse, you have to ask, what does this horse want? Does he want more training? Does he want less training? Is he happy? Then you put the technique on top. But if you immediately go with the technique, you don’t try to understand your horse, you don’t communicate with your horse – then you don’t have any chance. Charlotte and Carl, they are communicating with their horses, and I think that is the biggest part of their success.”
Read more from Jean here:
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