Riding the half pass with Lisa Wilcox and Relevant.

“I’m working on getting him to lower his neck. I want him to keep the neck at the correct length, where his head is at the vertical, but carry his neck and not get too short.

I just want him to drop the neck and relax and work over his back before I get into the half passes. Instead of coming up and getting short in the half passes, I want him down and into the hand and over the back.

If he gets short, that is when you start having rhythm problems. He has to keep going fluidly forward without losing the rhythm, and crossing over and staying parallel to the wall. These steep half passes are difficult, that’s why they ask for them in the Grand Prix.”

Lisa’s Coach, Ernst Hoyos and Klaus Balkenhol, US Team Coach, happy with Lisa and Relevant’s performance in Jerez

Lisa and Relevant were training with Ernst Hoyos in the lead up to the 2002 WEG.

Rubinstein son, Relevant was a mega-star at the 2002 World Championships in Jerez where he was a crucial contributor to the United States’ historic team silver medal. At Aachen the next year, Relevant and Lisa were second in the Grand Prix, to Ernst’s other star pupil at the time, Ulla Salzgeber with Rusty, scoring 73.54%, and followed that up with a 77.04% in the Special and an 82.39% in the Freestyle. Relevant was standing at Gestüt Vorwerk in Germany, one of the famous studs which is no longer operating. 

Relevant and Lisa in Jerez