“I always make sure I do a proper warm up. I make sure my horses are really properly stretching and giving their back, and coming from behind. When you trot over the cavalletti, the hind end is active, they are over the back and soft and swinging.”
It is very noticeable that your horses are always in rhythm, every horse, like a metronome…
“I always make sure I do a proper warm up. Often in the mornings, my girls will do the warm up on the other horses and I will warm up the first horse I ride that day. I make sure my horses are really properly stretching and giving their back, and coming from behind. When you trot over the cavalletti, the hind end is active, they are over the back and soft and swinging.”
“Then they give and stretch into your hand, then you can take them up, have them in front, and have good contact, because the whole body of the horse is loosened up. If I did this too quick, if I didn’t take the time that each individual horse needs, then I have to struggle with getting any movements properly done. That’s why I always make sure, nice stretching in the beginning, and make sure they stretch afterwards, so then they are ready tomorrow when they come out of the box, they are not tired or muscle sore.”
Certainly, Santa Cruz comes out of her cavalletti work, so free and loose and elastic, with such wonderful ‘takt’ – and even though she is doing the Grand Prix movements, she is working sweetly into a snaffle bit. Every step is so even in the passage – this is passage from power, not passage from tension…
In the piaffe, she really lowers her quarters, but you can see that the piaffe is still coming and every now and then the mare loses it – and Ingrid just keeps coming back and quietly asking. The piaffe is still not perfect, but it will come, and come in the right way.
Time to do the changes, but Ingrid wants to loosen Santa Cruz’s back first, so it is back to a the cavalletti, and cantering over the cavalletti.
Lovely changes, nice working pirouette, and the work finishes deep and long and trotting… over the cavalletti.
Ingrid and Santa Cruz competing at the Bundeschampionat
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