My Problem With Competitive Dressage

Preface to this post: I've been thinking about this quite a bit, especially after reviewing some video of Edward Gal and Mooreland Totilas, who scored a ridiculous score of 92.3% at the FEI World Cup. This is all my opinion; none of it should be taken as fact, it's simply what I've observed and learned in my years of riding and training and watching.

I love sports. I love playing them, watching (most) of them, and talking about them. I've played soccer since I was 5 years old, and I've continued to play it competitively in college. I watched almost every World Cup game that was televised, and I follow 3 different teams. I love skiing, although I've never had the chance to compete, we're trying to get a ski team together at Vermont Tech. The Winter Olympics were INCREDIBLE, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching our American athletes kick serious butt. I love dressage; I've loved dressage ever since I started doing it with Ernie about 6 years ago. However, I get very, very discouraged sometimes when I watch it. I'm not talking your local shows or even some of the higher level stuff: I'm talking Olympic/Pan-Am/International competition with the biggest and best riders out there.

Why? Because the judging, in my opinion, is not fluent and consistent.

When people watch sports, they want to be able to see that the best team won. Sometimes, that doesn't happen, but with most sports, it's very obvious why. The best team overall does not always win. It's what makes watching sports so exciting. On any day, at any point, things can change. One thing is always for certain, however: the best team that day always wins. It happens all the time in soccer.

With dressage, it isn't so cut and dry. TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, you are judged against a standard. It's less "how well did Pair A do compared with Pair B?" and more "How well did Pair A and Pair B compare to the standard set for this level? Which pair was closer?" Yes, you are competing with other pairs for the top spot, but you truly are competing with yourself. How close can you come to achieving that standard?

This is supposed to be the case. However, more and more I am seeing highly skilled pairs who turn out BEAUTIFUL tests and freestyle routines and do not get the credit deserved for their performance. Dressage competitions at the international level have become more about style and a "show" than the fundamentals that make a truly brilliant equine athlete. A truly good horse should LOOK fun to ride. (S)he should LOOK like he's having a ball doing his/her job. However, he should not be a circus act. The trend in dressage is the big European-bred warmbloods with ridiculous bicycle trots (a term I have coined to describe the paddling movement in the extended trot, the equivalent of riding a bicycle) and shortened frames. I'm not a fan of these types of horses. When well trained, I think they make fantastic mounts. However, I'm much more a fan of the original dressage horses: classically trained Baroque types much like those still used at the Spanish Riding School. But dressage, just like every sport, has it's trends.

This is Totilas' performance at the World Cup:


Now, I actually really like this horse. I think Gal is a fantastic rider, and I really do believe this horse is a fantastic athlete. However, I don't believe this pair should have scored 92.3% on this freestyle. Again, the pairs are judged against a standard, not each other. However, the judging in upper level dressage has shifted quite a bit, and nowadays it's hard to tell why a pair received the score they did. That performance was great; the choreography was excellent, the horse was relaxed, completely through, moved seamlessly and exhibited all the characteristics of a world class athlete. But look at his extended trot: see how animated he is in front, almost to the point of doing the bicycle kick (it kinda looks like the Can-Can, actually) but how his hind legs do not mirror that? It's not symmetrical; anything who knows anything about dressage knows that you want the two sides (whether that's front and back, left and right, whatever) to mirror each other. Yet the extended trot was one his highest point values received. I don't care for his piaffe, either. In most areas, it looked like he really struggled with it: once again he had way more animation in front than in back, and it wasn't always rhythmic. I can also pick out at least 2 places where he got too hot and jumped the gun on a couple transitions with should have cost him points. Hmmm....

Compare to this video, of Andreas Helgstrand and Blu Hors Matine @ WEG (my favorite freestyle ever, I have to say!)


Personally, I think this freestyle was on par, if not better in some areas, than the one with Totilas. That mare was having a BALL (some people claim the tail swishing is a sign of irritation or pain; this is true, but it's usually accompanied by teeth knashing, exposed eye whites, pinned ears, a tight back, tense movement, etc. This mare had none of those. I've seen horses who swish their tails when they're working/thinking hard, and that's what I chalk this up to), she was moving beautifully, all of her gaits were elastic and fluid and symmetrical. Take a look at her extended trots and her piaffes. Even height from both her front and back legs. You don't have that in the video of Totilas. But what was the score of this lovely pair? 81.5%.

This is why dressage is frustrating to watch. You see two wonderful performances by pairs that are clearly enjoying themselves. There were clear glitches in both, but not a single test is perfect. So why is there over a 10% difference between the two scores? It doesn't make sense. Spectators see a beautiful test or routine, and they expect to see the pair rewarded for it. 81% is a FANTASTIC dressage score. It's the equivalent of a 100 for most; hell, 65% is damn good. When you go further than that however, you expect to see something really great, beyond what most pairs are capable of, something exceptional. And consistently exceptional. I didn't see that with Totilas.

I believe this counts as a rant, hehe. However, I don't believe all that I talked about above because I think Horse X is prettier than Horse Y. I think Totilas is a fantastic animal, but I don't think that performance deserved a 93%.

Here's another example (on a kind of different note) of why I find professional dressage hard to watch sometimes:





Compare these two photos of an extended trot. The first is (I believe) a Chinese dressage team member. The second is a photo of Jane Savoie, which I believe is a few years old, probably from the last 90's. Look at the differences. The Chinese horse is clearly very tense, back is tight and flat (look just behind the saddle, that should be rounded), and he's flipping his toe of the leading front foot. The hind leg flipped out behind is a tell-tale sign that he's pushing with his hindquarters and not lifting. He's also displaying what's known as Diagonal Advanced Placement. The trot is suppose to be a diagonal gait, however his left hind foot has hit the ground before his right forefoot, when they are suppose to hit together. This is claimed by some dressage trainers to be desirable. I think it's a bunch of bollocks. It means the horse isn't through.

Now, look at Jane Savoie's horse. This horse is CLEARLY round, CLEARLY propelling from his hindquarters (look how round his back is behind the saddle, and the way his hindquarters are shaped!) He's lifted equally in the shoulder compared to the push from the hind end, his front leg is straight, toes are level. He does look a little worried (look at his eye) but his ears display attentiveness to Savoie, and the rest of body doesn't have an ounce of tension in it.

The first photo was far more recent, but look at how poorly the horse moves. This style of dressage is far too rampant in modern show rings. It's sad to see, because as truly talented as some of these horses could be, riders and trainers are looking to push more and more for faster and better results, even if it lacks correctness.

Viva the old school!