I Never Realised The Olympics Is This Year, Sometime.

Well, Carlos did that the hard way!

Adam Peaty who narrowly missed out on a gold medal last night has tested positive for covid. He said he had a sore throat. Does that mean he won’t be competing in any other event eg was he in the relay?

“Is it significant”. Ask the hundreds of young people who train for hours in the hope of one day.competing ,not for drugs, bribes or world wide fame advertising coke or soap but for the thrill of representing their country in a sport they love. My 14 year old granddaughter trains with intensive swimming 5 days a week and does land training one day to build muscles. She has been told she could perhaps be a future Olympic swimmer so please don’t say it’s not significant

Thank you foxie48, I have gone from knowing nothing to a tiny bit!
I’m going to look up all the terms you have used, and will watch some dressage for the first time ever, and with a molecule of understanding hopefully.

( I love your passion as I have a passion that I love sharing with anyone who will listen 🙂)

We had an Arab mare that DD competed on (ODE’s) she was fearless, always entered the collecting ring on her hind legs, side stepped, bucked the whole shabang. As soon as the bell went totally different horse, calm, disciplined and extremely good.

I used to hack out on her, she knew that I was nowhere near a good rider as DD, the darling little horse really looked after me 🩷. Never reared, bucked or misbehaved whilst on was on her back, or leading her.

GrannyGravy13

foxie48 very eloquently described 👍

Yes, very well put indeed. I'm a great lover of Exmoor ponies (I learned to ride on one, as did my daughter) and I follow with great interest the work carried out by the Exmoor Pony Project, with the wild, moor-bred ponies. It is all done with great care, love and affection, led by the ponies themselves and everything is taken at their pace. It is beautiful to see them begin to form a bond with humans.

foxie48

Oh dear, I hope no one has any vidoes of me swearing when a horse has trodden on my foot, or when they've put in a stop or a buck and I've flown over their head. The language of the horse world can be pretty "ripe" but it doesn't mean we follow up a swear word with any violence.
All my horses knew quite a few words linked to aids, so much so that in lessons my trainer used code words or the horse would respond to her instructions to me rather than wait for me to give the aid. Did they understand the f word, I'm afraid they probably did and thought I was cursing myself for not giving a clear aid and usually I was. The advent of coaching headsets meant my trainer could hear every word muttered under my breath and I could hear hers, it led to some hilarious moments.
Training big fit athletic horses with a mind of their own is challenging, they can do very unexpected things very quickly as I found to my cost in January, ending up in hospital for two weeks with broken bones, a pneumothorax and three pints of internal blood loss. fwiw I did nothing wrong and it was completely out of character for the horse, just one of life's mysteries but he nearly killed me! I can forgive any horse person for swearing as anything to do with horses is potentially. dangerous and because horses are flight animals they are quick to react, that's why we need them to work with us and trust us.

Have you seen the videos of Endo the Blind on Facebook who responds totally to his owners words? The relationship between human and horse is quite amazing especially when their senses are far better than ours and they know if you’re lacking in confidence. At the same time a bolshie horse can become a complete pussycat when it’s with someone disabled or a small child. Look at the work Michael Morpurgo does with disadvantaged children. As with our relationship with dogs it’s a symbiotic relationship that goes back centuries.

foxie48 very eloquently described 👍

NotAGran55

NotAGran55

Thanks MaizieD

Just to clarify, if a horse didn’t have any training at all, could it automatically perform some of moves?

Bump, as I meant the question for anyone
who knows about dressage, not just Maizie.

Yes there's nothing really that they wouldn't do in a field, possibly half pass, which is where they move sideways in either canter or trot but that's really easy to teach, all of my horses have done that and I competed at a relatively low level compared to Grand Prix. Piaffe and passage is also natural to them, flying changes are done by foals but teaching them to do tempis when they change on every stride or two's etc is not something they would normally do in a field but actually most horses love doing changes and find it quite exciting.
The thing that is different is doing these movements carrying a rider and at proscribed points in a test. Horses will normally pull themselves using the front as their engine but ridden horses need to learn to push themselves from the hindquarters to carry a rider safely, this develops muscles in their back which helps to protect them against injury and the stronger they get the better they will be able to perform the moves with a rider on board. I can tell by looking at a horse's musculature whether the horse is being ridden correctly or not and I'm afraid a lot of amateur riders don't ride very well. If there are welfare issues that need addressing I'd look first at leisure riders, too many have ill fitting tack, fat unfit horses and neglect the basics like vaccinations, teeth and good basic care.
Lots of trainers will teach the horse in hand first and that also helps to keep the horse strong and supple. That's one of the uses of schooling whips, it is used to replicate the leg of the rider or to ask the horse to move it's body in a certain way. Horses are "into pressure" animals and training uses that as we want to be able to use quick light aids so the merest touch of the leg gets a reaction. That's why using spurs or whips or the leg for that matter in a harsh way is so counter intuitive and is completely the opposite of what you want in your relationship with your horse.
Horses tend to be bred for certain jobs, so dressage horses usually have more extravagant movement (too much sometimes for long term soundness), they need flexible joints but most of all they need to be trainable and want to do the job. Trainability and the desire to work with the rider is absolutely essential, I don't think you can force a horse to anything well if it doesn't want to. It is designed to conserve energy for flight but dressage requires a high level of fitness and is energy sapping (for both horse and rider) and once you are in the competition arena, if your horse isn't completely on your side and with you, you can do little about it.
As you can tell, I am passionate about horses and the sport!

NotAGran55

NotAGran55

Thanks MaizieD

Just to clarify, if a horse didn’t have any training at all, could it automatically perform some of moves?

Bump, as I meant the question for anyone
who knows about dressage, not just Maizie.

Not as refined but yes.

NotAGran55

Thanks MaizieD

Just to clarify, if a horse didn’t have any training at all, could it automatically perform some of moves?

Bump, as I meant the question for anyone
who knows about dressage, not just Maizie.

Well like I said, I know nothing about horses, some of you obviously do. I hope that horse was ok.

Kate1949

I see. So horses are annoying if they don't do what people want them to do?

No Kate1949 not annoying, potentially very dangerous especially when they are being handled on the ground.

Kate1949

I see. So horses are annoying if they don't do what people want them to do?

I think you're twisting my words, deliberately or not. To put it another way, imagine you had spent hours cleaning your house, only for your child to come in and tramp all over your lovely clean floors with their muddy shoes. Would that not be annoying? It would certainly annoy me. People annoy me every single day, far more than any animal ever would. You can be annoyed by something or someone without retaliating.

GrannyGravy13

To get back to the Olympics in general which is what the thread started is about.

There have been several malicious attacks on the fast rail infrastructure around Paris this morning, not a great start.

It’s causing a lot of disruption, and has been described as a well-coordinated attack. It seems odd that nobody’s claiming responsibility.

I see. So horses are annoying if they don't do what people want them to do?

foxie48 👍

I'm watching the news as I'm flying into CDG Monday lunchtime and then taking the train into Paris and out again to my accommodation nearer to Versailles. Fingers crossed it will be better by then.

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD I agree with your posts.

It is impossible to get any horse to do something it has made up its mind not to.

So true but if you can build up trust and they accept you as their leader (they are herd animals) they will do as you ask. I've always been so impressed watching CDJ ride at big occasions, the atmosphere can be electric, she'd come into a noisy bright arena and her horses were always calm. She'd finish a test on Valegro and just drop the reins whilst the crowd clapped and cheered and he seemed to love every minute of the performance. You just don't get that level of trust if you are cruel to your horse

SKY news are reporting just now that a French Airport close to the Swiss Border has closed and all passengers and staff evacuated.

They really are having a nightmare of a day!

To get back to the Olympics in general which is what the thread started is about.

There have been several malicious attacks on the fast rail infrastructure around Paris this morning, not a great start.

MaizieD I agree with your posts.

It is impossible to get any horse to do something it has made up its mind not to.

Oh dear, I hope no one has any vidoes of me swearing when a horse has trodden on my foot, or when they've put in a stop or a buck and I've flown over their head. The language of the horse world can be pretty "ripe" but it doesn't mean we follow up a swear word with any violence.
All my horses knew quite a few words linked to aids, so much so that in lessons my trainer used code words or the horse would respond to her instructions to me rather than wait for me to give the aid. Did they understand the f word, I'm afraid they probably did and thought I was cursing myself for not giving a clear aid and usually I was. The advent of coaching headsets meant my trainer could hear every word muttered under my breath and I could hear hers, it led to some hilarious moments.
Training big fit athletic horses with a mind of their own is challenging, they can do very unexpected things very quickly as I found to my cost in January, ending up in hospital for two weeks with broken bones, a pneumothorax and three pints of internal blood loss. fwiw I did nothing wrong and it was completely out of character for the horse, just one of life's mysteries but he nearly killed me! I can forgive any horse person for swearing as anything to do with horses is potentially. dangerous and because horses are flight animals they are quick to react, that's why we need them to work with us and trust us.

Dressage is brutal. And yes Maizie, I do know a lot about horses, even more about dressage which my ex brother in law used to compete in.

It's hideous out dated cruel and disgusting.

Instead of looking at it through rose coloured glasses, do some research. Look what was in the Danish documentary. See images of horses that are wounded as a result.

It's cruel and hopefully this will be the beginning of the end

Thanks MaizieD

Just to clarify, if a horse didn’t have any training at all, could it automatically perform some of moves?