The members of the FEI Judges Supervisory Panel were discerning critics at the 2023 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference, but their motivation is love of the horse and the sport
Story and photographs by Jennifer O. Bryant
The FEI Judges Supervisory Panel (JSP) shares a common purpose, but its members come from vastly different backgrounds and have equally divergent dressage-training methods, although their aim is the same.
The USDF was honored to welcome four JSP members as the clinicians for the 2023 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference. The January 16-17 event, held at Mary Anne and Walter McPhail’s High Meadow Farm in Loxahatchee, Florida, was the first since 2020.
Meet the Presenters
Created by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) in 2011, the Judges Supervisory Panel (JSP) comprises a select group of FEI dressage judges and trainers. Utilized primarily at such major international dressage championships as Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup Finals, the JSP has a technical-review function: Within designated limits, it can adjust the score for an individual movement up or down if a judge has either “missed a clear mistake” (such as the count in a line of tempi changes) or incorrectly penalized a competitor for a mistake that did not occur.
The 2023 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference presenters are all JSP members.
David Hunt is an international trainer/rider from Great Britain and the current president of British Dressage, Great Britain’s national dressage organization. He is the president of the International Dressage Trainers Club and a founder of the JSP. Before he focused on dressage, he trained numerous top-level event horses and riders, including HRH Princess Anne of Great Britain.
Henk van Bergen is no stranger to the Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference, having headlined solo in 2009. The renowned Dutch instructor/trainer has coached dressage athletes at multiple Olympic Games and has served as the Dutch national dressage trainer.
With her legendary partner Fellow Traveller, Roemer Foundation/USDF Hall of Fame member Linda Zang was a member of the US dressage team at the 1980 alternate Olympics. Her Idlewilde Farm in Davidsonville, Maryland, was for years a hub of US dressage training with then-US team coach the late Col. Bengt Ljungquist of Sweden. She has judged at such prestigious competitions as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 1998 and 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games.
Fellow Roemer Foundation/USDF Hall of Fame member Lilo Fore, of Santa Rosa, California, is a longtime co-chair of the USDF Instructor/Trainer Committee and an examiner in USDF’s certification program. A native of Germany, she has judged at World Equestrian Games, World Cup Finals, and many others. She frequently serves as a moderator at Trainers Conferences and has presented at multiple past events.
The Unsparing Eye
For David Hunt, dressage training is all about the details—and no detail escaped him. Here are a few of his memorable observations:
“It has to be your trot, not his.”
“Don’t let him poke his nose out when he feels like it. You’re the decision-maker. He must learn to ‘cough on the bit.’”
“To get to where [this rider] wants, she has to get a lot more control of the situation.”
“If you don’t address these problems now, you’ll have bigger problems later.”
“We want a nice, natural trot—not too artificial or elevated.”
“Your walk looks like a funeral march. The horse must march with contact. Don’t slow down from contact.”
“You can’t sit there trying to be Little Miss Perfect. You have to form a relationship. You have to be the boss. You have to analyze each time whether you were satisfied with that transition. There isn’t going to be someone with you every time, so you have to learn to be self-constructive.”
“Push the canter forward. Don’t squeeze. Little nudges with your legs. Don’t ‘row’ him. You’re not rowing a boat. Push him into the bridle when he argues with you. Push him into the resistance.”
“The best way to ruin a horse is to try not to ruin a horse. You’ve got to get him there. When he’s dripping along like a half-dead camel, it’s not going to work. If you want to get somewhere, you’ve got to take ownership of what you’ve got.”
The definition of dressage is the systematic development of the natural abilities of the horse.
–Henk van Bergen
“No, no, no! Don’t let him walk away! Your walk, not his. Actually, my walk, not yours.”
“A pirouette is a canter circle, not more. It gets stilted and the rider thinks, ‘Oh, this is a pirouette,’ and starts humping the saddle. Some people think a canter pirouette should feel different. It’s a canter.”
“You will get little resistances. That’s training.”
“Your seat just holds the balance; it doesn’t influence the forward impulsion.”
“Feel, don’t watch [in the arena mirror]. Feel what he feels like.”
Sympathetic Training
If The Hunt-van Bergen Show were a TV crime drama, Hunt would play the bad cop against van Bergen’s good cop. Demonstration riders’ egos may have taken a bit of a beating over some of Hunt’s withering pronouncements, but interspersed with those was van Bergen’s “kinder, gentler” approach. Examples:
“The main objective of dressage training is balance. Balance is a combination of rhythm and position.” (By rhythm, he meant rhythm + tempo; position referred to the horse’s longitudinal and lateral positioning.)
“Before I can influence the rhythm, the horse must be forward and understand my leg aids.”
“Transitions are probably the best exercise for getting influence over the horse.”
“You can’t correct a weakness with all kinds of tricks. The only people you impress are the ones without knowledge.”
“The secret to good teaching is to make it simple. Some instructors explain about ‘Look how much I know’ rather than saying it in a way that the rider understands.”
“The half-halt…only works when the horse is pretty nice[ly] accepting the bit. It’s a fine-tuning aid. It is a signal to the horse to do something to remain in balance.”
“Maintain the trot rhythm. Just regular trot in all movements. The same trot, all the time.”
“Every exercise has three parts: the preparation, the exercise, and the finish.”
“The corner is your friend or your enemy. It makes the horse better or worse.”
“There comes a moment in your riding when you have to accept the weak points of your horse [and not keep pushing it to do what it cannot].”
“Be careful going to the walk as a break when there is tension or problems. You’ll ruin the walk. The walk needs relaxation and stretch.”
“If the horse is nicely trained, he gives the nice feeling that he wants to touch the hand of the rider. It’s like walking with your partner: You walk side by side and touch hands.”
“Do the opposite of what the horse wants” (e.g., if he hurries, slow his tempo. If he wants to be too high in the neck, ask him to stretch forward-downward).
“Stopping [the work] is the biggest reward to the horse. Don’t just pat him and keep going, asking over and over.”
“When training tempi changes, stop when you feel you are losing influence.” “Luckily, judges are looking more and more to the nice, natural way of moving, and less to the spectacular legs flying all over the place.”
One on One with the Conference Presenters
At the conclusion of the 2023 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference, presenters David Hunt, Henk van Bergen, Linda Zang, and Lilo Fore shared their thoughts on the event and elaborated on a few points.
“We didn’t want it to be a ‘normal clinic,’” Fore said of the conference format. As members of the FEI Judges Supervisory Panel (JSP), the presenters wanted to demonstrate the interplay among training, riding, and judging, she said—and to show how judging influences the sport.
“We as JSP, that’s part of our job: to direct the sport,” said Hunt. “If we see it going in a way we don’t like, then it’s our job to put it back, and make sure it gets in the right direction.” To accomplish this, he said, JSP members hold discussions and attend FEI seminars for top-level dressage judges, where they may caution the judges to “‘Be careful; some of these horses are getting to climb-y and too unnatural,’” for instance.
Judges today want to see horses moving naturally, not with extravagance caused by tension. The difference, said Hunt, depends on “whether the rider is creating it or if the horse is naturally within its own self.”
“If due to tension, the horse cannot be through,” added Fore. “It becomes fake and false.”
The presenters praised US 2020 Olympic team silver medalist Sanceo, ridden by Sabine Schut-Kery, as an example of a naturally extravagant mover. “I thought Sabine’s performance at the Olympics was lovely—very correct, natural, elastic,” said Zang.
Another they love is reigning dressage world champion Glamourdale, ridden by Charlotte Fry of Great Britain. Fore called the stallion “an amazing, sensitive, hot horse, but she rides it with feel, and tactful. She allows the horse to be within his own balance, so she still has all that fancy motion but it is on the rider’s aids. That is why it’s so gorgeous.”
Knee action alone is not desirable extravagant movement for dressage, said Fore.
“If you have a Saddlebred, that’s how they move naturally,” she said. “But the way we train dressage horses, what we want is not that. It’s not knee action—legs up and down. The moment you throw the legs up like that, the hind legs are out the back door.” And since the horse’s back is usually also down and tight in such cases, “You’re sitting on a trampoline.” Although the JSP members know one another well and have worked together at many competitions, the Trainers Conference was the first time that this group had collaborated so closely on a training project and gotten to spend so much time together, they said. They expressed satisfaction that their methods and views meshed well.
Training Wisdom from Zang and Fore
Although Hunt and van Bergen did the majority of the presenting, with one or the other working solo with each demonstration pair, Zang and Fore contributed astute observations that illuminated the training discussions.
Many of Zang’s points concerned equitation and biomechanics. She recalled a time early in her dressage career when she took three horses to train with the late German master Herbert Rehbein:
“He made me do nothing but transitions—trot-halt, canter-walk—for a week. I think I lost 35 pounds and I was in pain, but I learned how to be straight in my position so the horse could come straight through.”
Other takeaways from Zang:
“The inside rein and leg are [used for] throughness and direction; the outside rein and leg are [for] collection. You stay up and allow the horse to come up willingly.”
Zang noticed a correlation between one rider’s rein aids and the horse’s occasional opening of the mouth. The rider, she observed, “turns with a bit of indirect outside rein, shifting the hands to the inside, to pick up the horse’s shoulder. That’s when the horse opens its mouth. Just sit straight with your hands steady.”
She instructed another rider to “ride up to the outside shoulder. The outside shoulder is the horse’s point of balance.” As the horse progresses in its dressage training, she explained, the inside hind leg reaches up and under the horse’s body (i.e., goes in shoulder-fore positioning). Then “the horse connects to its outside shoulder and the outside rein. The outside rein and leg are used for straightening.”
Fore’s years of experience as an instructor/trainer made her an ideal choice for fielding audience questions. Standouts included:
shorten his neck and topline. Skilled riding by owner/rider Cindi Wylie helped him to develop reach and elasticity in a longer outline.
Do judges frown on a horse that grinds its teeth? It doesn’t bother me unless other things are going on. Sometimes it’s a sign that the horse is thinking and trying hard.
Do you agree with the FEI’s requiring a double bridle and spurs in certain CDI divisions? I rarely have seen a horse that does not learn to accept a double bridle. As for spurs, it’s how you use it.
When should you practice an exercise off the track instead of along the rail? Ride away from the rail if the rail is like a magnet. Challenge yourself and your horse: Can you stay straight while riding three feet off the track?
Why did the presenters ask one rider to go more forward, even though the horse was too “down” in front? When a horse pulls down, it is not impulsion any more. The horse had to go more forward, even if the balance was not quite right. Sometimes you have to break something to make something. A horse has to go forward before you can change the balance; you need energy and impulsion. If you keep him going forward, there will come a point where he lifts himself up.
How do you determine the amount of bend needed to ride a corner? Make the corner your friend. It’s an amazing tool to learn to collect the horse. But you need vertical balance between the rider’s legs—not so much bend that the horse can’t handle it.
What causes a lateral walk? A lateral walk is usually the result of the hind legs overtracking like hell but the shoulders are retracted. Ride every single step: 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.
Exercises from the Masters
Those who attend the Trainers Conference are sure to go home with new approaches and exercises to address various training issues. File these away for use with your own mounts.
Horse tends to hurry in the walk, with his hindquarters out behind but taking short steps in front. Hunt had the rider shorten the walk steps into half-steps or piaffe to close up the horse’s hindquarters while encouraging freer movement in front. “He needs to walk shorter, not faster,” Hunt said. “Shorter, smaller walk into piaffe. Slower. Don’t walk so fast.”
Valentin
Pirouette problems. It took even some of the most experienced riders and trainers a while to catch on to what Hunt was saying about how people overcomplicate the preparation and execution of canter pirouettes. His main point: The canter should remain the same before, during, and after the movement.
“Let the pirouette collect the horse,” he told one rider. “You have two completely different canters. All the exercises you do must not take away from the horse.”
In developing a pirouette, “Make a five-meter canter circle—just canter—then bring the haunches in.”
“Ride forward, forward, forward” in the pirouettes, said Hunt. “You should be able to come out at any time. Come in [to the pirouette] in shoulder-in, not in haunches-in.”
Getting control over the flying changes. “If he doesn’t accept your support,” said van Bergen, “you don’t do the change. Don’t allow the horse to take over. You must influence the horse. Be the leader; otherwise you become a passenger.”
Dealing with the tense or spooky horse. “You need to make him go where you want before you can get him to go how you want,” Hunt told the rider of a horse that was visibly tense and wanting to avoid certain places in the arena. “When he speeds up in the corners, he’s running away from you. Don’t pump him. Just sit quietly with your seat and let him take you.”
The neck is short and tight. “There’s no point trying to get the neck out until you get the hind leg. The hind leg pushes the neck out,” said Hunt.
“This is a situation where a lot of you probably don’t agree with me,” he continued. “I see the neck. But until the rider gets control over the horse’s body, you can’t get the neck. The horse has energy and balance and suspension, but he doesn’t have them all in the right order.”
Trot-canter-trot transitions are stilted. It’s all about softness in the poll, said van Bergen. From the canter, “When he is absolutely soft in the poll, you allow the first trot step. Feel the first trot step in your seat, not in your hands.”
Horse falls toward the new inside shoulder in turns or bend changes. Try van Bergen’s exercise: Trotting on the right rein, begin a three-loop serpentine, width of the arena, from A or C. Over the first center line, think of riding a couple of steps of half-pass right (or leg-yield right, for a less-advanced horse) before bending left to make the second serpentine loop. Then, over the second center line, half-pass or leg-yield left a couple of steps before bending in the new direction. The objective is not to make textbook half-pass steps, he explained, but to maintain the horse’s balance.
The same concept can be used in training flying changes over the center line in a serpentine pattern: “You can imagine, if you do your first turn and you come to the center line, and the horse is already leaning to the left and he has to do the flying change to the left [from right-lead canter], he falls completely on the forehand,” van Bergen said. “So you make the turn, and you put him in that right canter a little sneaky sideways to the right; it brings also the weight to the right shoulder—so you make the inside shoulder free for the change.”
Horse anticipates the flying changes in the canter “zigzags.” “Between the sideways parts is a complete exercise,” van Bergen noted. “Go sideways; then flex to the new inside. Don’t allow the horse to make the flying change from the change in flexion. He must wait for the leg aids.”
In Gratitude
The USDF is thankful for the contributions of those who helped to make the 2023 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference a success:
Title sponsor: Adequan®
Host: Mary Anne McPhail, High Meadow Farm, Loxahatchee, Florida
Dressage4Kids and all of the volunteers.
And to the demonstration riders and horses who showed us excellent dressage over the two days:
Lehua Custer, Wellington, Florida, and F.J. Ramzes, a KWPN gelding by Juventus and owned by Wendy Sasser
Kimberly Herslow, Stockton, New Jersey, and her own Feymar OLD, an Oldenburg mare by Fürstenball
Christopher Hickey, Wellington, Florida, and Valentin, a Swedish Warmblood gelding by Dalwhinnie and owned by Cecelia Stewart
Jan Lamontagne, Loxahatchee Groves, Florida, and her own Kentucky, a Dutch Warmblood gelding by Lord Leatherdale
Anna Merritt, Ocala, Florida, and Fox’s Creek Censational, a German Riding Pony stallion by Caramel and owned by Orona
Endel Ots, Wellington, Florida, and King’s Pleasure, a KWPN stallion by Dark Place and owned by Heidi Humphries
Kristin Stein, Wellington, Florida, and Elbrasco – L, a KWPN gelding by Ampere and owned by Sally Alksnis
Cindi Wylie, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and her own PRE stallion, Amado XXXV.
Jennifer Bryant is the editor of USDF Connection.
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