Postby Dresseur » Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:38 pm
So, if horse is piaffing correctly, you can sit a wine glass on the croup. It should be that smooth. Most GP horses in competition bounce up and down behind. I'll have to hunt for videos that I think show the smooth sitting.
Imo, I think training is a big factor. It is so, so easy for deviations to creep in during P/P, so if you haven't done the basics correctly - teaching the horse to come under for trot/halts etc., the faults will show in the p/p. How many people teach this technique of flexing the LS joint while they are doing the basic transitions? Not many that I know... and imo, it's telling. And, horses evade in different ways. Gala comes under spectacularly behind - but she comes under too far and avoids taking weight behind if you are not careful. Some horses will go wide, some, like Valegro, go base narrow. Some stall. My trainer's one horse - a PRE that by all accounts should have an incredibly easy time P/P, has struggled greatly with the rhythm - but because the faults were recognized and addressed, it's coming along nicely and is lovely. That horse's full sister, who was in training with her old partner, did not get corrected and now ropewalks and the rhythm is terrible. Meanwhile, another PRE that I know was taught to passage in the trot, and now has great trouble coming under. In fact, the passage was so built in, that the horse became rein lame. This is a horse that has attended clinics with the greats, and was taught to p/p like that by those people. The end result? A horse that was practically given away with un-diagnoseable lameness... who has not taken a lame step since the training was corrected. Training can create faults and over come faults and if you only ever look at the piaffe from the side, you miss things. Or, if the goal is simply "on the spot" you miss things.