Top 10 YouTube Favorites (part 3)

Video #2 is fantastic!! Really great to see so many eventing legends getting the job done. Horses are truly in front of the leg and not packaged into a dressage canter, even thru the combinations...

I have to disagree with you on your video # 3. I can not watch this video without notice to the tail wringing. Wringing the tail comes from bad riding or poor training. It could be just a habit now, but there was a time when the horse was wringing the tail in response to an aid from the rider, and the response was ignored. Not the type of riding we want to emulate in eventing.

>>Anon: Thanks for the comment Anon, I think your comment highlights the divide within Dressage right now. I had concerns when we posted the recent Edward Gal videos about putting a video of a horse so obviously ridden in methods that so many people don't like right now. One thing that really interests me is the question of how much is it ok to make a horse do what it doesn't want to do? Ultimately I think most riders accept the reality that we ask/teach our horses to do things that they would not do if left to their own devices. We all have this grandiose notion of training where we slowly and gradually teach a horse to chose to be better, but how many of us abandon these principles the first time a young horse won't jump off a bank! As a rider, I believe in showing a horse the proper technique rather than telling it what to do, but in the end I think we all do a lot more telling than we would like. As long as the system/competition/judges reward for more expression in the trot regardless of how much the horse seems to enjoy it, then horses will keep wringing their tails.

thanks for the secretariat video- it always gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes.

I'd take a wringing tail over bucking during canter transitions, jumping out of the arena, and failure to halt at C any day!

I watch the Andreas Helgstrand video anytime I need a pick-me-up. It is one of my favorites.