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Piaffe in the Pillars. Painting by Ludwig Koch. |
Tapestry depicts horse and rider in the Capriole. |
Pirouette by George Hamilton c. 1700. |
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Mary Stuart in the Piaffe, Sidesaddle. |
Capriole in the Pillars, 1890. |
William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle |
Equestrian Portrait of Henry IV (1555-1610). King of France before the Walls of Paris, 1594. |
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Queen Isabel of France by Velasquez |
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The Dressage Blog
March 10, 2009
On the Bit 9.0
©Thomas Ritter 2009
After examining several texts by traditional German authors, I want to take a look at a couple of French writers as well. It’s interesting to see that what they have to say about the subject of poll flexion is actually not very different from what their German counterparts wrote.
Jean Licart (1963, translation: TR):
“The appropriate frame of poll flexion, with the poll as the highest point and the nose in front of the vertical, allows harmonious muscular interaction (correct relationship between engagement and detention), the cooperation of the two forces, and, consequently, the maximum efficiency in the utilization of the horse.”
This is an excellent summarization of the reason why the poll should remain the highest point and the nose should be kept in front of the vertical for the most part. It is concise and to the point. When I read it for the first time, the terms “harmonious muscular interaction”, “cooperation of the two forces”, and “maximum efficiency in the utilization of the horse” immediately struck a chord with me. In this posture, the horse’s musculature can work most efficiently in contracting and stretching, flexing and extending the hind legs, pushing and carrying the body mass, creating the up and down swinging of the back and the pendulum like forward and backward swinging of the hind legs, all of which produce a pleasant, comfortable gait for the rider and an elastic motion of the horse’s legs and back that protects the joints and tendons from wear and tear.
Jean Licart (1963, translation: TR):
“It is important that, in poll flexion, the head remains connected to the base of the neck, so that they can form a unit. The head or jaw must not come behind the vertical, except at the rider’s request, and they must return in front of the vertical by the action of the antagonistic muscles as soon as this request ceases.”
Licart addresses something here that we already encountered in Steinbrecht’s book. The connectivity of the spine is paramount. The head has to be connected to the neck, and the neck has to be connected to the shoulders, so that the energy cannot leak out of the system at any point. The quest for suppleness finds a limit in the necessity of cohesiveness. This requires a fine balance. By nature, the base of the horse’s neck is often the most flexible part of the neck. In fact, it can become so supple that it loses the connection to the shoulders. When that happens, any rein aid will make the neck wag like a dog’s tail, instead of continuing on to the hindquarters. The result of a disconnected neck is that the horse’s hips and poll are out of the rider’s reach and can remain stiff and locked up.
Some riders strive for this disconnectedness on purpose, because it enables them to keep the horse’s head down and steady, regardless of what is happening in the rest of the horse’s body, whereas a connected horse will always show any loss of balance or suppleness through a change in the head and neck position.
In order to combine perfect steadiness with perfect suppleness, the neck should be steadiest at the base and most supple at the poll, just like a tree branch is thickest and strongest at its base, where it grows out of the trunk, and thinnest, most supple at its tip, where the leaves attach. You can see these things in the development of the horse’s musculature, too. When the neck is well connected and supple in the right areas, then the base of the neck will be the widest, most developed part of the neck. The space in front of the shoulder blade and withers is filled in, the top line muscle is widest in front of the withers and tapers off towards the ears. There are no lumps or hard places in the underneck area. If the neck is not connected enough at the base, then the thickest part is somewhere in the middle, and it looks like a snake who swallowed a rabbit. In that case, there are usually lumps in the underneck that look and feel like rocks underneath the skin.
Jean Licart (1963, translation: TR):
“A constant mobility of the poll and jaw prevents impulsion. The horse whose poll and jaw are mobilized by the slightest rein contact can neither carry himself, nor develop extended gaits or energetic movements. Nor can he ‘listen’ to the aids of the rider’s hands, nor be guided with precision.”
What Licart is mentioning here is an excessive mobility at the expense of the steadiness. If the horse recoils from the slightest rein aid and flexes his poll and neck backwards, then there can be no connection from the hind legs forward to the bit and back to the hind legs. That’s why the horse can develop neither balance, nor impulsion, nor collection, since he lacks the point of support that is necessary for the elastic, energetic swinging of the back. The weight and leverage of his head and neck are then not available to the rider in order to flex the haunches. However, using the weight of the horse’s forehand to strengthen and flex the hind legs is the key to the gymnastic development of the horse, as Gustav Steinbrecht stated in a passage that I used in one of the earlier blog entries.
Alexis F.L’Hotte (1895):
“The ramener,[1] as it is understood in high equitation, has little to do with the position of the horse’s head. It lies, first of all, in the submission of the jaw which is the first joint that receives the effect of the hand. If this joint responds with softness to the action that solicits its play, it will bring about the flexibility of the neck and provoke the suppleness of the other joints due to the instinctive relationship that exists between all muscular contractions. If, on the other hand, the jaw resists or refuses to be mobilized, then there is no lightness; it is natural that resistances support each other and will have many echoes. Thus, in Classical equitation what the ramener represents is less an unchanging position of the head, but, rather, a general condition of the submission and pliancy of all the joints and muscles.”
L’Hotte adds an element here that is very typical for French dressage, which the German authors typically don’t mention: the mobility of the jaw. Whereas the German tradition considers the poll to be the gateway to the spine and the haunches and spends a considerable amount of time and effort on suppling the poll, the Baucherist tradition focuses a great deal of attention on the mobilization of the jaw. Of course, the poll and the jaw are so close together that suppling one will probably also bring about the relaxation of the other.
What is especially interesting for us within the context of the present investigation is that L’Hotte states that the ramener, which is approximately the French term for being on the bit, has little to do with the head position. According to him, having a horse on the bit starts with the mobility of the jaw, which then makes the suppleness of the rest of the body possible. If the jaw is stiff, the rest of the body will be more or less stiff as well, and the aids will not go through. L’Hotte recognizes very correctly that all the muscles are connected with each other and that a stiffness in one body part will lead to stiffnesses elsewhere. In this view, he is not very far from Gustav Steinbrecht and others who don’t want to prescribe a specific universal head and neck position that represents being on the bit.
The final sentence of the paragraph is perhaps the most important one. It is not the superficial form, but the suppleness of the body that characterizes the ramener. It’s a function, rather than a form. The pliancy and suppleness of all joints and muscles is what allows the energy to go through, and although it is not unrelated to posture, the optimal posture is not the same for all horses, and even for the same horse, the optimal posture changes with the balance. The horse can be on the bit when he is stretching forward-downward, he can be on the bit when most of his weight is on his haunches in the piaffe and other highly collected gaits, and he can be on the bit in any degree of balance in between. But the posture in which the muscles are most supple has to be different for each degree of balance. It is determined by the conformation and the balance. In some cases, the nose will be vertical, in some cases the nose will be in front of the vertical, and in some cases – especially correction cases – the nose may have to come slightly behind the vertical for short periods of time.
When the neck is elevated too much and the nose comes too far in front of the vertical, the poll and the underneck will start bracing, which can spread to the back and the haunches. When the neck is positioned too low and the nose comes too far behind the vertical, the horse falls onto the forehand, and the aids can no longer reach the joints of the hind legs. Poll and hips consequently remain stiff.
To be continued…
Feel free to e-mail me with questions and comments.
Thomas Ritter
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