Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Dressage-news.com posts photos of movements of Totilas ridden by Matthias Alexander Rath training with his father, Klaus Martin Rath, at the stables of Performance Sales International in Muhlen, Germany.

Dressage-news.com was provided exclusive access to a training session before Totilas was moved to the family stables at Kronberg, near Frankfurt in preparation for the first competition–at Munich, June 2-5–since the 11-year-old stallion was bought by Paul Schockemöhle after the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky last year.

Totilas has been bred about three times a week to fulfill agreements to service about 300 mares this season at €8,000 (US$11,500) per successful breeding. Paul Schockemöhle and Matthias say that Totilas has been unaffected by the breeding schedule.

The aim of the competition program is to qualify for the European Championships in Rotterdam in August, but primarily the London Olympics next year. In two years at Grand Prix competition trained and ridden by Edward Gal of The Netherlands, the pair team and individual gold medals at the European Championships in 2009, the World Cup title and three gold medals at the 2010 WEG as well as accumulating record scores at all three Grand Prix levels.

Totilas appears less bulky, more athletic in the training sessions in which Matthias and his father appear to have a remarkably close relationship and shared goals.

Squences to be shown include pirouette, a tempi-change followed by piaffe and passage, extended trot, canter, and other features. There are many rumors and, as with rumors about most topics, many are fantasy. The aim of these photos is to give an idea of some aspects of training.

The photos are of movements being trained not in competition:

Pirouette

TEMPI CHANGE