Dressage-News

ERMELO, Netherlands, Sept. 8, 2022–In 2021 the Young Horse World Championships were held in Verden, Germany. It was the first time traveling internationally post-pandemic for many of us. The horses had not had big competition schedules leading up to the finals, due to said pandemic, and last year I commented on how it seemed that the horses had blossomed with less stress and travel and, I presumed, more training. I was delighted with the riding and presentation of the majority of horses in all the age groups last year. I was wondering how and if that would transfer to 2022, following what would be a much more normal preparation.

The show has returned to Ermelo in 2022, at the KNHS/KWPN grounds. I landed in Amsterdam in pouring rain to an incredibly full and overly busy Schipol airport… so different from the almost deserted facility of 2021.Is it wrong that I preferred that? I knew I was going to miss the first half of the 5-year-old preliminary finals due to commitments in my “real” day job as a trainer, but knew I would see enough rides to get a feel for the the quality of horses and judging priorities in 2022.

I drove straight to the show, slid my way through the prolific quantity of mud in the field used for parking, hoping my little Opel rental car was up to the task, pulled on my boots and got to work. It’s fair to say I was pretty tired on arrival, but watching all of these horses that are, realistically, an indication of where the sport is heading, my tiredness just melted away. For a good few hours at least. It’s possible that in my tired state I am also a bit grumpier and more candid in my reporting.

It became apparent very quickly that the judges were quick to reward what they saw as good basic gaits, especially in trot and canter, and they were equally quick to penalize for mistakes and large moments of tension in the submission. However, I can’t say that I am, as yet, completely sure what the panel is rewarding in the scores for gaits. As a trainer I look for an active hindleg, engagement, good rhythm and some natural cadence, decent ground cover and a basic easy way of traveling with some athleticism. Then we add extra expression, suppleness and that elusive presence for the top athletes. Hence, I was consistently quite surprised by much higher marks, especially in trot, for several horses that in my eye lacked some of these fundamentals and on a few occasions equally surprised by low scores.

A perfect example of that was the rather glorious Lusitano stallion Nuelo Campline (Escorial x Quioxte), ridden by João Victor Marcari Olivia of Brazil. I am one of the first to think that the Spanish breeds are unlikely to shine at these championships, but this stallion had three really good gaits with a trot that was cadenced and ground covering with much expression. Quite frankly a score close to 9.0 for both walk and trot would not have shocked me, instead he was awarded 8.0 for trot and 7.6 for walk. One has to wonder if his breed influenced the scores. The judges had a final score of 7.96, the spectators had him over 8.3. In this case I completely agreed with the spectators.

The other element I have not yet rationalized is how the blatant examples of a lack of submission are not being taken into account in the basic scores for the gaits.

For example, I arrived at the arena in time for the ride of Jessica Lynn Thomas, whom I have only ever seen on the stallion Secret, which was the epitome of harmony and balance. Sadly, there was neither harmony nor balance in her ride on the stallion Maddox Mart (Hennesy x Bordeaux), especially in the trot. This horse scored an 8.8 for trot but I couldn’t see past the excessive use of the reins throughout the trot tour. Granted, her submission score was a 6.9, but when the use of rein aids has me wanting to leap out of my seat, shouldn’t this be reflected in the score?

Another general observation was that so many of the horses were tight in the neck and coming behind the vertical for much of the work. Even the winner of the class, Fashion Prinz OLD (Fuerst Romancier x Sarkozy) with Frederic Wandres, had moments in the trot tour where he was seemingly working to simply not be pulled out of the saddle. The horse’s frame was far from steady, despite the skilled riding of Frederic. The stallion does present an unabashedly masculine quality and an overall picture of great power and expression with an amazing walk, rewarded with a 9.5, which was just enough to secure first place with a final score of 8.9.

The winner for me was the stallion Vitalos (Vitalis x De Niro) with Leonie Richter.

.The picture was one of soft steady power, elasticity, harmony and confidence. They scored substantially higher than Fashion Prinz OLD in the trot (9.4 vs 9.0), canter (9.0 vs 8.5) and submission (8.7 vs 8.5), but only scored 8.2 in the walk, for a final score of 8.86.

Another favorite was the very feminine mare, My Precious (Ferguson x Vivaldi) ridden by Kirsten Brouwer. She has such a lovely spring off the ground and light footed way of going that entrances those that watch. The counter canter into the first simple change was a battle of “stay straight but don’t change,” something that all trainers are familiar with, which definitely affected the submission score (7.8). I would have loved to have seen a more developed topline in front of the saddle, but five-year-olds can be a bit tricky in muscle development as they go through their growth phases. She finished in 4th place with 8.7 and should be a definite contender for the top position in the finals.

At the end of the day, the five year old class lacked the overall consistent quality that I generally expect at the World Championships and I am a little confused by the judging. I agree with the basic rankings, but am looking forwards to the finals where we can hear the justification for the scores. The top group were very obvious, but even amongst these combinations some of the riding/training was less than world class, especially compared with 2021, I did mention I was tired and grumpy. However, I know I have said this before and then watched in the finals where the horses are more settled, confident and expressive, and the riders are better able to show them to us. Fingers crossed this is the case this year.

Friday we move onto the six year olds. There are many combinations competing who delighted me as five-year-old horses. I can’t wait to see their development.

(Ilse Schwarz is a trainer based in Wellington, Florida, who has covered the World Young Horse Championships for dressage-news.com for many years, as well as senior world championships and premier events including the World Equestrian Festival in Aachen, Germany.)