Dinner with Christoph was enlightening as you can imagine. We spoke of all sorts of things, and spoke lots of "horse" of course! I don't remember how it came up, but Christoph explained to me how very few if any Europeans would have taken on the task of training Shorty to the Grand Prix. To me it's a great compliment to think that I had somehow with my crystal ball seen that Shorty was capable. And then the next chuckle was followed by, "Americans will ride anything."
Why yes...yes we will ;-) Lendon Grey's Seldom Seen came up as one of his examples. That's when I knew what a compliment it was.
Later in reflecting on the evolution of American Dressage, almost thirty years ago, second level was a big deal that trainers rode, and you were a God if you could ride a flying change. A warmblood was a mystical creature of magical powers who could prance and dance and 'flip their toes'. And a Grand Prix horse was a legend, no matter what size, breed, age....
Back then we rode Morgan's, QH's, TB's, Arabians, Appaloosa's, grade horses, whatever horse suited our eye, our budget, and wasnt going to toss us into next year. Draft crosses came into "vogue" as America's answer to the European Warmblood, with some breeders totally ignoring the fact that while Warmbloods are truly a mix of hotter and colder blooded horses, the true warmblood programs have taken hundreds of years to evolve. It's a great thought, but it would take longer than our life times to evolve.
So yes Christoph, we DO ride anything, but that's how we were raised. We didn't have dressage ponies as kids. Who ever heard such a thing? And the riding schools were mostly made up of race horse and western rejects. We had reformed hunters, or growly old school ponies that often came from the back of the knackers truck for $500. Young Rider Grand Prix you say? We'd drool for weeks after watching an Old Rider PSG!!!
It's such interesting times in my eyes right now, as we are seeing the first generations who had honest schoolmasters, and grew up on warmbloods rather than red-eyed foaming at the mouth OTTB's....Not that everyone is that lucky, but they are out there. They are the first generation to get a truly "Back to front" education because they're horses were bred and trained for it, rather than being educated by one of the early American dressage trainer's, who generally was found in fringed chaps with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and was either a cross-over from Western or hunters, and spoke of "head sets" and "roll-backs". The lessons were almost always on a horse that you had to hang on to for deal life, lest you wound up with it dragging you down the aisle, or hanging you from the rafters.
Just think.....this is the first generation of dressage riders in this country that will not only understand the meaning of Durchlässigkeit, but also how to pronounce it....
Yes, it will be truly interesting to watch the future of Dressage and how it continues to grow here in the States, but in the meantime dearest Christoph, we WILL continue to ride anything!
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