Charlotte Dujardin & Mount St John Freestyle Grand Prix Dressage Lyon 

MM M what a stupid comment. Thats the same as saying you and your pony would have won if you had been able to ride a dressage test. Which from the calibre of your comments you clearly can’t.

Lulabelle Gnostic wow... what an abusive tone. Who loaded your gun? 🤔

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Which one?

Respectfully, I disagree. The mare is busy with the mouth but what I observe is that Charlotte's hands are fully forward pretty much all the time. You can even see a slight slack in the reins coming out of the final passage/piaffe as she pushes her hands forward.

@@comedianpamstone5477 Actually, "fully forward" is not a good thing. Her elbows are supposed to be back "close to the body" according to the FEI (and the laws of biomechanics). This puts a bend in the elbow that can flex when her shoulders rock back every stride (having her elbows under her shoulders will reduce that to.) Then her elbows have some give and the contact remains steady instead of yanking backwards every stride. I realize it is outrageous to find fault with a rider as successful as she is, and she does make great horses. She can get away with it whereas most people will/do make a mess of it. The judges should get after her for it -- the dressage community will be better off if they required better (near perfect) riding at this level. The most obvious part of the test to see what I'm talking about is the final CL. The horse's mouth is literally pulled open each stride. That is not "Playing" with the bit. It's a serious fault and the judges should mark it down.

I have to respectfully disagree as well...the mare’s mouth may be open on the centre line, but the curb is never more than 45degrees from the ground, so there is no way you can claim Charlotte is “pulling” on the reins..

The way I see it in that last line is that in the first passage Charlotte gives a lot to her horse. You can see multiple times when she pushes her hands towards the horse, because there was enough going towards the bit aka. the horse was in front of leg. Then comes piaffe, where you can clearly see that the horse loses a little of that leg action so Charlotte corrects her with more leg and "lifting" half-halts to guide the horse to come more towards and stay up (without any pulling against the horse, judging by the way Charlotte positions her seat and hands more forwards rather than sitting heavy, elbows back and riding with force as many riders do when their horse is struggling, which results to explosions and misunderstandings). After the piaffe there's a very little time to make up for that lost feel and connection, so Charlotte rides more intensely than in the beginning of the line, pushing the horse forward and building her up again, closing her seat to maximise the use of aids without restraining her horses movements or riding badly. For the halt she needed that energy and I think that because of that halt she didn't give too much to her horse as she had just picked her up - the risk of losing that created power too soon could've ended up in an unbalanced stop. In general I think that Charlotte rides her horse fairly. Because as a rider, she needs to focus on the bigger picture by not always showing the most pretty, motionless riding as we speek, but to prepare and improve her horse for the next time (in this case she really just supports and corrects her horse, which includes using aids. Sometimes it's visible and even a well trained horse can find things hard too, up on that level). Getting to perfection takes riding through mistakes by giving the horse a right kind of feedback. In here the horse gets what she needs in that situation (where you only have a one try to show the best you can) to go through, in my opinion. Of course you could always do better, but in the end we just have to work with what we got. Also I like the way Charlotte keeps her elbows going forward. She still has the weight of her hand there, in the elbows, allowing lightness and softenss to her connection. But the horse has more space and guidance to move into right direction than a low/deep backward thinking elbow is able to give. Of course you should have as big as possible range in your way of sitting and riding to have tools to work with, but it's pretty rare to see this much forward thinking in a rider at any point of their ride, so it's a nice contrast and proves that not everything needs to be so strict even in dressage.

Michael Schaffer It is how she is built. I ride hunters/jumpers and my instructors used to always tell me to put my hands down (which is a terrible fad in the hunter/equitation ring right now). Once I started riding my way, I sat up straighter and got so much more out of my horses (I also got better instructors). I do not think Charlotte’s riding and hand position should be classified as incorrect based on the final product and how she is built. It would be terribly awkward for her to place her arms and elbows in the ‘correct’ position, and her connection would suffer. Don’t try to change what actually works. We’re all built differently and must adapt our riding to what works for us and our horses, which may be a slight deviation from what is considered classically correct (perfection).

Yes!!! Your link below shows a correctly moving horse. Thank you!

Piaffe didn't look that good in your video either, not really shifting the weight backwards to truly sit on his hind because he pushes his front backwards to sneak away from truly working.

Stick with watching show jumping then.

Sure you know more than the FEI judges and Charlotte as welll!! 😂😂

@@sarinastokes2814 That statement made absolutely no sense. If watching dressage gives you such a head ache, then the solution is simple, don't watch dressage. Watch anything else that doesn't strain your brain so much. Also, before replying to a comment make sure that you organize your thoughts better. Who claimed to know more than FEI judges or Charlotte? Really Sarina, do better.

😂😂😂😂

You are writing nonsense. The horse is 10 years old and being trained and looked after the same way Valegro was. Valegro still going strong and Totilas completely and utterly destroyed as an athlete due to the brutal training he received...training that Mike Schaffer thinks was good.

@@vickiwright8572 You need better glasses if you think any of the movements in the test were correct and even. The mare's front end moves completely different from her hind, and each hind leg moves differently. She moves as incorrectly as Valegro, and does the side-step in collection because she cannot collect. The mare is never up in the bridle. Nose is always pulled in behind the verticle and the poll is never the highest point. All this can be said with any test of Valegro's.

Sorry but she’s not behind the vertical, her ears are pricked all the time and there’s no tail swishing or any other signs she is unhappy. She may well still be a bit uneven, as she is still young, but the rest of your assertions are rubbish

And your qualifications? Olympic medals? All your wisdom so are you travelling the world with your world class knowledge and observance of all things dressage? World class dressage judge? I mean on the forehand and zero collection, maybe you should go see specsavers

And your grand prix score was? Please don’t hide behind a pseudonym with such boastful opinions, we’d love to know how many times you have represented your country and how many gold medals you have won. Here’s a big guess: not a single one. So jog on big mouth.