I am going to have to join the debate on "artificial cadence". As someone who has been in dressage training for a few years now, I have seen many different ways of getting a horse to produce exagerated movements. One is extensive use of RollKur, just keeping the horse moving with an overbent neck and it's head behind the vertical. If done often enough, when asked to extend, mainly in the trot, the horse produces an exagerated movement, where it appears to gain more ground than it is. Another popular one is raised pole work. I have used this to encourage a horse which drags it's feet to lift them correctly. Some riders have used this exercise to the extent that the horse lifts it's leg a long way from the ground in Piaffe and Passage and the power is not truely from the hind quarters. I have been lucky in that my current trainer in Germany, trains his horses classically, so they have planty of natural cadence, and are always springing from their hind quarters in exercises such as Piaffe and Passaeg, and Flying changes. Saph is a perfect example of a classically trained dressage horse. her movement seems to flow forwards, in her Piaffe and Passage there is no hesitation, she is very light on her feet. I know that my trainer has been worrying that when she is moved upto Grand Prix level, she will inevitably be marked down because of her lack of extravagant movement. It is something that I feel is wrong, and that riders and trainers in dressage should work to rid themselves of training extravagant movements into horses.
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