I've repeatedly posted this in threads and as replies to people, but it seems a lot more people would benefit from reading this as their are many people who do not seem to understand it. Which I get, sometimes dressage is difficult to understand if you have no clue about what's going on. So let me demystify it for you.
What does the rider do?
The horse will not do anything if the rider is not giving every detail in signals. Hands: different pressues on the two different reigns, with differentt pressues left and right, different hand position (inwards vs outwards. Legs: different pressures, left vs right or both, different leg positions, which can be differnet for let and right leg as well. Different seat: pressure left right, light, or more sitting in saddle, as well as upper body movments. All that combine in different forms are used to give signals. And it's not that one signal does this and other does that. While that's true, it's far more delicate. You're costantly balancing what's too much, what's not enough, depending on how the horse feels, what the horse does, even changing details in signal during movement to correct things etc. etc. It's not that if you know the signals that you can do this. There years of skill, knowlege, experience, training different horses etc. before you can even attempt to sit on one of these horses and make them do even the basic things. Additionally you need to have trained and competed with this specific horse to really perfect that communication between rider and horse.
It's very different from training a dog to do a trick and then get a treat. You do not just give a voice command and have the dog do something and then give it food.
Why train dressage?
A bit more on on the background of dressage itself. Naturally, when you sit on a horse, his head goes up, his back hollows. Horses are not made for us to sit on, and that's their first response if weight is put on the back. However, this is not a good body position. It's bending in the wrong placese and long term can harm the horse (for example due to kissing spines). What we train for is to have the horse tense his belly, to support the back, so it does not hollow. Automatically the horse will bring it's head more downwards. Then to get them even stronger, we want them to put the hind legs more under their body. To have them step more forwards with the hind legs. This allows for the hind and to sick down a little bit, and allows the front end to move more up
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I was wondering whether archery, shooting, equestrian and other competitions were gender segregated?
Don’t miss all the equestrian action at this year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on your TV, laptop or mobile!
All the info here 👉 https://www.fei.org/stories/sport/eventing/where-can-i-watch-equestrian-eventing-tokyo-2020-olympic-games
Saturday, July 30
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Friday))
- Dressage 17:30-20:10 (10:30-13:10 CET / 04:30-07:10 EST)
Sunday, July 31
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Saturday))
Monday, August 1
- Cross country 07:45-11:00 (00:45-04:00 CET / 18:45-22:00 EST (Sunday))
Tuesday, August 2
- Jumping Team 17:00-19:35 (10:00-12:35 CET / 04:00-06:35 EST)
- Jumping Individual 20:45-21:45 (13:45-14:45 CET / 07:45 - 08:45 EST)
And he said “no I’m German but how did you know my name was Walter?”
The US Olympic squad has just lost 2 exhibition games in a row. Some fans think it's a big deal because it shows how bad the synergy of this squad is, and some fans think it doesn't matter at all because they're only exhibition games.
Well here is a list of US team's all-time exhibition game results going back to 1992 when they first played with NBA players. Before the other day, the US was 54-2 in those games. The last loss was in 2019, so they were not playing with their Olympic team. Their team was bad by US Olympic squad standards (box score). Not only that, they lost to Australia by 2 points in Australia, and that was 2 days after beating them by 16 so I'm sure the Americans let up to some degree.
The only other exhibition loss (before the other day) by the actual US Olympic team comprised of NBA players was in 2004, when they were blown out by Italy a couple weeks before the Greek games began. That US team famously went on to earn "only" bronze medals (and were only 5-3 at the Olympics), a giant embarrassment for a team full of NBA stars. Those Italians earned silver that summer.
ADDED: I took a look at 2000, as well, since the US team did NOT do well in the Olympics that year (by US standards) despite winning gold and Vince's most famous in-game dunk. They went 8-0 in the Olympics, but 5 of the games were close, including a 2-point nail-biter over Lithuania (who had no significant NBA players on their squad). This was a big "uh oh" moment for the fans who realized the Americans were scraping by on the way to the gold, which set up the 2004 embarrassment. Well in 2000, the Olympic team crushed all of their exhibition opponents, including Canada and Australia who each had decent showings at the Olympics. I'm not sure there's any real take away from this, but I wanted to dig deeper than just the 2004 situation (rare exhibition loss, rare Olympic outcome). The 2000 US squad did not make a good showing in the Olympics (by normal US standards), but they looked great leading up to it.
I'm assuming that is isn't practical to transport live horses around the world but maybe I'm wrong there. e.g. New Zealand to London is stupidly far on a plane.
Do visiting countries borrow horses for the games or bring their own?
And if they borrow them is it compulsory for all competitors to use horses they're fairly unfamiliar with to make it fair?
I know in the sailing events all competitors are given a boat to use and can only make certain adjustments, but I would have thought that which horse you ride makes a bigger difference than what boat you sail.
Don’t miss all the equestrian action at this year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on your TV, laptop or mobile!
All the info here 👉 https://www.fei.org/stories/sport/eventing/where-can-i-watch-equestrian-eventing-tokyo-2020-olympic-games
Saturday, July 30
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Friday))
- Dressage 17:30-20:10 (10:30-13:10 CET / 04:30-07:10 EST)
Sunday, July 31
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Saturday))
Monday, August 1
- Cross country 07:45-11:00 (00:45-04:00 CET / 18:45-22:00 EST (Sunday))
Tuesday, August 2
- Jumping Team 17:00-19:35 (10:00-12:35 CET / 04:00-06:35 EST)
- Jumping Individual 20:45-21:45 (13:45-14:45 CET / 07:45 - 08:45 EST)
Don’t miss all the equestrian action at this year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on your TV, laptop or mobile!
All the info here 👉 https://www.fei.org/stories/sport/eventing/where-can-i-watch-equestrian-eventing-tokyo-2020-olympic-games
Saturday, July 30
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Friday))
- Dressage 17:30-20:10 (10:30-13:10 CET / 04:30-07:10 EST)
Sunday, July 31
- Dressage 08:30-11:00 (01:30-04:00 CET / 19:30-22:00 EST (Saturday))
Monday, August 1
- Cross country 07:45-11:00 (00:45-04:00 CET / 18:45-22:00 EST (Sunday))
Tuesday, August 2
- Jumping Team 17:00-19:35 (10:00-12:35 CET / 04:00-06:35 EST)
- Jumping Individual 20:45-21:45 (13:45-14:45 CET / 07:45 - 08:45 EST)
