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The Spanish Riding School of Vienna
Spanish Riding School Insights

The Vienna Performance:
On The Long Rein and Airs above the Ground
by John D'Addamio

On The Long Rein

Chief Rider Hausberger has done the long rein solo for over 12 years now. He walks behind Conversano Dagmar (half brother to his levade horse, Favory Dagmar who was in the Work In Hand section) and guides him with only the reins and whip. He has no other aids. Obviously, the horse must be capable of extreme collection. It wouldn’t look very elegant if the trainer had to run to keep up with his horse! The long rein solo includes High School exercises in all three gaits including piaffe, passage, flying changes, canter pirouettes and lateral work.

Conversano Dagmar had played up during training a few days before this performance so I half expected him to be stiff or get excited enough to be silly during the performance. Never happened! I don’t think I can praise this performance enough. From the moment he came in the arena, I could see that Dagmar was supple and relaxed. His piaffe and passage are gorgeous but his canter work will put him in the history books! He did perfect canter pirouettes in both directions. Not single pirouettes! Double pirouettes on both leads. There was none of the flinging the front end around that one sees all too often in competition. Every stride was slow and perfect.

Later in the canter work, Chief Rider Hausberger started Dagmar in one stride tempi changes on the diagonal. They were perfectly straight and clean all the way across the diagonal but they didn’t stop there! Chief Rider Hausberger kept the tempi changes going all the way around the corner and then turned down center line and kept doing tempi changes to the pillars around X. They halted directly between the pillars and the crowd went wild! The explosion of clapping and cheering was so sudden and so loud it startled Dagmar. No problem! They went right back to work and finished presenting the rest of the work they had planned. I have never seen an audience interrupt a long rein performance by applauding prematurely but I clapped and cheered right along with everybody else. This horse had put on a real tour de force and deserved all the accolades he got!

Airs above the Ground
Related Article (Airs Above the Ground)

After they enter at the walk and salute, the riders warm up their horses with a few minutes of trot and canter. Then, the fun begins and the horses know it! Chief Rider Riegler and Favory Superba lived up to the stallion’s name and did superb 3 jump Courbettes.

Corbette

Rider Radnetter and Siglavy Materia presented some very nice Levades.

Levade

Rider Bauer and Maestoso Cattinara did caprioles as did Chief Rider Eder and Conversano Calcedona. Every time I see the Spanish Riding School, I think of a travelling American show I saw a few years ago. They had a 7 year old stallion doing capriole in hand. Obviously, the horse has the talent for capriole, but there is no way that he could have been ready physically or mentally to do that exercise. It showed! He was frantic and had his head up in the air so high I feared he would take himself over backward s before he did the kick. There was nothing like that here. The stallions doing capriole here were trained for 5 years to attain a Grand Prix level under saddle before they spent at least 4 more years developing their capriole. They are mature, mentally relaxed, and are physically capable of doing a good capriole. They were definitely excited and eager but it showed only as they prepared to jump! Eder came into his jumps with Conversano Calcedona in a fairly collected canter. You could see that Calcedona would have liked to go faster to get to the spot where he knew he could jump but he listened to Eder and collected instead. Bauer came into his jumps at a little stronger canter but you could see that Cattinara would have preferred an even stronger canter! Both horses jumped quietly, kicked like old pros, landed as if nothing had happened, and then quietly went forward in a nice collected canter.

Capriole

Next Time: The Quadrille

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