Valentina Martyanova about the brood, the master class at the KSK “Golden Horse” and the qualities that every rider needs

Proconi: What are your impressions about the event, about the organization, about the participants?

Valentina Martyanova: Speaking about the organizers, I can say that this is their first such experience, and there are some rough edges in the organization, but they tried, and the main points were done correctly. I hope the next time they have a competition they will do even better. Riders and horses are comfortable here. The ground is good, and the complex itself too, it has the infrastructure for holding competitions at the highest level. I think that serious tournaments will be held here in the future. Of course, more advertising is needed to attract participants. Then it will be even more interesting. But now this is only the beginning of the journey.

Proconi:How do you assess the importance of such events for athletes and Russian horse breeding in general?

Valentina Martyanova: My opinion is unequivocal – any events that are held to identify good sport horses are the right events, they contribute to the development of equestrian sports. Athletes, coaches, judgeand horse breeders – they all must know the criteria that a sports horse must meet, no matter what discipline it performs. A sports horse is a specific horse that must have a certain set of qualities that allow it to be successful in any sport. Many simply do not know what these qualities are.

For example, a rider who competes in dressage has strict requirements. To get high marks, his horse must move in a certain way, in a certain manner and with a certain quality of execution of the elements. And in order to receive high marks according to these criteria, the horse must have these qualities from the very beginning. That is, they can be developed, but only if they are present in that horse’s genetics. It is also very important to understand what makes the horse move in one way or another, what contributes to the correct technique of overcoming obstacles and good movements, what temperament is considered correct and what is not. After all, a horse can be very temperamental, but if it is unnecessarily distracted, unnecessarily shows some kind of disobedience to the rider, this will not allow him to be competitive in competitions. Understanding all these criteria is born at such events [as a brood at the Golden Horse CSC].

Proconi: Are there any criteria in young horses that are the same for show jumping and dressage? Can you immediately understand what discipline a young horse will go for?

Valentina Martyanova: Of course, show jumping and dressage horses are slightly different, but they have common features that every rider needs. That is, both in dressage and show jumping, the rider needs a comfortable horse, one that is comfortable to sit on. The rider should be as close to the horse’s center of gravity as possible so that the rider’s influence on the horse during the jump is minimal, even when he makes a mistake. In terms of dressage, the horse will optimally move with the rider, who is in his center of gravity. In this case, the horse will not spend extra energy on getting through the turn correctly or doing this or that movement that is required in the schemes. Therefore, there are common features inherent in both show jumping and dressage horses.

The next factor, which is necessary for both, is a desire to work. If a horse is a “sloth” by nature, then not even the best rider in the world will make an enthusiast out of it. The horse must want to work, he must want to move, and the lack of desire to work should not interfere with the tasks that confront him in show jumping and dressage.

Also, if the horse has errors in the structure, in the development of muscles – all these deviations will negatively affect the performance of the horse and, thereby, affect its psyche. Why, for example, are some horses overly nervous? One of the factors is that they are simply not comfortable doing what the riders require of them. The second factor is that it is inconvenient for them to do this under such a rider. Both of these are interconnected. horse dolYou have to be comfortable for the rider, and the rider has to be comfortable for the horse.

Proconi: Here, at Golden Horse KSK, you also held a master class in dressage. How do you assess the level of participants, their training?

Valentina Martyanova: С from the point of view of the training of the riders themselves, of course it is clear that the riders do not have competitive experience, but in the master class, competitive experience is not so important, here it is important to understand the tasks that the rider sets for his horse and the form in which he wants to solve this problem. First of all, the rider must be able to formulate this task for himself. He must understand what is really the main obstacle that does not allow him to rise higher in his path in achieving results in sports. If he does not understand this, then he spends his efforts on completely unnecessary tasks, which, even if he solves them, will still not lead to him to success. Here I saw that this is precisely what the riders do not understand.

The next point that is clearly visible is that riders do not know how to use their bodies, they are not athletes. The fact is that not only a horse must have a set of qualities, but also a person who sits on this horse must have a good reaction, must be athletically developed, and also be well coordinated, he must have good balance and an independent landing, that is he must sit confidently enough in the saddle – all this requires certain skills from the rider. And, unfortunately, I didn’t see this in most riders here. They know how to do something, some elements, but, in reality, they themselves are not balanced. Therefore, even when they ask the horse to do something, they themselves cross out these demands with their body, inept commands. As a result, the horse chooses one of two things: either it stops moving altogether and performs this element as if in slow motion, or, on the contrary, it gets nervous and resists, with all its behavior it says that it is not convenient for it, it does not really like it. If the rider gives contradictory commands – says one thing with his hands, another with his feet, a third with his body, then for the horse it will be like listening to three radio stations at the same time. It will be difficult for her to understand what to choose, where to move and how. And she will choose the action at her own discretion, something that requires less effort from her.

Proconi: Tell me, please, how and what should riders work on, based on what you said?

Valentina Martyanova:: In order for the rider to become skillful and competently manage the horse, he must devote a lot of time to himself. Our sport is a sport of sensations and movements. To develop the right feeling, you need to accumulate many hours of riding, but the right riding. A coach must be present to correct the rider at all times. In this way, the rider’s body will get used to it and start working automatically. He no longer has to think about how to turn around, where to take his arm, leg, where to look. That muscle memory in motion loshadi with certain gaits during the performance of certain exercises should be developed by systematic correct exercises. It should reach absolute automatism. Only then will the rider be able to correctly control the horse. While he is thinking about which leg to work with, which way to change seats or shift the center of gravity, at this moment he is very illiterate in terms of controlling the horse and very uncomfortable for the horse.

Therefore, as much as possible, you need to ride a horse with less use of your hands. These riders should be handled by the coach on the lunge and as much as possible so that the rider finds balance. The last thing you need to worry about is how to control a horse when you don’t know how to control yourself. You need to devote as much time as possible to yourself and make an athlete out of yourself. Because what I saw at the master class is slow reactions, you tell the rider “turn left”, and he turns only after half a minute, that is, he understands which way it is to the left, which rein should be pulled, which leg should be applied. There are many tasks that the rider cannot yet combine into one task.

The next thing I saw was a discrepancy even in simple things. Riders are just sitting incorrectly. They sit, for example, riding to the right at a gallop, just like riding to the left. For a horse, this situation is very, very tense and incomprehensible, because, once again, this is a sport of sensations. Our body must feel the body of the horse, because the horse does not see or hear us, it receives commands from us through its back, through what it feels with its back. If there is a complete mess on this back, then it is very difficult for the horse to work. I saw good horses here, but they are brought to such a state that they simply become isolated. They closed themselves in relation to work, hid in a shell, because for them all this action does not bring any pleasure, either physical or psychological. In general, horses are very liberal towards riders, they tolerate us, not all horses seriously resist, they continue to somehow cooperate with a person, but this cooperation is like slavery and in modern sports this is already the last century ..

Many thanks to Valentina Martyanova for an interesting conversation and detailed answers to our questions! 🙂