Loxahatchee, Fla.—Jan. 18  

Almost every rider dreams of the level they wish to one day ride at—be that training level, Prix St. Georges or Grand Prix—and the Adequan USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference clinician, Johann Hinnemann, knows the secret of raising your scores to help you get there. It’s all in the transitions.

He’s not talking about the literal transition from one division to the next—anyone with a pen can go to the horse show office and do that. For the first day of the conference, held at High Meadow Farms, Hinnemann talked about the movements between movements, the moments between your piaffe and passage, your collected trot and extended trot, and how those moments can turn your score of 6 to an 8 on the judges card.

Like the trusty old saying goes, its all about the journey—how you get from point A to point B, or in the case of the riders at the conference, how you asked your horse to go from one pace or movement to the next. The horses ranged in age from 6 to 16, and the riders from 20-year-old Under-25 competitors to tried and true international Grand Prix stars, but Hinnemann found transitions for all of them to work on. 

Rider 1: Endel Ots on Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike is a 6-year-old Hanoverian gelding, and he was the first horse to trot into the ring with Endel Ots shortly before 9 a.m., to kick off the conference. At first the stunning dark horse seemed confident in his long trot around the ring, but he kicked up his heels at a few places when he couldn’t contain his excitement at the crowd any longer.

Hinnemann started Ots off on a big circle, asking him to shorten and lengthen young Lucky Strike, first at the trot and then at the canter. Hinnemann asked Ots to pay particular attention to the transitions and keeping the horse moving forward through them, using driving aids to keep the horse from falling into the downward ones.

Hinnemann had Ots get after the gelding a couple of times when he did not respond to Ots’ forward aids asking him to lengthen, and Ots reminded the horse with his leg until he got the desired response. He repeated this several times, still on a circle, until the horse responded quickly to forward aids and without balking.

“The goal is total submission,” Johann Hinnemann stressed. “You need a supple horse but a submissive horse.” And as the session progressed Ots got closer and closer to it.

Hinnemann then had Ots, instead of lengthening and shortening within the same pace, do several trot/canter transitions, still on a 20-meter circle.

Endel Ots worked on keeping Lucky Strike’s balance uphill using transitions. Photo by Ann Glavan

“This is one of the most difficult exercises we have,” Hinnemann said. “Every stride has to be uphill.”  

It’s not the most important exercise though—that, according to Hinnemann, is the walk-canter transition, which he also had Ots practice, and which Lucky Strike struggled with at first, breaking into a fast trot instead of a canter when Ots used forward aids.

Hinnemann said he didn’t mind the mistake, and had Ots repeat the exercise a few times while the young horse figured out he was supposed to canter, not trot. 

A few flying changes were smattered into Ots’ session with Lucky Strike, but Hinnemann was careful not to do too many, and did a lot of set-up with the 6-year-old gelding before he let Ots do them.

“A horse that changes his lead in the front and is late behind is the hardest mistake to correct,” Hinnemann stressed to the crowd at the conference. 

Other excercises Hinnemann had Ots work on included shoulder-in at the canter, half-passes, and switching between collected and medium trot on the diagonal, stressing the importance of controlling the hind legs throughout the movements.

Rider 2: Melissa Jackson on Domani

Domani is a 6-year-old Hanoverian gelding, and he looked very alert and ready to rock with Jackson in the ring after Ots’ opening ride, squealing and spooking a bit as he entered.

Hinnemann had Jackson start off working at the trot, doing shoulder-in around the ring before oscillating between collected, working and medium trot on a 20-meter circle (it’s all about those transitions!).

Hinnemann praised Jackson’s trot work, and noted the difference in the pace after she went through the exercise.

“She got really enough cadence in it that the movement got bigger, longer and more expressive, and this is our job as trainers and rider, to make a [score of] 7 out of a 6 and an 8 out of a 7,” Hinnemann said.

Melissa Jackson working on Domani’s trot while Johann Hinnemann gives advice. Photo by Ann Glavan

Jackson was directed to take a walk break after her successful trot work, but Hinnemann made her take her time lengthening the reins and letting Domani have his head, insisting the horse not simply fall forward on the forehand or drop his back when she rode on the buckle.

He then directed Jackson to trot down the centerline and do some half passes back to the rail, getting after her to keep checking in with the horse and keeping Domani in front of her leg through out the exercise.

“The signs of a good half pass are the really good collected trot which you are able to use on the short side with these corners, you are able to bring that really nice balanced collected trot into your half pass,” Hinnemann said. “Then, the judge can see that the horse is balanced, and this is what the two-tracked movement is really all about.”

Rider 3: Endel Ots on Samhitas

The only rider with two mounts in the conference, Endel was back in the ring after Jackson aboard Samhitas, a 7-year-old Oldenburg gelding.

Hinnemann stressed the importance of self-carriage to Ots with this mount, and had him work on trotting out, not up, and had him do those tricky trot-canter transitions on a circle just like he did with his other horse.

However, this mount of Ots is a year more advanced, so Hinnemann had him work on an exercise to set up the pirouette: he had him canter the horse in a small circle, and move his haunches in and out, bending the horse around his inside legs and having him swing back and forth with his haunches. There were moments in the exercise where observers could just begin to see the first steps of a pirouette taking shape.      

“Every day in your training be sure that you take the time to prepare the canter, and then do your changes and then do your half pass or whatever, whatever was wrong, and not to do the pirouettes,” Hinnemann told Ots, not wanting him to yet try the advanced movement with the young horse.

Hinnemann’s canter work with Endel Ots and Samhitas focused on keeping the horse in an uphill balance as they worked toward pirouettes. Photo by Ann Glavan 

They went back to working on transitions after the circles preparing the pirouette, and the young horse got a little antsy anticipating the different movements, propping a bit with his hind legs especially in the downward transition. 

“If you feel a little bit of tension, do three or four strides forward and then start again,” Hinnemann directed.

Hinnemann also talked about the importance of eventually progressing to using invisible aids with a more mature horse, and said most people use too much outside leg and collapsing with the hip when they push a horse off their leg to a half pass or a shoulder in.

Ots then was directed to do a little work at the counter-canter, going around the ring and coming across the diagonal before half-passing back to the rail, all while holding the counter lead, which he lost a couple of times, so Hinnemann had him repeat the lesson.

With this horse and rider pair, what Hinnemann stressed the most how important the uphill frame is throughout all the gaits.

Rider 4: J.J. Tate on Gideon

Gideon is a 7-year-old Connemara pony, the only representative of his breed at the conference. Tate was directed by Hinnemann to start doing the same exercise many of the other riders were asked to do, the shoulder-in at the trot, but she had a couple more issues that Hinnemann dedicated a lot of time to ironing out.

“I personally think she has too much flexion in that shoulder in, and she should keep more control with the outside rein and bring the shoulder a little bit more off the track,” Hinnemann said, and he approved of Tate’s changes with a couple of  “Good, so, good so,”s, a phrase he used many times at the conference.

J.J. Tate working on amplifying Gideon’s trot as Hinnemann looks on. Photo by Ann Glavan

Next on the agenda was a half-pass—Hinnemann allowed Tate to attempt the movement a few times before he had her halt, and asked her a question.

“What is the most important thing when you start your half-pass?” Hinnemann asked. Tate’s reply was not audible without a microphone, but Hinnemann smiled and approved of it. “Good, so my first thinking is when I teach people or I do my half pass, I make sure that I think where I want to end up in my half-pass.”

Hinnemann used Tate’s whip to point out different angles she could take in her half pass to different letters, and stressed the importance of looking directly at whatever point she was riding to.

Tate took the microphone after completing the exercise a few times, and told the crowd when she used Hinnemann’s advice for the exercise, she felt her horse go through an imaginary tunnel between her aids, and said he felt a bit freer in his movement through the half pass.

“That’s really our job as trainers, to always think about something, everyday how to make something better, better ideas to school the horses and teach our students,” Hinnemann said.  “We can only get better with logical exercises to bring out the basic gaits, the basic suppleness, the basic submission.”

Rider 5: Heather Blitz on Ripline

Ripline is a 8-year-old Danish warmblood stallion, and was the only stallion in the conference. This presented some unique challenges for Blitz, which Hinnemann helped her work through throughout her session.

First, right when the stallion entered the ring, he was quite taken aback by the crowd. Lining the rail on three sides of the ring, sitting just inches from where he was trotting as many as three deep in some places, there were points where it overwhelmed the young horse and he would stop suddenly and back away from the rail.

Hinnemann was very insistent that Blitz not fight the stallion to get him through the spook—he said you must discuss, not fight, with a stallion. He said geldings were able to be muscled around a bit more, but mares and especially stallions had to be handled with kid gloves. He directed Blitz to allow Ripline to stop, look at the crowd, take a moment to think about life, and then move on with the exercise.

When he wasn’t spooking, the stallion demonstrated some beautiful paces, working on what Hinnemann described as a “passagey trot.” The extended paces went rather well, with occasional reminders from Hinnemann to keep the stallion in front of her leg.  

Ripline showed some lovely work with Heather Blitz aboard. Photo by Ann Glavan

The trouble popped back up when Blitz started working on serious collection with the stallion—for whatever reason, Ripline wanted to periodically put on the brakes when Blitz went to collect him, be it at the canter or trot. The first few times he did this, Hinnemann had her stop, let him breathe, and after a few seconds, he moved off her leg no problem. One of his stops toward the end of the session was particularly stubborn, and Hinnemann had Blitz get after the stallion a bit by lightly tapping the whip on top of his croup until he went forward, which he did after a couple of kicks.

Hinnemann told a story to the conference crowd about a particularly ornery stallion he had.

“I’ve had many stallions, and they hold their breath in situations like this; they have to accept the leg, a stallion can be much more sensitive against the leg than mares can be,” Hinnemann said, describing his stallion that jumped out of dutch door stalls and refused to go in wash stalls unless Hinnemann was the one handling him. “He respected me; the vet could not give him a shot unless I was there.”

Rider 6: Ayden Uhlir on Sjapoer

Sjapoer is a 16-year-old KWPN gelding, and the oldest horse in the ring at the conference. His rider and owner, Ayden Uhlir, took the microphone at the beginning of her session to explain her goals of competing in the Brentina Cup classes with the gelding this year.

The gelding was one of two horses at the conference that extensively schooled Grand Prix movements, a real crowd pleaser. While Uhlir was warming up on her own in the ring, Hinnemann used the time to talk about what an important transition the U-25 division is for juniors and young riders, because the difference between Grand Prix tests and Prix St. Georges movements is huge. 

“I still find that to teach the riders to go to that step is quite difficult,” Hinnemann said. “The horses are quiet and are a little bit slow in their movement, and that’s what they have to be for the juniors and young riders to do their walk, trot, canter and technical exercises.

“And then that step from quiet and nice Prix St. Georges horse to a Grand Prix horse that needs to create a lot of expressiveness, for the passage for the pirouette, it adds up a lot, and to make that step from good reasonable Prix St. Georges horse into a Grand Prix horse we need totally different horses,” Hinnemann continued. “They need to be a little bit crazy.”

Hinnemann had Uhlir go through almost all the movements of a typical Grand Prix test, including passage, piaffe, pirouette and tempis. He got after her a lot in all of the movements to demand more expressiveness from the horse, more animation, more action. 

Ayden Uhlir worked on her tempi changes with Sjapoer. Photo by Ann Glavan

Another point Hinnemann stressed was where he thought Uhlir was losing marks—in her placement of movements in the ring. When first asked to do an extended canter across the diagonal followed by a flying change, she waited until the rail to do the change, which made Hinnemann groan and demand she do it again, getting the change done before the rail to demonstrate to judges that her horse was balanced enough to not need the rail to keep him straight.

“That’s takes your movement from a 6 to an 8 [score],” Hinnemann said she did it a second time and got the change early.

The same applied to her placement of tempi changes on the diagonal—Hinnemann wanted her to do nine across the diagonal line, with the fifth at X. Her first attempt, Uhlir bunched too many changes at the beginning and did four too many across the diagonal, a mistake she recognized and laughed at—she corrected it the second time around.

Rider 7: Mica Mabragana on Tyara

Tyara is a 15-year-old KWPN mare, and was the last in the ring on the first day of the conference. Also an experienced Grand Prix horse, Mabragana and Tyara were able to produce the same movements as Uhlir but with more animation and finesse, to be expected of an older and more experienced rider on a mount that just competed at the 2015 Pan American Games with her student, Cesar Lopardo-Grana of Argentina.  

Macbragana’s session had less exercises than previous riders’, and was run more like an actual Grand Prix test. Hinnemann had her go through different sections of the test, and would stop her when he had something he wanted her to correct, either with a different exercise or by repeating the movement.

Mica Mabragana worked on the Grand Prix movements with Tyara as Hinnemann taught. Photo by Ann Glavan

Hinnemann focused a lot on Mabragana’s half-pass, saying the mare was unbalanced through it. He wanted Mabragna to think about the same thing Tate did, which was riding through a tunnel and looking exactly where she wanted to end up in the movement.

One exercise Hinnemann spent a lot of time on with Mabragana was the canter half-pass back and forth across the ring with a flying change bookending each change of direction. First, he directed her to ride it like she would in a test, and then to ride it like she would if she were schooling it. The changes were not too drastic to the outside observer—in the schooling round, Mabraganda perhaps used a little more indirect rein and flexion to emphasis to the horse what she wanted.

One of the exercises unique to Mabragana’s session was a serpentine through the ring transitioning between passage and piaffe—Hinnemann had her do one big loopy S through the ring with many transitions before letting her walk and turning to address the crowd.

“The thinking behind this is good, you have to train it like this at home, so the horses get enough strength. First week one loop, second week one and a half loops, you see and when you have that horse really in front of you like this you can do that transition forward and back, she’s stronger there,” Hinnemann said.

You can see lots more photos from Day 1 of the Adequan/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference and check back with www.coth.com tomorrow for more coverage of the second day of the Adequan/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference.