ON TALENT ALONE
The Saddlebred gelding called Allegro was once part of the U.S. Olympic Team jumper squad. His rider is Dan Marks, VMD, who has been kind enough to supply the accompanying photo, taken at Madison Square Garden in 1958. Dan tells me that Allegro “struggled” with broad obstacles, although I see no evidence of that in this photo, which demonstrates as no mere words could express, the extreme flexibility that is typical of the Saddlebred shoulder. The horse has rotated the top end of the scapula down so far that it is under Marks’ knee, while at the same time he stretches the forelimbs so far forward that he goes—as Saddle Seat showmen would say—“over level” with the forearms.
Surely this, plus the tightly folded hind joints, are advantages to a jumper.
Dan also told me that the gelding would go hollow-backed at the trot, and this is absolutely true of many Saddlebreds. My reply to this criticism has been to ask: Is it not also true that, in converting an off-track Thoroughbred from racing to use as a hunter or jumper, special techniques are usually required to teach it collection, such as work over cavalletti and “down” transitions? The problem is, I think, that so few people have been willing to take Saddlebreds seriously for sporthorse use, the special techniques required to teach them to trot “round” are simply not widely known.
In our last installment, I outlined these for a rider whose Saddlebred was travelling hollow-backed (“Built to Last,” EQUUS 517). I know from experience that if the horse is substantial and well-coupled, he can successfully be taught to travel “round.” But accomplishing this takes time, and the Olympic equestrian team does not usually have the luxury of completely reschooling a horse. Instead, like most competitors, they ride the horse as well as possible on what “talent” he shows.
Dan tells me that Allegro was rarely a winner, and that is of great concern to any competitor. However, I think football coach Vince Lombardi was fundamentally off-base when he famously said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” I concur instead with riding instructor Vladimir Littauer in regarding either winning or coming in second as trifling.
Littauer wrote, “I am a horseman rather than a sportsman, so that it makes little difference to me whether a horse clears 15 jumps against the winner of a class who clears 16. From a horseman’s point of view, every horse who can clear 15 goodsized jumps is a winner.”