The First FEI Dutchie

We brought Lumie home as a long two year old-- December of 2016. At the time I was 17 years old and had only ridden to 3rd(4th? Id have to fact check myself). He had previously been driven by the amish and had some oddities physically due to his time with them. Upon bringing him home we spent a chunk of time hand walking and long-lining in the round pen to build some strength as his entire hindquarter was extremely weak. 
I think one of the most obvious weaknesses about Lumie is that naturally he doesn't track up well underneath himself behind, most commonly referred to as "out behind". We like the Nando bloodlines, the heavier gelders types, and while many of the stallions(wouter included) have a good hind leg, many of the progeny do not. Lumie is also not a floaty, light mover, he is much more power and then that causes a lack of balance. As a young guy he was all sorts of unbalanced and strung out. I don't ever shove my youngsters into the bridle, actually a lot of time I leave them completely alone til they W/T/C. I have found that the dutchies(and many other baroque types) tend to become very short in the neck and don't pull at all. Lumie had also been driven and the Amish can be quite harsh handed. Starting him was a breeze-- really no antics. He was straight forward. All was well until summer of his 3 year old year. I tried to show him with 90 days undersaddle-- that went severely sideways and he was a wild thing. During the summer of his 3 year old year he developed a hand tossing problem and would put his head above the bit while cantering and you'd basically be up there hoping for the best directionally. 

Videos from Lumie over his first year with us(Blog continues below):

I think that getting these guys to become long and smooth, even in the basic transitions, is the bane of our existence when they are 3/4/5. Thankfully, the Nando/Wouter blood generally brings lateral talent and they pick up leg yields, shoulder-in, renver, traver, etc fairly quickly. Once I can get them to settle into that lateral work and not become super short and tense through the back in it, then it's an essential tool to keeping the hind leg working and getting them more through in the transitions early on. Lumie was difficult in some ways because the second he would get short and tense there would be no hind leg anymore (not that there was much to begin with). He doesn't have the "false engagement" that the Patijn lines do-- the snappy hock. In a lot of ways the slower hind leg is easier as teaching a horse that "taps" the ground to truly sit is usually an exercise in patience. 
As a 5 year old Lumie was schooling (roughly) all of the 3rd level work with a basic idea of the flying change. This is another thing I have found that the gelders/Nando/Wouter lines tend to find a bit easier than their other DHH counterparts. They are just not as easily flustered over it, which in turn allows the rider to train through trial and error without mental burnout on the horses part. Regardless, Lumie's difficulty was always the collection. His canter has lots of "knee" and the biomechanic of it, while good, makes it feel jolting when not through-- which if we are being honest every horse when learning collection tends to shorten in all the wrong places til they figure out the answer. The biggest thing when teaching collection with these guys is that you dont ride them backwards-- Lumie taught me that surely. He is sensitive in the mouth due to a variety of reasons- he was flipped on asphalt by the amish and had some issues with his poll from that, the amish drove him, and he decided to break one of his bottom incisors in 2022 and had to have most of it removed. In addition the question of contact, he always needs greater hindleg activity, so its been pivotal that you ride the hindlegs quick and not shut the energy in front. 

3.5 year old Lumie-- we began getting some control of the canter:

4 years old, still gangly, awkward: 

Coming 5 and we begin to have moments where I start letting go and still getting some balance. I still at this point dont have a ton of control over the neck. 

I think the amount of balance difference that 6 months made is clear. This is end of his 5 year old year and he really started showing up a lot more for me here. We began expecting a lot more elasticity out of him at this point, both laterally and longituditly

A few months and the balance increases and so we screw it up by adding new things. Its amazing how they fast forward between 1st & 3rd levels. We began using shoulder-fore a lot more especially in his canter to produce more balance. Clearly the canter-walk was still hugely in development here and we used pushing side-ways a lot to produce more sit balance. 

I​ always "slow" these guys down and teach them to go low in the base of the neck. The higher necked horses need to allow the rider to control the height on the neck to better influence the throughness in the back. Once we got Lumie to third, we taught lumie to do third with a low frame. I always feel like it's going in a reining horse like frame. This is where things can get tricky though, because often once we get the neck down, they go back to hiding and falling behind the bit. Now, I play back and forth between a lower frame and then bringing them up and having them push to the bit. Either way, in order to get multiple changes on these guys we have to have 1. neck control 2. collection(speed/push) control 3. feeling that we can put the leg on and that instead of becoming resistant to the bit or falling on the forehand they become more through. Then the changes will come. Lumie made up for my lack of knowledge at the time and was a child prodigy in the changes regardless.
One of the nicest things about Venomous has been his suppleness. He is very, very maneuverable and finds steepness in the lateral work easy compared to many others. This winter when working with Oded Shimoni we would get the most super feeling of reach, cadence, and bend in both the trot and canter half-passes. Unfortunately this hasnt translated to the pirouettes, which unsurprisingly due to his lack of natural hind leg articulation, have been a struggle. He could bend and turn fine, but would lack the quickness behind necessary to keep the energy when we tried to make the turns tighter. This would then make him become unbalance and rigid in his body. I'd feel him come up to it and anticipate and drop me. 

2020-- the covid year. Lumie was 6. I spent much of this year hyperfocusing on suppleness and at times became dependently drawing my hands backwards due to lack of suppleness/throughness/engagement. 

A baby FEI horse was Born. Beginning of his 7yo year here. Still abit sticky in the tempis but honest. I started to play with the trot balance more and more. Forward-back-forward, but trying to get him sharper throughout and not to drag his shoulders against me. 

Although Lumie did his first PSG at 7, I cant seem to find video from it. He was definitely weak then as would be expected of the age. Here he is at 8 doing the developing PSG. Still green bobbles-- but the basics began getting more and more rideable. I opted for a snaffle-- Lumie is not a heavy horse but can be strong when he likes. I had worked hard to develop him in the snaffle and at the time preferred the way he was going in it. Also-- as you can tell the pirouettes were not yet going our way. 

​Another thing we began working on this past winter was developing his trot to have greater cadence and swing. Like I said earlier, his movement is more of the old type gelders and not lofty. We have to be careful when using a "go forward" and half halt and so on as he will loose engagement easily and shorten the front if you use too much hand. Its all about finding "the trot" before asking for the half-halt because if the leg cant stay on and keep him pushing even in the collection than it won't be collection, it'll just be slowing. 
Another struggle was the piaffe. It took me 2+ years to get him to step evenly behind in the in-hand work. I had mention earlier that he had been flipped on asphalt, which also resulted in a hip injury on his left side which has caused some abnormalities that my vet, farrier, and I have had to push against. Especially when fatigued, at the walk Lumie will clearly step shorter on the left hind than the right. Interestingly enough, in the trot he will be even. Well, when we began teaching piaffe he wanted to do the same thing. He is quite smart and picked up the idea in hand quickly, but it took me a long while to get him to start stepping evenly behind. I begin "playing" with the piaffe in hand usually around 5, and then it is a every so often thing we work on. I like it to be a game as I have seen so many horses get such a huge amount of anxiety over it. Now with Lumie the real challenge will be getting from the (nonexistent but was developing) passage to piaffe and back out without completely losing the hindleg. 
Lumie is currently resembling a retired linebacker since he has been out of work for the most part since last June. He was diagnosed in October and has since been on stall rest. We diagnosed his injury using CT not MRI, therefore it is unknown how exactly severe the ligament tear was, but we got good news initially that in addition to his collateral ligament tear that his suspensory was just inflamed, not torn at all. We are now playing the slow, tedious game of bringing him back to work and seeing if we can keep him sound back at where he was at.  

Our trot work improved hugely very quickly while working with Oded. This is one of Lumie's first FEI I-1 tests. The pirouettes -- while huge-- started to look actually like  pirouettes(thanks Oded!) at this point. Not even 9 yet here either. 

Never before seen-- Lumie's freestyle floorplan. His music is done. Unfortunately by the time it was finished he was out of work due to the injury. Heres to hoping he is going to the come back kid and me not having become terribly rusty. 

In this test, there were a lot of good things, but you can see a number of times where I ran into him. I believe this is towards the beginning of his injury. He just began feeling not 100% and i was overriding in anticipation of that. It was still over 70%, but I left the ring kicking myself a lot after everything I learned in FL.