Horses for Life

Anja Beran: The Difference in Training the Friesian Part 1

Part 1 - Anja Beran shares of a lifetime of experience of working with the Friesian and discusses how this breed is very different and very unique -- unique characteristics that make this a very different horse to train.

December 2007 • VOLUME 28 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

[Anja]: You have many questions with the Friesian.

[N]: Yes, I thought we'd try to touch on that this time. Go somewhere different than we have before. But I think as we were talking about before, do you think it’s very different working with a Friesian? So why don’t we start with you telling me what’s different working with Friesian horses?

[Anja]: First thing, I think they are very intelligent. But they are very heavy. The body is normally heavy and they don’t have the condition of another horse. That means if you work them for an hour with a lot of trots, very quickly they get tired and they don’t like [it]. And the next day, they’re really lazy and they don’t want to work. And the same [thing], when you try to work them at the beginning of the lesson, many people here in Germany do trot up to 10 or 15 minutes. They trot around trotting, trotting to make the horse warm. For Friesian, he doesn’t get warm. For him, that’s the end. After 10 minutes [of] trotting, he doesn’t want it anymore. And one reason [for it] is that their body is heavy and it’s really hard work for them. And the other reason is that the Friesians are very intelligent, so for them it’s boring, so they always need new exercises to keep them awake. And not too long [at] the same work at trot or gallop. That’s the biggest difference between them and other horses.

All pictures of "Little Buddy" (nickname)....registered name is Iverzon, sired by Mintse 384

Owner Trish Hodge : Photos by Dwain and Daniela Snyder

[N]: Do you find it takes longer for them to get into condition?

[Anja]: No, no. They learn very quickly, but if you make them tired or if you do work that’s very boring for them, they don’t react to the legs. It’s very easy to make Friesians cold on your leg. And then you’re lost because he doesn’t go forward and all the dressage is finished. So it’s very important to make Friesians very electric on your legs. If you touch them with your legs, he has to react. That’s very important. If you have that, you can ride all. Another thing [is] most of the Friesians have their neck not ideal to ride them, because normally it’s a horse to put in front of a coach and years ago people like a horse with their head very high and the neck very strong and high. For riding, it’s not what we want. So it’s very important with all the Friesians to try to put their neck long and a little bit down. It’s very important. If not, you break the back.

[N]: How can you tell? How can you tell that you’ve created a problem in the back if you haven’t?

[Anja]: The Friesian head and neck are very high and the back doesn’t work. Sometimes the backs are really not strong because as a horse, they never needed their backs to carry riders. The goal was only to pull a coach. So the backs are naturally not too strong. Now it gets better because the breed is better now. Some years ago it was really worse. When they move, they like to trot and to trot really quickly. They don’t like too much the gallop most of them. And when they trot, they put their necks high and higher. They move very much with their hand and the legs don’t move in a good relation with the hand. So if you put your body on a horse and you let the horse work like that, it’s really not good for its back. It is really important [that] they contract the horse and to make the neck a little bit longer and the head a little bit down and to close the legs to put his back up. That’s very important.

[N]: So when you say “close the legs”, what do you mean by that?

[Anja]: Yes, that they put their legs a little bit more down and they put weight on their legs because for a horse that they put in front of the coach, they work with their shoulders very much, with their shoulders and their necks. So now it’s important for them to learn to use their backs and their legs not just the hand and the shoulder.

[N]: I think that’s one of the biggest problems that we see with the Friesians.

[Anja]: Many riders here in Germany, they see the problem and they want to do correct work against the problem, so they start to do trot up with their hands down and try to get the neck longer and head lower in this position of trot and they trot [for] 10 minutes. But they forget the Friesian's body and condition is not like that of another horse

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