I remember seeing Klimke and his Russian horse (can't remember the name) at the World Cup in L.A.
The biggest thing I noticed was that he seemed to really be enjoying his ride and he looked like a very relaxed rider.
This was right around the time that Anke was first out there doing rolkur on Bonfire and I remember people coming in from watching the warm-up completely up in arms and saying the the horse's face was parallel to the ground. I don't know that there was an official name for it back then, and no one knew what they were seeing - they only knew it wasn't the type of frame that most people had seen before.
I do remember her kur and it was spectacular. I never did see her warm-up though.
Pure fluidity, suppleness are the fundamentals of this video. 'Modern' dressage horses lack this because of the constraints by the riders. Someone commented on another forum regarding no lowered haunches......well that was a descriptive change that destroyed pure piaffe and created the 'stand on the circus tub' we see today.
And by the way, lowered haunches is the prerequiste for levade...........
-- Edited by spirithorse on Wednesday 29th of June 2011 10:36:51 PM