The Art of Dressage » world record http://www.theartofdressage.com A Casual Conversation About the Sport We Love Sun, 03 Jul 2011 16:37:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 The Perfect Dressage Test? Edward Gal and Moorlands Totilas Have Come the Closest Yet. http://www.theartofdressage.com/2010/01/04/the-perfect-dressage-test-edward-gal-and-moorlands-totilas-have-come-the-closest-yet/ http://www.theartofdressage.com/2010/01/04/the-perfect-dressage-test-edward-gal-and-moorlands-totilas-have-come-the-closest-yet/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:59:20 +0000 The Art of Dressage http://www.theartofdressage.com/?p=23 Many of us dream of the perfect test. A ride where 10s easily fall from the judges lips and then under the scribe’s pencil to fill our test with greatness. You may have had the perfect ride, but it was probably when you were at home in your own ring. You floated around the ring effortlessly in perfect harmony with your equine partner. Nobody was there to watch, but you still know it happened. In competitive dressage, no one has had the perfect test…yet. No one has scored a 100% on a test. It seems strange that in school it wasn’t to hard to get a 100 on a test, but in dressage it is nearly impossible. There are some professional riders that have come close. The rider that has come the closest to date is Dutch rider Edward Gal on one of his Grand Prix mounts, Moorlands Totilas. Edward’s mount Moorlands Totilas nicknamed “Toto” has turned out to be what we would call a super-horse. One thing is for sure… he isn’t in Kansas any more. Totilas is a handsome young nine year old black stallion currently listed in the KWPN studbook. If you would like to see some photos of him, check him out on the Edward Gal website http://www.edwardgal.nl/?l=EN

Edward and Totilas broke the Grand Prix World Record with an amazing score of 90.75%. This team just keeps getting better and smashed that record with a score of 92.30% to win the FEI World Cup Grand Prix Freestyle Qualifier at Olympia, the London International Horse Show. Below is a video of the pair with their second World Record breaking ride.

Edward and Totilas have created quite a buzz in the dressage world. Along with the praise, the pair is also receiving critism. Some critical remarks state that Totilas’s exaggerated natural paces are “artifically inflating the marks and corrupting the fundamentals of the sport.” I guess when you make it big someone always has something to say about it. Maybe the horse’s extravagant movements do bring in big scores. I don’t know. What do you think? I do know that Totilas is a young stallion and I will look forward to seeing what the future brings for him. In my opinion, the pair is amazing. I will leave it to the judges to decide the scores.

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