Finding Harmony in Riding - Christoph Hess

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I’m out here building something bigger than the rest. Mind on the future only focused on the bestest. Cement on the mic. I’m here to set it straight. Welcome to the elevated equestrian.

Let’s elevate. Thank you so much for joining me. I typically kick the episodes off by having the guest explain who they are and what it is they do. OK, yes, my name is Christoph Hess. Thank you for giving me the possibility to explain who I am and what I’m doing.

I am living in Germany. I was working nearly 40 years for the German Equestrian Federation, mainly in the Department of Education and training. I was 20 years the director of the big training centre in Warrendorf, capital of horses in Germany. I was around 30 years in international and eventing judge. I am training all over the world, judges, coaches, trainers, riding instructors, riders a lot.

I was helping the French eventing team at the Olympic Games in Versailles, Paris. I was judging Olympic Games in Essen 21 years ago. I was judging in Avon. I was judging 3 times in Kentucky, the old days, Rolex. I was judging for ages in Wellington and in other parts in of the US in Raleigh, North Carolina, in San Francisco and many other places, mainly Lesage.

But eventing in in Kentucky is a five star. So therefore that’s a little bit what I’m doing and I was helping very much different teams, eventing teams, the German team, the British team, the Swedish team, the Dutch team, New Zealand team, Australian team in different ways, but very intensively. I was training the French team the last two years and now I’m in the position being a supervisor for the French team still. Go on. So when you first got involved with horses, did you think that your life path would look the way it has looked?

No, to be honest, not. I think this is not very typical when you start something that you do, it’s a whole life. In my situation, it was that I started my career when I was eight years of eight, eight years. And yeah, it was a situation at home at the north part of Germany, the village or there’s a town called Kochharsen at the end of the river of Elbe. And when you go into the Alva, you come to the harbour of Hamburg.

It’s the biggest harbour in Germany, one of the biggest harbours in Europe. And there I started. There is a big breeding scene around this place where I was born. My family has nothing with animals, no horse, no dog, no cat, nothing. In we had a flat.

My father was a lawyer, but more town, city person than a person who lives rural life. And then, yeah, from one day to another. And they even said, oh, I have a horse and if you like, you can join me with my horse. And my brother and me said, yes, we come, We laughed. My brother stopped a week later.

And for me, it was the beginning of a career. What you had said, there was not a master plan that I said, Oh no, I do this and then I do this and then I do this. I started, I wanted to become Olympic gold medal winner. I’m not a gold medal winner, but I helped the French team being silver medal, medal winner in the team and I was judging as the president of the grand jury, the eventing competition. This is what I did with Olympic Games.

But my dream, being an Olympic gold medal winner, I dream, but now I’m too old to realise it. Interesting. And how was there ever, like, an internal battle with, like, feeling as though you didn’t hit your goal? Or were you just, OK, this is just what I’m doing now? Yeah, I think that’s a progress.

And, and when you have the illness, being a horse person, there is no medicine, there is no Doctor Who can do anything against it though. And the passion was there immediately. The motivation was there immediately. Horses have an amazing fascination for me. So that for it was from every single little bit.

And then I left to, to ride. I left the exercises and movements in the saddle and, and, and, and I left to train and I left to be trained and everything. I left the whole society, the horses, the people around, the Breeders, the instructor, the other riders. And then there is such a big family all over the world. And to be honest, if I wouldn’t have the chance as a young boy starting to learn riding and to become for a while professional rider and to pass all the examines which you can do in Germany, which I did, and I was an examiner myself and I had learned so much about life.

I had learned so much, so very kind people. I would never have learned, visit met without having horses. I flew around the whole world. I was 9 times in Australia. I was around 2025 times in the US, in Canada, in all parts of Europe, in in South America, in South Africa and so in, in Eastern Europe, in Russia.

Never ever I would have been there when I wouldn’t had the chance to do it with horses. So therefore that’s for me, It’s my life and it was my life. It’s it is my life and I hope it will be for a while, my life as well. That’s awesome. Yeah.

It’s funny talking to riders. And because in the United States, it’s very much like everyone has the Olympic dream. Like you go to any competition and you talk to someone and we’re all doing it to go to the Olympics. And sometimes I talk to people in Europe and that’s just not the sentiment because it’s just a different culture around horses everywhere else, I find. It was interesting.

So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast is I think it was like 3 years ago, I was watching one of your segments on Clip My horse and you completely changed the way I went about warming up for dressage. And now when I warm up my horse, they’re in a lower frame. I get off their back in the Cantor. I it’s I really tried to have a happy athlete. And what led you to realize that horsemanship was also a part of riding?

I think it was a process as well when I started to learn writing. I wouldn’t say I start my writing career to learn writing. Everything what I did and I learned it in the German writing. Everything was organized into the direction of being a rider to compete. Everything.

Competition, lower level, local competition, maybe a little bit wider, 100 miles away in the beginning, maybe at the end, 500 miles away, or this was the way. And in the beginning it was very much the horse has to do this, the horse has to do this. In the old days when I started, I had officers, soldiers from Second World War. They were in the riding clubs here, Germany, training young guys, mainly young boys, not so very many girls. Now it’s just the other way around.

The old trainers had passed away. So therefore they look very much into the direction of competition. And yeah, horses have to do what the riders say. And the more I started to understand horses, the more I saw that we have to change the concept. In the old days, when I started my career, the master who was standing mainly a man.

Now we have very many, very many women who train. In the old days, I would say 9095% men, gentlemen, officers, older officers were giving lessons and it was very loud in the writing arenas. They were crying. There’s no wasn’t no sea coach and other systems to to communicate. There was only a one way communication.

There was no discussion, no interaction. And the horse, yeah, the horse had to do what the riders had. And the more I was training, the more I was riding, the more I was competing, the more I had ridden different horses, the more I saw this can’t be the only way. And then I start to change my own way of training my horses. I change my way of training my riders.

I change the way I did clinics and video productions. And for me, the highest goal is harmony between horse and rider. And to look very much from the horse’s point of view, in the old days when I started, it was always the in the middle of the World War, the rider. Now it is more and more the horse in the middle of the world when you train. And this is for me being very important, that the horse is in the middle.

And the instinct of the horse, it’s the horse’s nature. It’s important and we have to find a way to give the horses the best possibilities to love the job which they are doing with the rider, not what they have to do with the rider. But my goal is that the horses love what they do with the rider to motivate the rider and that the rider learns to think from the horses point of view. This is for me very important. That’s my highest goal.

And when you, when I did something with my horse or with We We horse and other things for the Germany Question Federation, I always try to explain this very much to understand the horse’s behavior, to understand the horse’s mentality. And I think that’s very important. The more we do with artificial intelligence and Germany would say KE are the Kunsley intelligents, the more we work with iPhone, iPad and all these things, the more we look into the laptop, to the computer, the more we have this, the less feeling we have for animals, the less feeling we have for horses. Therefore, my goal is to give the riders a feeling for horses in general and a special feeling for the special horse which a rider is riding and competing. And when you say you’re looking for harmony between force and rider, that’s in the eventing test in the United States.

We now have a harmony score. We don’t really have collective marks. Would you explaining what you mean, maybe from a judge’s perspective of what harmony looks like? I’m very happy that we have this mark. We have this America and we have it in the international world as well.

We have not in the FBI classes, not collective marks. In pure des Haas integrity competition we have we give a mark for the position of the rider and the way he give is giving his aids. And in the eventing competitions, we give a mark for the harmony between horse and rider. And this is a mark which I love very much. It has a coefficient of two.

And yeah, it’s a way how the rider is giving the aids, how the horse is accepting the aids, how harmonious or how good the harmony is when the horse, when the rider is asking for the different exercises, how the rider is riding transitions in all different variations. It is part of the body language. It’s a horse, a happy athlete. Is a horse a happy horse? How is the eye?

How are the ears? How is the swinging the of the neck? The swing of the tail? How is the horse able to swing over the back? How is the rhythm of the horse?

How is the straightness of the horse? Is the horse dry or is the horse wet? It’s the horses slave of the rider or is the horse a partner of the rider? How is the body language of the rider? Is he looking angry or is he smiling when he is riding, How tough he is with his hands, How good is his way of swinging into the horses movements and so on.

As this is for me, everything together is harm and this is the highest goal and it needs ages to have a good harmony between the rider and the horse and the rider who is able to swing in the lovely way into the horses movement, who is able to bring the horse in front of his driving aids with soft hands. This is for me wonderful. When I see this then I’m willing to give a 10 and if I don’t see this then I have to give a little bit a lower mark. And when we’re as the riders developing our horses for sport, how should we go about our daily practices, our daily training to ensure by the time we get to the competition we’re showing harmony? Because sometimes I think at home we definitely have more moments of harmonious connection.

Then by the time we get to the competition, there’s atmosphere, attention. So how one, how do we we create the harmony in our day-to-day work and then how do we translate that to competition? There is no way which you can use for all horses, for all situations. Oh, that’s that’s the first sentence. The second sentence is there is often a big depth difference between riding at home, riding at the practice, in the arena, in the competition and competing in show jumping, cross country or tothash.

So horses are very different, very different. Some horses are very good in competitions, some are bad in competition. And this first question is what kind of rider I am? Are do I, I am a rider or my question is a rider a rider who loves to compete and is he strong in the competition, has his strong mind or is he shy and is he we in the competition and is he nervous in the competition? And this is very important and this is that we have to realize the horse is a mirror of the rider.

And when the rider is not brave, then the horse will be not brave. Then the horse stops and sends number one at 11 meter event stop because the rider is not brave. The rider is not asking in the right way to to jump the fence. So therefore the first thing is what can the rider do to be good at the competition though the second thing is what do I have to train at home? And I would say basic, the exercises, what you have to ride, it’s a weekend are not important.

Important is the way how you school your horse. I would say you should do a lot of rising trot and you should do a lot of riding canter in the two points seat, light seat. You should write a lot of transitions between trot, Cantor and trot. You should do leg yielding in all variations. You should write transitions from trot to walk and later from trot to halt.

You should write smooth transitions into rain back riding backwards. That’s important. It’s not doing with hands and you have to be careful that the horse is straight. Therefore, one of the top exercises should be when you are a little bit on a higher level shoulder in to straighten the horse to use the inside leg in a positive way and very important to ride with the inside leg into the direction of the outside rain. These things are important for me and this you should do in the the Flash arena or outside in on the big out outdoor arena.

And then if possible, do the same thing when you compete, when you’re right outside in the fields. You can train what I just said with your horses in the fields as well when you go hiking also. Yeah, I think when you’re talking about what kind of rider someone is, this like the mentality of the rider. Like I had a situation where I had a horse who was just as game as I was. I can be very intense in my personality, and this horse thrived with that.

And then I got another horse and that horse did not like that mentality at all. And for the last three years, all I’ve been working on is calming myself down and chill out, chilling out. And she’s. I had a trainer tell me I need my horses smarter than I am, and this one definitely is. But that can make the anticipation of things a bit tricky to work through, because then I’m trying to keep reminding myself to chill up, but I’m also trying to chill my horse out and.

Yeah, I don’t know, maybe there’s a question in there somewhere, but what work does a rider have to do on themselves in order to create a harmonious well? I think first of all, the rider has to know which kind of personality he is, and I think the best way to school your own personality is to start to ride. The horse is your mirror and you need passion to do it, but then you need patient with a horse and patient with yourself and it’s a long term process. It’s a marathon to do it and it’s not just a short distance and then winning. That’s very important to know this and to know that there is no short way.

Learning and training is needs time and this is what you have to know and to realize the horse is your mirror and your mirror of your personality. If you are angry, you’ll never come to a harmony angry with your horse. And many people who are angry with the horse are angry with themselves as well and angry with other people, which is not good. And therefore this is very important to to know that when you go on your horse, you have to try to be as familiar with the horse as possible. You have to forget your iPhone, your iPad, if possible, your problems in the office, your problems with your boyfriend or with your girlfriend, with your kids, with other people.

You have to say, I am in, but this is, I know this is Siri. I’m totally with my thoughts together with my horse. And the more you’re able to do this, the more the horse will say, yes, I accepted what you’re doing. I, I am your partner. We do it together.

And this is very important for me, that we realize this. Yeah, it definitely is. I think once you hit a level of wanting success is when as a rider you actually turn the light from the horse to yourself and you go that shift of oh, my horse knocked a rail or my horse ran out at the fence too. So I didn’t support my horse to that fence or oh, I didn’t. And then it it turns the light to us and how we’re approaching the problems.

So when you are working with all these riders at the top of the sport, is there or maybe even not at the top of the sport, but maybe they’re successful in their own realm of riding, Are there certain mentalities that make training people easier or harder? Yeah, it’s just impressing. It’s a good question. The riders I had trained till Olympic level, they are very different. They are at the end of the day very focused.

They are they have strong minds. Some have a better concentration, other not so much concentration, but they have the character willing to win. That’s very important, willing to win and to have this, I would say 100% highest priority to go to the Olympic Games when you are only will see, I go to Olympic Games, but maybe if I have another event, I use this, I go to this direction, then I go into this direction. No chance. You never come to the Olympic Games.

You have to be very focused on what you’re doing and you have to be open for trainings advice. You have to be critical with yourself. You have always to try to find the very best situation for yours and you need a very good team around you. These things are very important for me. And when you do this then you have a chance to come.

When you are a good rider, then you have the chance to come to the highest level. But at the end of the day, that a big rider, a small rider, a female, a man, everybody has a chance. And at the end of the day, here between your ass, that makes a difference how much focus you are. And then, OK, at the end of the day, you need good luck. You need good luck that the good horse is in form and that it can work.

And at the end of the day, only one in each class will be Olympic gold medal winner and every fourth year long, long period in between. Yeah, that’s interesting. And when you say focus, because sometimes I think of focus and I think of focus with an intensity, when you say focused, are they just moving towards a goal? Is that the focus or is the focus on the specific goal for that day? How do they?

What do you mean by focus? They are focused in the process as at the end of the day winning a medal. But this is when you think this is a wish, but you don’t think the whole time, winning medal, winning medal. Then you’ll forget what you have to do at the daily business. You have to do the small steps to look, is my horse happy?

Do I do the right training, do we practice the right exercises and so on. That’s important. And then you have enough challenges not to say problems with each horse. One horse is not so good at canter, one horse is not good at flying changes, one horse is not jumping, so good ditches. And so therefore you have so many challenges and these kind of challenges you have to bring under control.

And the better you are able to bring these things under control, the better you will be at the right. And the more you’re able to think from the hottest point of view, the more you’re able to, yeah, be very close to your horse. And I will underline 24/7 hours a day, not just two hours when you’re in the saddle or like this. No, the whole time. It is a 24/7 project for years, years.

Otherwise it’s not working. We have always examples that say horse and rider are coming quite shortly together, OK it at the disc, but then it says always to be a top horse and the top top top. Very well educated and trained rider with a lot of experience that can work, but this is not the way it works normal. And when you’re talking about the developing the force to be happy and connected, what as a rider, what does that feel like? What does that look like?

Yeah, what you mean when I say it’s harmony? Your horse swings, The horse is seeking the pit, The horse is breathing. The good rhythm of breathing the horse when you see it, that when you watch the body language, you would say this horse is happy, This horse laughs. What the riders asking for this is, yeah, what our goal, my goal is. But I’m not sure that this is a question the answer of your question.

No, I think you’ve definitely answered the question. So it’s like a an outward expression. When I’m looking at a force going, I can tell that it’s happy. I can see that it’s expression is light and not tense. I can see that it and moving.

That makes sense. So you’ve obviously been in the sport for a long time. What keeps you inspired to keep at it, to keep in the sport? I think I’m inspired because there is each moment is a new moment, each day is a new moment. It’s a new day.

Each cross has its own history and its own future. And the same with the writer. Well, therefore that’s for me magic to do it. And for me, it’s a gift that I have the possibility to ride with top, top writers in Germany, in England and in very many different countries in France. It’s really a gift to do it and to train these writers and to help these writers.

And yeah, to see the way how to manage with classical training principles the challenges, because with each rosette rider you have challenges. There is no perfection. If we were to have perfection, we judges always would give 10/10/10 10:10 and everybody is a winner. Now we have so many challenges, the rider as a rider, the horse as the horse and the horse and rider combination and though how both of them. This is, for me, magic and a gift at the same time, and I love it to do it forever.

Yeah, it’s a blessing for sure to be able to work with horses every day. So what what do you think? There’s obviously a lot of, after the last Olympic Games and everything, there’s this weird look into equestrian sports. And I feel like as a whole we’re going in a positive direction. But someone looking in may not totally understand the sport and the nuances, but what do you think the sport needs in order to keep evolving in a positive direction, whether that be eventing or dressage or just?

The first of all, the runners have to know that we have to do what we are doing in a fairway for the horses, that we do everything in a horse friendly way. That the highest goal is not the success, The highest goal is the happiness of the horse, the welfare of the horse, and that we are able to explain what we are doing. The officials, the judges, the trainers and the writers as well have to explain what they do. And the officials have to communicate with the spectators about the sport to explain, because we have more and more people who don’t understand the sport. We have more and more people who don’t like sport with animals in general.

No dog a guillot tea, no sport with horses and so on. And no, no dogs at home and no cats at home. And we have a big organization, I know in America and we have it in Germany as well, Peter, PETA, they don’t want that. We eat a beef and and meat and they don’t want that. We ride horses, they don’t want that the Breeders breed horses in the future.

So they want to stop the question spot. And maybe this is a bit extreme, but in our community and I’m sure and all society in Germany and abroad, in Europe, in the US, we have more and more people who look, who are looking very critical into our direction. Though. Therefore, our goal has to be to do it in a good way, in the proper way that looking always from the horses welfare’s point of view. That’s for me very important.

And therefore I think that’s a big change in the last years. And when I think about when I had started for ages with my sport, the welfare of the horse was has not was not a high goal or the goal, but not a high goal. And now it is, at the end of the day, maybe the highest goal. Yeah, for sure. And it’s definitely, I always say if someone can take a screenshot of a live stream and think it looks abusive or whatever, that’s what we’re working against is not people that are watching a whole live stream.

It’s people that are taking a snapshot and saying this is cruel and we shouldn’t have to have all these nuanced conversations of, oh, when we use a crop on cross country, it’s just a it doesn’t matter if someone looks in and they say, I saw 30 people hitting their force around a corner draw some negative light. And so it’s always interesting to ask people’s perspectives on that sort of question. So if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, what would that piece of advice be? Yeah, try to look from the horse’s point of view. And when you look from the horse’s point of view, you learn a lot for your own life.

And what you learn for your own life when you communicate with horses is unbelievable. I think when you do it in the right way, you will be a better human with horses than without horses. Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me today. Is there?

How do people follow along with what you do? See the things that you’re doing, all of that good stuff. Yeah, although I’m quite active in the Internet, I have a lady who helps me with Instagram and Facebook. I do a lot with Wee Horse. It is an online producer of videos and we have a big clinic that the problem is this is only in the German language.

I apologize and I did a lot for Flip My Horse in their Academy. This is in English and I have the opportunity to to help the American team eventing team a little bit. I will come to Philadelphia in June just for one weekend and then I’m helping the writers who came to Europe to represent the USA in Arsene first weekend in July 2025. And on Monday and Tuesday of this week, June 30th and July 1st, I’m helping these writers to be good in the prices of nation eventing, even own eventing, and I’m helping them a little bit. And with that dosage I do this first time I’m very much looking forward helping the team.

I don’t know the team riders, I judged some of them years ago, but I stopped judging internationally because when I’m helping international riders, I can’t judge any longer because of conflict of interest. And so therefore I stopped judging a couple of years ago into other international classes. And so therefore it’s a new challenge for me and I hope it will be a successful challenge and I hope I will get a good contact to your riders and they get a good contact to me. And so therefore I’m looking forward for this new adventure. Awesome.

That’s so exciting for Team USA, so this is something to look out for. Well, again, thank you so much for joining me and I can’t wait to get this episode out. It was a lot of fun to record. Thank you very much, all the best for you. Thank you.

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