ANSWER:
It's only one of many things you have to look at and evaluate. Not every horse who is on the vertical is on the bit and "through". Not every horse who is behind the vertical is behind the bit, and not every horse who is in front of the vertical is above the bit and stiff in his back. You have to look at the whole picture and take the conformation into account, as well as the stage of training, the overall balance, what issues the horse currently has and how the rider is addressing them. You also have to look at how the hind legs and the back are working, and where the current work is leading.
With every horse and every rider you will always be able to see a mixture of good elements and bad elements. As a competent horseperson you have to be able to judge which of the elements you observe (good or bad) are of central importance, and which ones are only of marginal importance. You have to be able to weigh all the positive features against all the negative ones. You have to be able to judge whether a mistake that occurs is just a momentary glitch, or whether it's a systemic problem that is indicative of a fundamental training error. You have to be able to see whether a mistake that occurs is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, or whether it's actually an improvement, because it is perhaps the opposite mistake that the horse usually makes, or a smaller mistake than the one he usually makes. You have to be able to see if a mistake occurs because the rider is interfering with the horse, or not guiding the horse well enough, or whether the horse just lost his balance on his own, or whether he perhaps reverted back to an old bad habit for a moment, because he forgot that he wasn't supposed to do this any more.
In other words, you have to be able to see where the horse's training is coming from, how the conformation affects the horse's gaits and posture, and how the training process has to continue, in order to approach the ideal. You can't always get everything at once, and often the shortest way to the goal is not the most direct way. Sometimes you have to correct a mistake by making the opposite mistake on purpose TEMPORARILY. You have to be aware that each exercise, each aid, each correction will address specific problems, and it will be useful and effective for a limited time only. Sooner or later the horse will change as a result of the rider's action, and at that moment, the rider has to change what he is doing with the horse. Horses are not like machines where you get the same response every time you push the same button. Horses change all the time, as a result of whatever the rider is doing. They are always either improving or deteriorating in some way.
And the rider has to be smart and observant enough to notice when the horse is starting to change, and to know whether it's a change for the better or worse - which is not always immediately apparent - so that the training approach can be adapted to the new developments. This requires a thoughtful, tactful, experienced, competent rider. And this is why the old masters always emphasized the importance of teaching riders to become THINKING Riders.
As a general rule, always expect things to be more complex than you thought they were. That's what I have found every time I learned something new and made a new observation. There is always more to any subject than you think.
- Thomas Ritter
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Last Update: February 25, 2007