David L Collins
David Collins Dressage
Originator of Veritas Opportunus
VO
David L. Collins is an equestrian professional and independent researcher whose work bridges elite sport, mathematics, and physics. His equestrian career includes Grand Prix dressage, participation in Olympic screening trials in both dressage and three-day eventing, and the training and development of FEI-level dressage horses that later competed successfully in Europe, including at Grand Prix level. Collins also trained with the U.S. Three-Day Eventing program under legendary coach Jack Le Goff, whose system emphasized long-term development and classical fundamentals.
Collins’s research centers on Veritas Opportunus (VO), a framework he introduced in 2025 that examines why the present moment humans experience is biologically extended rather than instantaneous. His thinking is informed by a background in mathematics and physics as well as decades of high-performance movement in riding and sport. He is the author of Dressage Masters: Techniques and Philosophies of Four Legendary Trainers (The Lyons Press, 2006).
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Equestrian Career
Collins’s equestrian career includes competing at Grand Prix, with a 10th-place finish at Grand Prix in an Olympic screening trial in Florida, as well as training and developing multiple FEI-level dressage horses. Among these was Beryll 28 (also known earlier as Bojing), an American-trained horse developed by Collins through the small tour and into Grand Prix work before being sold to Hubertus Schmidt, Olympic gold medalist for the German team. According to FEI records and international coverage, the horse went on to compete successfully in Europe at CDI level and later in Mexico.
Decades in classical dressage—where timing, balance, and feel unfold across a continuous present rather than isolated instants—directly inform Collins’s broader research and teaching philosophy.
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Olympic Eventing Environment
During his early professional career, Collins trained within the U.S. three-day eventing program led by Jack Le Goff, participating in Olympic screening trials and development environments designed to cultivate future international competitors. The program emphasized horsemanship, mastery of fundamentals, and long-term rider development rather than early specialization or access to elite resources.
This system produced one of the most successful Olympic medal records in the history of eventing and remains a reference point for sustainable talent development in equestrian sport.
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Classical Foundations
Collins’s approach to dressage is grounded in the European classical tradition. He studied for many years under Eicke von Veltheim, former rider and trainer at the German Olympic Equestrian Center (DOKR) in Warendorf and a student of Albert Rother, Otto Lörke, and Willi Schultheis. Von Veltheim later described Collins’s work as rooted in classical principles and emphasized his ability to train riders to develop horses independently.
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Beryll 28 (aka Bojing)
Collins purchased Beryll 28 at the age of four and provided the horse’s complete foundational training in the United States. Under Collins’s riding, Beryll 28 progressed through the small tour and into advanced work, placing in major Prix St. Georges competitions by age seven and beginning piaffe and the foundational mechanics of passage prior to export.
Following this period, Hubertus Schmidt acquired the horse after observing, in his words, its talent and excellent training in the basics--a comment that is seldom, if ever, given from Olympic Gold medalists to horses trained in the USA. Under Schmidt’s riding, Beryll achieved international success at CDI3* and CDI4* competitions in Europe and later continued competing successfully in Mexico.
According to official Fédération Équestre Internationale records, Beryll 28 (FEI Horse ID: 106KM35) holds the highest number of Grand Prix placings at FEI competitions among horses that received their complete foundational training in the United States.
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Chocolate
Collins also trained Chocolate, a horse he developed over a three-year period. The horse was later evaluated by Hartwig Burfeind, a German trainer who has served as a coach to riders on the French and Spanish Olympic dressage teams.
After riding the horse, Burfeind noted Chocolate’s lightness in the hand, responsiveness, and ability to perform clean flying changes every two and three strides—even when ridden informally in a snaffle bridle without spurs or artificial aids. He emphasized the correctness of the horse’s preparation, observing developing piaffe and passage and recommending continued progress through forward, “through” canter work (durchgalopieren) to build strength and balance.
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Embodied Practice and Continuity
Collins’s experience in classical dressage informs a broader understanding of skilled action as a process unfolding across time rather than a series of discrete instants. At advanced levels, errors arise not from isolated moments but from breakdowns in communication, fundamentals, or temporal coordination between horse and rider.
This same principle underlies Collins’s long-term practice of Tai Chi and traditional Shaolin Kung Fu at Dragon and Crane. In these disciplines, effective action emerges through sustained integration of posture, breath, awareness, and timing. Movement unfolds within a continuous present; mistakes appear as disruptions of flow rather than singular failures.
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Language Immersion and Cognitive Structure
This embodied perspective was complemented early by full language immersion during Collins’s secondary studies in Germany, where he pursued advanced coursework in mathematics and physics while working entirely in a non-native language. The experience sharpened his sensitivity to translation, structural meaning, and the non-instantaneous construction of understanding—themes that later became central to his theoretical work.
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Veritas Opportunus
Collins’s current research centers on Veritas Opportunus (VO)—Latin for useful reality—a framework he introduced in 2025 proposing that the present humans experience is not instantaneous but a biologically evolved temporal integration window. Drawing on perceptual neuroscience, high-performance movement, evolutionary biology, and delayed-choice experiments in quantum mechanics, VO addresses how physical events become meaningful to biological observers without proposing new physical laws.
The Veritas Opportunus manuscript has been accepted and archived by PhilArchive and indexed by PhilPapers, reflecting an open evaluation of ideas alongside maintained academic standards.
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Books and Articles
Collins is the author of Dressage Masters: Techniques and Philosophies of Four Legendary Trainers (The Lyons Press, 2006) and has written extensively for Dressage Today, Practical Horseman, Sidelines Magazine, and related publications.
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Continuity in Practice
Collins lives and works in historic Pawling, New York, in the Harlem Valley, in a house built in 1790, where continuity is not abstract but lived—reinforcing that the present is something humans inhabit, interpret, and actively maintain rather than merely measure.
David L. Collins — researcher in perception, time, and embodied cognition.
Eick von Veltheim Wisdom: “You don’t get a second chance to train correct basics in a young horse. A year of traveling crooked followed by a year of traveling straight does not cancel out—it leaves a horse half as crooked.”