Category Archives: Equitation

Make him round

28 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Equitation, Tack, Training

≈ 7 Comments

There are certainly other phrases of three words that I don’t care for, but “make him round” makes my top ten list.

It’s a popular instruction to a rider whose horse has his head above the vertical — horrors! — and who seems stiff or hollow in the back.

Let me preface by saying that I have nothing against helping a horse to relax over his topline and stretch into the contact.  Unfortunately, that’s not usually the meaning of “make him round,” which is the dressage trainer’s answer to the hunter-jumper trainer’s equally misguided “put your horse in a frame.”

The command to “make him round” ignores both the why and the how — why is the horse not round?  And, if you try to make him round, how do you do it? Beyond that, there is an additional why — why would you want the horse to be round?  And beyond that, how round is round?

Let’s look first at why the horse isn’t round.  There’s a reason.  There may be many reasons.

Has anyone checked saddle fit?  Recently?

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Danger – what to do?

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Equitation, Training

≈ 2 Comments

I’ve been enjoying the dialog that’s been ongoing since Tuesday, following my post on the importance of verbal rewards.

On that same Tuesday, one of my fellow bloggers, who lives in the French Midi-Pyrenees (I am squelching envy, I am, I am) had an adventure on her horse which was suitable for the cinema, which she wrote about, and which you can read about here.

I hope I’m not spoiling anything by saying that both she and her horse survived the ordeal unscathed.  But in reflecting on what she did, and what else she might have done, she decided to ask me if I had any tips.

Reading her blog, I’m guessing that, like me, she asked because she wants to hear new ideas and to learn new things, and you never know where those will come from.

It was fun for me to compile a list of tips for riders who find themselves in a potentially explosive situation while on a horse.  They’re readily available to readers who choose to wade through the thread of comments following Tuesday’s post and actually make it to comment #9.

Which is why I thought it might be useful to reprint them, in a new post. You’ll note that these suggestions are particularly applicable to those potentially explosive escapades that involve loose horses in addition to the one you’re riding:

1. Remember to breathe. That will help calm you and your horse.

2. Sit deeply and try to envelop your saddle but don’t grip with legs or hands.

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365

31 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in Equitation, Training

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I have a dear friend who has a wonderful saying:

“If you write a page a day, at the end of the year, you’ll have a book.”

I literally followed his advice a few years ago, and wrote one.  I followed others’ advice and after several re-writes, I put it under the bed to incubate.  It occurs to me that I should dig it out and see how it reads.  Maybe when I’m snowed in this winter, if winter ever comes to Connecticut again.

But my friend’s advice pertains just as well to horses as it does to books.  Every time you ride, if you work on your position, improve your feel and strive to be the best trainer you can be, it doesn’t matter on any given day if you think you’ve made progress, or made enough progress.  By the end of a year, you’ll have accomplished something both you and your horse can be proud of.

Core

30 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Equitation, Language

≈ 4 Comments

If you’re one of this blog’s dedicated readers, you may be wondering how I can talk about the rider’s seat (which I have for the last couple of days) without talking about the rider’s “core.”

Well, I can’t.  

There is a current vogue to focus on “core strength” and how important it is. And while I agree that the core is important, I’m not sure that strength is the most important part of it, and I’m not even sure that I agree with most people about where the core actually is.

Some people consider the core to be the “abdomen,” with evidence of core strength in “six-pack abs.”  These are often the same people who believe, as Robert Dover does, that one should ride from half-halt to half-halt and they’re so busy half-halting with their cores that their abdomens seldom come out of contraction.  To my distaste, they will sometimes tell you to “go ahead, poke my stomach,” which makes me question their equestrian tact.

I don’t consider the core to be the basic abdominal muscles — the transversus abdominis, the rectus abdominis, the internal obliques and the external obliques — and I consider balance to be as important to good riding as core strength.  The core strength that is necessary is the core strength required to maintain the rider’s balance regardless of the horse’s motion. And while this often involves quite a lot of muscle strength, it lies behind the abdomen, in the iliopsoas  (if you’re going to share that aloud, remember the “p” is silent).

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Exercises for the seat

29 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in Equitation

≈ 4 Comments

There are two places in the world where you can best develop your seat.  One is on the lunge line and one is in your car.  Depending on your lifestyle and inclination, you may prefer one to the other.  But it’s best if you can manage both.

Erster Oberbereiter Zrust on Favory Ancona 1, 1940

On the lunge line:  This is the site of the sine qua non of seat development. One of the “old chestnuts“ of riding lore is that students at the Spanish Riding School spend three years on the lunge, riding without stirrups, before they are allowed to ride the way we blithely permit inattentive six year olds to.

If we’re serious about our riding, even if we’re not as serious as the Austrians in the hats, we’ll still want to get on the lunge line from time to time. Because riding on the lunge without stirrups and reins is simply the best way to find out what your seat is doing, and improve it.  There’s nothing better for learning how to sit deep in the saddle, discovering how it feels to have even seat bones in the saddle, trusting your seat so your arms and legs can move independently, and eventually, showing off.

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The seat

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Equitation, Language

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Flying the bi-plane by the seat of his pants

Before airplanes had instrument control panels, pilots flew “by the seat of their pants.” Guided by feel, they based their information on what they felt, literally, through the seat of their pants.

Riders do the same thing.  They just don’t wear pants.  And when they use their seats, it’s less to receive information than it is to transmit it.

Everyone knows how important it is to have a seat.  We refer to a “good seat” when we compliment a rider’s ability, regardless of their discipline.  For dressage riders and western riders, who spend more time on (or in) the saddle than above it, the seat becomes the main tool for communicating with the horse.  The seat is nearly as important for hunter riders, show jumpers and eventers, as demonstrated by the fact that when they’re out of the saddle, we say they’re riding in their half-seats.

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McSpur

03 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in Attire, Equitation, Language

≈ 6 Comments

I have to applaud George Morris for hanging in there, and attempting to uphold the best standards of equitation and horsemanship.

But just like that little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, when George is good, he is very good and when he is bad, he is horrid.

I have to confess that I don’t know why I read his Jumping Clinic every month in Practical Horseman, since he says the same things over and over again. Perhaps it’s to experience the satisfaction of seeing him atone for the crest release he promoted for intermediate riders for so many years.  Now, it seems that every month, he suggests the automatic release for the rider with a strong, stable leg.  For more on the automatic vs. crest release, see this post.

If you live long enough, and you were good enough at what you do, and you also remain in the public eye, you get to be a legend.  George qualifies.  So people, in general, turn a blind eye or give him a free pass when he calls the riders in front of him “dumbbells.”

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How to introduce the half halt

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Equitation, Training

≈ 2 Comments

It’s out of character for me, I know, to go right to the exercise without a long-winded exploration of what the phrase “half halt” means and if, in fact, a half halt is half a halt and if such a thing, regardless of what it is called, exists at all, along with the multitudinous ways of performing it, and why you would or wouldn’t perform it one way or another at any given time.

That gives you at least one thing to be thankful for today.

Plainly, I think of a half halt as a rebalancing.

Two Germans rebalancing c. 1547

My “cue” for rebalancing is stilling the seat.

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Notes & quotes from a clinic junkie: Anne Kursinski

28 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Equitation, Notes & Quotes

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I realize that I’ve been lax in reporting on Anne Kursinski’s clinic at this year’s Equine Affaire in Massachusetts, which I promised you.

Caprilli, inventor/promotor of The Forward Seat

Anne is a fan of the forward seat — the traditional hunt seat that boasts lightness as its hallmark.  Position is primary.  As she says,

“If you can’t feel your own body, good luck feeling what your horse is doing.”

What does Anne look for in the forward seat she teaches?  Lightness and balance.  And a straight line from the rider’s elbow to the horse’s mouth.  This line continues over fences with the automatic release.

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Schwung

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Equitation

≈ 2 Comments

I got home from yoga last night feeling life in my hips.  We spent the entire session — almost two hours — on pelvic exercises, and as I drove home, I danced in my seat to the music on the radio.

This is only my second yoga session since I broke my back in June, and it was interesting to observe where I am.  I no longer have the rotational flexibility I had before, but I am happy to feel spirit where there was static.

It made me think about how easy it is for us to get stuck, in our bodies and in our minds, and how easy it is for our horses to get stuck in the same places.

So if we want our horse’s backs to swing, we have to let our bodies swing a little, too.  Or “shwung.”

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