Having spent the previous two parts venting my spleen on what I see as miss guidance given to riders regarding their position, in this last part are my views on some of the directive terms given to riders while in action....
And from what I can hear, some of these listed below are still used by some rather high up trainers.
“Push with your inside leg to make him bend.”
Really? So we have a horse weighing possibly up to half a ton, and a female rider weighing in at 130 pounds and with her lower leg she is to ‘push’ to make his body bend? This has to be right up there with,
“use your inside leg to push him to the outside rein.” I don’t think I need to say more on this. You just have to look at the reality of the situation to see the ludicrous side to these directives. I have no problem in teaching a horse to ‘react’ to a signal from a leg, but to think you are actually ‘pushing’ this beast…….. ?
“Push with your seat to drive him forwards!”
Yes, seriously, this one is still around. Lord knows why, as this advice is about as practical as an ash tray on a motorbike. Although thinking back about a hundred years, when I was having my first lessons, this was told to me but it should be left there, in the past. So thinking of what was said about pushing half a ton to make it ‘bend’ do you think you will have any more success pushing to ‘drive him forward’ ? I do know of many horses that have been ‘trained’ to react to the driving seat. That is, initially the rider pushes with the seat, horse doesn’t react but quickly gets a sharp smack with a whip or a touch with a spur. He soon learns when he feels the pressure from above that he needs to ‘get going’.
But here’s my problem with this. Watch any vet, therapist or massage person checking the back and they run their fingers/hands along the spine to see if the horse flinches down away from the pressure. So, how can weight and pressure from the seat be used to invite the back up? Again, a horse may certainly react and accelerate in reaction from a driving seat, but I have yet to see one lift his back as a reaction to it. Inevitable the rider using the driving seat leans behind the vertical for good measure which is hardly going to help. (Point to note, I do see the difference between this and a rider who momentarily comes behind the vertical during some big paces. Not the same as a rider permanently behind and driving.)
Along the same lines come phrases such as
“Drive him forward into downward transitions!”
“Push with your seat to get his hind legs under him!”
As the old masters would say, “When knowledge runs out, violence often steps in.”
Moving right along;
“He’s falling in on his inside shoulder”
Realistically if this were true you would have a horse laying side ways on the floor. Truth is, you might feel the loss of balance in the shoulder area because you are almost sitting above it. However in reality the horse is putting more weight onto his inside FOOT, not his shoulder. This simply means he is putting less weight onto the opposite front foot. He has gone uneven in the forehand from right to left. The horse has gone out of vertical balance. Rather like looking rear view at the lean on a motorbike going around a turn. The horse needs help to ‘balance his fore hand laterally’. When he loads the front FEET evenly you will feel him vertical through the shoulder and not leaning one way. The feeling of falling in onto the shoulder is merely a symptom of the real problem.
“He’s escaping through the outside shoulder!”
Such rubbish. You can feel him drifting outwards because again he’s gone out of balance in the loading of his front feet. This is when we see riders trying to ‘block’ with the outside rein to stop this outrageous escaping behaviour…
Especially on turns and circles inertia has a part in the novice horse loosing lateral balance in the fore hand. I have never found ‘blocking the shoulder with the outside rein’ very helpful. However, I have found teaching a horse to re balance his fore hand, without using a restricting outside rein, extremely useful.
The word that entertains me the most in this piece is ‘escaping’. Let’s get real here, if your horse seriously decides to ‘escape’, he’d chuck you on the floor, stamp on your head to make sure you couldn’t follow, then hop back to the field or prairie with his mates. No people, if our horses are tolerating us bouncing around on top, having the odd tug on reins, the occasional poke in the ribs and not trying to ‘escape’ from that lot. Well don’t think of him as a bad lad for ‘escaping’ when really, he only needs help with his balance.
Just saying like…..
“Push with your inside leg to make him bend.”
Really? So we have a horse weighing possibly up to half a ton, and a female rider weighing in at 130 pounds and with her lower leg she is to ‘push’ to make his body bend? This has to be right up there with,
“use your inside leg to push him to the outside rein.” I don’t think I need to say more on this. You just have to look at the reality of the situation to see the ludicrous side to these directives. I have no problem in teaching a horse to ‘react’ to a signal from a leg, but to think you are actually ‘pushing’ this beast…….. ?
“Push with your seat to drive him forwards!”
Yes, seriously, this one is still around. Lord knows why, as this advice is about as practical as an ash tray on a motorbike. Although thinking back about a hundred years, when I was having my first lessons, this was told to me but it should be left there, in the past. So thinking of what was said about pushing half a ton to make it ‘bend’ do you think you will have any more success pushing to ‘drive him forward’ ? I do know of many horses that have been ‘trained’ to react to the driving seat. That is, initially the rider pushes with the seat, horse doesn’t react but quickly gets a sharp smack with a whip or a touch with a spur. He soon learns when he feels the pressure from above that he needs to ‘get going’.
But here’s my problem with this. Watch any vet, therapist or massage person checking the back and they run their fingers/hands along the spine to see if the horse flinches down away from the pressure. So, how can weight and pressure from the seat be used to invite the back up? Again, a horse may certainly react and accelerate in reaction from a driving seat, but I have yet to see one lift his back as a reaction to it. Inevitable the rider using the driving seat leans behind the vertical for good measure which is hardly going to help. (Point to note, I do see the difference between this and a rider who momentarily comes behind the vertical during some big paces. Not the same as a rider permanently behind and driving.)
Along the same lines come phrases such as
“Drive him forward into downward transitions!”
“Push with your seat to get his hind legs under him!”
As the old masters would say, “When knowledge runs out, violence often steps in.”
Moving right along;
“He’s falling in on his inside shoulder”
Realistically if this were true you would have a horse laying side ways on the floor. Truth is, you might feel the loss of balance in the shoulder area because you are almost sitting above it. However in reality the horse is putting more weight onto his inside FOOT, not his shoulder. This simply means he is putting less weight onto the opposite front foot. He has gone uneven in the forehand from right to left. The horse has gone out of vertical balance. Rather like looking rear view at the lean on a motorbike going around a turn. The horse needs help to ‘balance his fore hand laterally’. When he loads the front FEET evenly you will feel him vertical through the shoulder and not leaning one way. The feeling of falling in onto the shoulder is merely a symptom of the real problem.
“He’s escaping through the outside shoulder!”
Such rubbish. You can feel him drifting outwards because again he’s gone out of balance in the loading of his front feet. This is when we see riders trying to ‘block’ with the outside rein to stop this outrageous escaping behaviour…
Especially on turns and circles inertia has a part in the novice horse loosing lateral balance in the fore hand. I have never found ‘blocking the shoulder with the outside rein’ very helpful. However, I have found teaching a horse to re balance his fore hand, without using a restricting outside rein, extremely useful.
The word that entertains me the most in this piece is ‘escaping’. Let’s get real here, if your horse seriously decides to ‘escape’, he’d chuck you on the floor, stamp on your head to make sure you couldn’t follow, then hop back to the field or prairie with his mates. No people, if our horses are tolerating us bouncing around on top, having the odd tug on reins, the occasional poke in the ribs and not trying to ‘escape’ from that lot. Well don’t think of him as a bad lad for ‘escaping’ when really, he only needs help with his balance.
Just saying like…..
