03/09/2022
A wonderful quick read on saddles!
FROM SADDLE TO HAND
If the good hand is a concept of greatest importance in horse riding, it must be recognized that it has, neither in equestrian training nor in the advice of coaches, the place and the importance that it should have. �It is true that it is so differently interpreted that it is enough to lose its Latin!
So it will be understandable if I am only skimming the subject today. But getting to the heart of it: What is the right hand in academic riding?
To get to know some difficulties which a dressage rider has to obtain a light and permanent contact I suggested that she allows me to ride her horse for a few minutes to understand the reason.
What was my surprise when I found myself stuck in a very deep saddle generously equipped with knee roles. It seemed to me that here we found the cause or at least one the the causes for the difficulty the rider encountered. And the most serious one.
Is it necessary to remind that there is no good hand without a good seat? And that it is the quality of a seat which allows the flexibility of the loins and hips and which leads to being able to hold the upper body "free and straight" in the saddle.
Nuno Oliveira does not say otherwise when he wanted "a very relaxed waist which must be able to support or give back" He also adds "that the rider must feel the back of the horse in his chest."
This is also valid for this rider I was initially talking about!
At the same time as it connects the riders to the back of their horses, this game of the waist ensures their stability. They thus control their hand, which is no longer affected by parasitic movements. They can then act with precision and expect the horse to accept the hand, respect and follow it.
In fact, centaurization is what you have to think about when you dream of the best possible attitude in the saddle, part of the rider becoming part of the horse's body.
But here a saddle should help, not hinder.
As it is always useful to draw inspiration from the old ones, I am thinking of General Decarpentry's saddle. Madame de Saint André gave it to me after the death of her husband, the last écuyer en chef of the Cavalry School.
I had given it to the museum of this school, believing that it was much better there than in my attic. And by the courtesy of the curator I came back to it these days.
As we can see the seat is rather flat, the pommel not very prominent and there are no knee roles which seem so extremely popular today. The padding is thin.
We know the concern that drives riders to use a saddle that is well suited to the back of their horse. And the care that equipment manufacturers take to satisfy the clients. However, the imagination of the latter should not lead them to offer saddles which may reassure their users, but which do not ensure the essential intimacy which must be established between the backs of the trainers and those of their horses.
Without a good saddle, no good hand. Without a good hand, no good riding.
