12/04/2021
Engage your core, bear down, use your abs... etc..all these instructions that are supposed to give you a more effective seat but sometimes result in rigid riders with not so good hands and seats and stiff horses....
A few years ago, I watched an eleven year old on a five year old Cob she started (!) - her Mom rode him only twice.
I wanted to share her pics because I am pretty sure that if no one interferes with her natural balance, and ability to help her horse instinctively with her own body, she is going to grow up to be a superb rider and trainer.
How many adults do you know who ride this softly? In such instinctive balance? How many adults do you know would ride a five year old in a lesson so calmly and without any concern or fear.
This horse is short but powerful, and yet she can ride him and shape him with the gentlest rein. What does that say about how much over riding is happening out there?
I also got to see a fair number of poney clubbers at shows over the last few years. Already, their little backs are stiff, their little hands pull into tight fists, they are being taught to ride by pulling and kicking. It looks hard to ride that way by comparison.
This little one's mom told me all she wants her girl to do with her pony is.....have fun. She can see the pony doing really well and she recognizes in her daughter all the qualities adult riders have to work so hard to gain, or regain.
When I watch Manolo Mendez, he rides and trains this way. The best way I can put it, is that even when he is working physically quite hard, the horses beneath him are beautiful in the same way Shylock is. As a rider, he looks like a friend coming along for the ride. It is always a pleasure to watch. As Manolo would say, "you know you are doing well with your horse if its is becoming more handsome"..
Today, it seems like if it looks smooth, organic, natural and easy..if the horse is calm and relaxed...it is not "dressage." Dressage is no longer about training a calm, willing, well moving horse....dressage is hard...hard work, hard muscles, hard tests, hard to do....harder on one side, hard to sit, hard to collect...hard mouth...
Perhaps what is hard about dressage is all the expectations that riders who have forgotten or never experienced what freedom on the back of a horse feels like.are pilling on their horses and themselves.
