05/10/2022
Chris Hector talks to Rafael Soto about Good Dressage...
I remember when I rode with Nuno (Oliveira) and he would always start with this little balanced trot and he would say 'make your hands like you are eating soup, just a little movement that is light and round...'"That's it. To make the horse supple and so that he understands that he has to carry himself. There is another saying of Nuno, what is the contact? The contact, he says, is like a bird in your hand. If you open your fingers too much, the bird escapes, if you close, you can kill the bird. It is something like you just said, it is like eating soup. He also said, ‘contact is about grams not kilos in your hand’. Watch the good riders, when the horse comes back, they have grams, of course when they go forward, they have more grams and then less grams, and this is because the legs and the seat of the rider are working on the balance, and the horse is able to carry himself, and he comes back with the legs. https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2020/01/rafael-soto-there-are-only-two-sorts-of-dressage-the-good-and-not-good/
