Dressage is a sport that involves great discipline in the mind of the rider: to control emotions, to control the way a body moves, to control the impulsion, rhythm, balance and straightness of the horse. The other sort of discipline is equally as important and equally as difficult to achieve in the right equilibrium, one that fosters respect without forgoing compassion or losing our partner's respect. This is the how, when, and why, we discipline our horse, and it in itself is an art that every top rider must master.
If you over discipline your horse, you lose his trust, you suffocate his personality, and you ride a robot test that will never earn you the marks that catch the judge's eye, nor the hearts of the audience. If you lack the ability to discipline at all, you will end up with an unruly child that will not respect you and will consider you more of a walking feed bucket that a credible training partner.
Discipline sounds like we want to master the horse, but in actual fact we just want to find the line where we can gain his trust in us, or respect for us, to learn together. I prefer to think of discipline with our equine partners as “discussions” and the first thing we must be aware of is when to have these discussions.
Recently, I have been having trouble with the right half-pass and I thought Batialo was being lazy so I increased my outside aid and even gave him a touch with the whip to get him to move across. When I watched a video of myself I realised I was being totally unfair on my horse, because I was actually tightening my right leg and blocking him and it was my own inability to allow the movement and not his lack of enthusiasm at all.
In order to know when to discipline we must understand our horse, know their strengths and their weaknesses, but we must also be very aware of our own weaknesses, in order not to discipline our horse for something that we ourselves brought about. Knowing when to discipline is also about being able to detect when your horse is genuinely afraid or weak in one area, or when he is just testing you to see if you really know him or not. Then, when you can accurately judge when to discipline your horse, you must have the tenacity, patience, technical ability, and balance to successfully transfer an understanding to your horse, without losing his trust in you.
First we must address the psychology of the discipline and we must understand the message we are trying to send. A lot of riders get frustrated and angry with their horse. “He is just being arrogant," they say or "he is not listening to me." The psychology of the horse is vastly different to that of his rider and if a rider tries to transfer human psychology to his horse, things will not go well. Typically a horse only reacts in response to some message he received from his rider, or his stomach, and getting frustrated with him will never solve the problem.
Before beginning any discussion with your horse you must ask yourself a few questions. First, does he have the capacity to actually do what I am asking? Some horses are just not built for dressage, whether it be their conformation, or their strength, and we cannot discipline a horse for not being physically capable of doing what we ask.
The second isare we capable as a rider to ask it correctly? More often than not the rider is just not there yet, and instead of accepting the fact that their position is not balanced or stable enough to correctly ask for the half pass, or pirouette, they increase the aids, and punish the horse when it is they themselves blocking the movement.
Thirdly, we can discuss the temperament of the rider and while some riders may be too tough in their riding personality, others may be too soft and this is where a good trainer is necessary to push, or soften, the rider to the right degree to find balance in the horse rider relationship.
Finally if you can tick off all of the above, you then must have timing and this requires great feeling on the riders part, as a trainer can only see what happened a second too late. A great rider will feel the second the horse needs that reminder and will employ it without altering the balance of the movement. This is extremely difficult and it takes not only great balance, but great technique and a good seat, for how many times do we see riders give a touch with the whip and then pull on the reins slightly at the same time because they cannot control the increase in impulsion with their seat and balance alone.
The sign of a good rider is not only when to start a discussion of discipline, but to what degree and in what instant and, more importantly, at what moment and to what degree to release that reminder. Nuno Oliveira knew that discipline was a part of horse's training, but he advised that you never start a discussion with a horse unless you qualify under three major guidelines.
1) The capacity to deal with the consequences!
A rider who knows they do not have the balance, or the feeling to deal with what the horse may do when confronted, should not be the one doing the confronting. One of the greatest assets a rider can have is the ability to know when they need help and if you are not sure that you can handle your horse if you tackle him on an issue it is better to get help, rather than to risk losing both his trust in you and your trust in him.
2) The tenacity to get to the end
If you are late for work and have to finish your lesson in the next ten minutes, this is not the right time to broach a subject that you know needs to be solved. To discipline a horse you need to have the patience to stay calm and to see the debate through to its end. I believe too, that the only way to tackle an issue with a horse is to never fight with him, but to argue with him gently through the application of different exercises. If you do not have the will to continue these exercises until you get even the slightest result, then he wins and the lesson is that you give up.
3) The necessary seat to stay on an unruly horse.
A rider who is unable to stick, should not attempt too strong a debate, in case they themselves are injured. This does not mean that you are scared. This means that you know in yourself that you lack the capacity to stick on should things get rough, and the golden rule of self-preservation is one that has great merit, because if you can’t ride due to injury ,then what help are you to your horse?
Finally, Nuno advised that “when we start a fight we must be sure we are able to win.”
Again, the word fight is a strong one, but what Nuno is referring to is the application of aids to send a message to the horse that something he is doing is not acceptable.
Until you can affectively learn to create boundaries between you and your horse, you are a tourist, not a partner, and you might as well take a stroll around your pretty arena. Therefore, only argue about the important things, only when you have the ability to follow it through, and only when you know it is for the overall good of the partnership, and never to release some underlying feeling you have trapped inside yourself.
Text by Sarah Warne
Read all of Sarah's Classical Training Articles here.