How many times do we hear the words “my horse doesn’t like, my horse can’t do, my horse finds it difficult, my horse will never be able to!"?. I understand that sometimes there are physical limitations that a horse may have, but more often than not it is actually very simply our own imbalances or limitations, or lack of knowledge or feel as a rider, that actually prevent the horse from understanding what we want.
In a recent lesson I said “my horse finds the canter pirouettes difficult." There was then a pause where I gave myself a one-on-one mental pep talk and then very quickly corrected my sentence. I realized my horse doesn’t understand my aids in the pirouette because I am still not able to get them clear and effective. Truth is Batialo can do canter pirouettes on his ear, but my body still blocks in certain places, doesn’t soften at the exact right moment, and so Batialo gets confused and is unable to perform the task that is in my head, but that my body is muddling up.
So many times we hear riders blaming their horse: "my horse is just not trotting well today, my horse hates that chair, my horse loses the rhythm in the canter." I’m not suggesting that the horse never has low days or difficulties, as of course he too is an athlete. I’m merely suggesting that if you can begin to leave room for the possibility that you are just not giving clear enough aids, you may find that the horse has absolutely no problem keeping the rhythm in the canter as long as you aren’t blocking, pulling, or screwing yourself up into a ball.
"My horse isn’t trotting well today" becomes "what is different in me today"," what am I doing that could be affecting my horses trot today?" Every rider should ask himself/herself: Am I relaxed? Did I come to the stable in a grumpy mood or am I calm and ready to give clear aids? The minute we begin to accept and explore the different possibilities and open up our minds to new ideas, new questions, this is the minute we can begin to discover the root of the problem and be that one step closer to finding the solution.
Recently I have been working a lot on the stop/go buttons. These aids lie at the root of everything else and until your horse clearly understands these simply aids, he will not be able to understand the more complex details of dressage training. "My horse runs away with me." We have all heard this. Yet, riders think that if they pull more, the horse will somehow learn to stop. My horse runs away with me because when I began teaching him the stop button I would hold, and so he learnt to pull against me. The aid to come back must be followed by an immediate release, so the horse learns to come back and then carry himself. The go button is the same.
"My horse just won’t go forward." Is that true or when you taught him the aid to go forward did you just used that aid continuously, kicking and banging about until the horse said "well, she will just keep doing that regardless so I’ve now become numb to that white noise above me"?
My horse doesn’t go forward, because when I did a light aid, I forgot to release the pressure, and then ask again, and then when I get the forward response I was after, I forgot to relax the aid so that the horse learnt to go forward alone. Instead I just made the aid stronger and stronger until I was exhausted and my horse was sleeping.
Every time you go out to ride you must decide what kind of rider you want to be. You can be a rider who makes excuses and blames the horse for the things that are more difficult. Or you can be a rider who thinks, who explores the possibilities, who admits that most likely the horse is confused because of rider error. In that decision alone, you are miles ahead of the rest of them.
by Sarah Warne - Photo © Rui Pedro Godinho