I have been still been struggling to overcome my mental difficulties and fears on the horse, but at least I can say I am aware of them. I am aware of how these thoughts transfer into my actiions. Quite often in our sport we can get tied down in the movements, the execution, the moving from step A to B, that we forget the very real fact that horse and rider are a pair who must learn from and train with each other.
A true dressage rider is both partner and teacher, and must always remember that the horse does not know what we want until we can very clearly explain it to him. We often punish the horse without first asking if our aid today is the same as our aid yesterday. It would be like calling a child one name one day and a different one the next and expecting them to come both times.
A horse only knows what we teach him, and more often than not he is actually trying to understand us. If we know that our aid is the same, and the horse is understanding, a true teacher must then give the horse time to accept the new movement.
Reiner Klimke used to say that “whenever a horse has learned a new movement or a new aid in its basic form, the rider should give him a break and deliberately ride something else for a few days or weeks. When he returns to the movement, he will notice how much more easily the training will proceed."
We know this, but quite often we get so excited that we perform the movement again the next day, and the next, and the horse ends up bored with the repetition, and frustrated that you didn’t give him the down time he needed to take it all in.
If you get your first really good half pass, first remember what it was that you did in the preparation and execution of the movement that allowed it to be so good, and then leave it for a little while. The horse will not forget, as long as you remember the elements of the recipe that enabled you to produce said half pass.
A true teacher will also always look to themselves first. Instead of saying, my horse didn’t understand me because he isn’t listening, he will say my horse didn’t understand me, so what can I do to correct that? What did I muck up, what was different to yesterday when the horse did understand me?
A true teacher is not a rider who goes through the motions and produces a test, a true teacher is one that attempts to understand the horse, to connect with him, and to correct his own imbalances and mistakes, before he even begins to suggest that the horse might be at fault.
A horse is never at fault, he is an animal, and we are asking him to learn and perform movements that are not natural to him. We must remember this every time we ride, and adjust ourselves and our mindset accordingly.
by Sarah Warne - Photo © Rui Pedro Godinho