Every moment matters

Every moment matters; with your horse, every moment is training, something.

Every moment matters was loosely the subject of a brisk discussion in the pub last night. I didn’t manage to explain myself very successfully in the pub (red wine effects possibly) so I thought I’d have another go at clarifying my thoughts.

Every moment matters: The quote that started the discussion:

“There is no neutrality in riding: you are either actively improving your horse or actively breaking him down”

Charles de Kunffy, Ethics and Passion of Dressage

It is our responsibility as riders is to make sure the horse is physically able to carry us comfortably at no long term detriment to his body. 

“The first basic commitment for riders, borne of our love and respect for the horse, is to rebalance the horse under the added weight of the rider and his equipment. This is a never ending process that lies at the heart of the young horse’s training….However the perfecting of the composite balance of horse and rider is a never-ending task.”

Charles De Kunffy -The Ethics and Passion Of Dressage 

Horses in the wild have a natural balance that equips them perfectly for a life spent mostly grazing. The majority of their weight is on their forelegs, as they spend 60% of their life with their head down inspecting blades of grass. Their long spine hangs between hips and withers supported only by long back muscles. The hind legs act to push or thrust the horse along but do not naturally fold and create lift. 

Horses are also naturally crooked, just like us, the majority are right handed or right convex banana shapes. Anyone who rides knows that one circle tends to get larger, the other smaller, that turning in one direction can feel like falling and the  other like turning a ship around. In the wild, this doesn’t really matter, although the horse on the outside of the herd is the one that gets eaten so the very unbalanced tend to be the most neurotic. Once ridden regularly however, if the one sidedness is not corrected, in a right convex horse the left forelimb and the right hind are most prone to injury as they do the majority of the weight bearing work. 

Horses are also somatic beings- their body state determines their mood and their overall health. An unbalanced horse is an anxious horse, an anxious horse is prone to ulcers and injury. 

Every moment matters when we choose to sit on a horse. We have to improve on their natural balance, otherwise the additional load of a rider and the increased work required when being ridden will place undue stress on the fragile forelegs. For this  reason we work to transfer the balance gradually back so the hindlegs take more load. To achieve this the back needs to learn to lift the rider and also to connect the flow of energy from hind to fore. This takes training.

The premise of classical training for me is that the training is absolutely correct in achieving improved biomechanical function and that improved function then leads to a happier calmer horse. 

What became apparent in the pub is that people make assumptions based on language.

Classical 

Training 

“Classical” –  it occurred to me in hindsight that to some people Classical means “Haute Ecole” or Airs or Piaffe and Passage. When I say Classical I mean training,  right from the beginning with Classical principles. I do agree that not every horse needs to be trained to Haute Ecole to make a good riding horse but every horse does deserve to be trained correctly from day one and that correct training will lay a foundation that enables the horse to do any job safely and to the best of its’ ability.

“Ride your horse forward and straight” Gustav Stenbrecht

Such a simple instruction- but getting there requires us to restore the horse to his natural balance under the weight of  the rider, and improve his crooked tendencies, so we can then teach him to lift his back to carry the rider on a well supported spine in order that riding does not harm him. For me that is where Classical riding starts. 

And where many horses are failed by their riders who take shortcuts or simply do not understand basic training principles.

“Training”- one person in the discussion doesn’t like the word training, because it sounds too regimented. 

Again, a language dilemma. I don’t mean schooling or drilling, training does not have to take place in an arena. In fact,training is occurring every minute that you spend with your horse. Every moment matters because your horse is watching you, learning what responses you expect, and repeating behaviours that seem to meet with praise. With this truth comes another; if your horse always does something “annoying” like walking away from the mounting block, that is what you have taught him, albeit inadvertently. Better then to be mindful every minute and ensure that you are training desired actions. Which is why every moment matters.

“The horse knows no right from wrong and learns everything indiscriminately. Therefore, in schooling him there is no neutrality”

CDK again-it’s so important he said it twice!

For in hand and ridden work, we have 3 sets of kit in our training toolbox, our seat and aids, the exercises, and the arena patterns. Two of these can be used hacking out, but the geometry of the arena contains magic and to never make the effort to school in the defined marked out arena and use the patterns to work their magic for you is to limit yourself to 2/3 of your training possibilities. 

And there is no excuse for drilling. By combining the patterns and exercises there are literally thousands of things we can do in an arena. I can think of about 50 variations of a 20m circle without pausing for breath, inside bend, outside bend, shoulder in, straight, haunches in, changes of pace, changes of topline, innies and outies etc etc.

I don’t school often enough. We are fortunate to live in the middle of some of the best off road hacking in the U.K. and we don’t have an arena. However I do my best to ride mindfully every minute- if I am always training, at least I am doing it deliberately, although often not perfectly. If I receive an unexpected result, I don’t blame the horse, I analyse my seat and aids and check where the confusion might have arisen.

“..all [training exercises] follow one another in such a way that the preceding exercise always constitutes a secure basis for the next one. Violations of this rule will always exert payment later on; not only by a triple loss of time but very frequently by resistances, which for a long time if not forever interfere with the relationship between horse and rider.”

Steinbrecht again.

Are my horses robots? No way!!! The other Classical principle is that the aids and exercises are used in a way to set the horse up for success, so that he offers the desired response and can be rewarded. The horse is never punished- what you receive is what you asked for. That’s a hard one to get used to.

A completely correct and balanced seat is essential to damp down white noise and allow clear aiding- this is always a work in progress but my photos do show definite improvement over the last few years. 

“The horse knows how to be a horse…we have to learn to be a rider.”

CDK again- my favourite.

A Classically trained horse is enabled and empowered to use his body efficiently, willingly, correctly with two equal hind legs and therfore no blockages to the transfer of power from tail to poll. So we ride at full revs, the whole horse, but with absolute calm.

So there we have it. A quick reflection on my point in the journey. 

Some people may say they just want to have fun, and ride their horse. And that’s fine, as long as we remember that fun is a human word. And ask ourselves regularly and truthfully if we are having fun with the horse or at the expense of the horse. 

“The improvement of understanding is for two ends; first our own increase in knowledge, and secondly to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others”
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