Dear Pony Gang Family and Friends,
Let us talk about good riding and what it is about.
It's like this with good riding.
It is supposed to help the horse. It is supposed to condition the horse, to keep it healthy. Yes, that may be true, but go ahead and ask all the people in the riding stables why they ride. You'll get completely different answers. "Because it's fun," "Because I want to be around animals," "Because I love horses," while others emphasize the harmony between horse and rider, a harmony that is now often interpreted in many ways and has divided an entire riding population.
What is riding really about? Why do people ride? Couldn't one get by without riding? Even within different riding styles, yes, even within the different riding styles of instructors of a particular riding style, there are different goals, as different as English and Chinese.
Let's take a common term from most riding instructions: "pressure." Pressure – pressure creates counterpressure, doesn't it? The whole thing has a rather negative connotation, a bit like Nestlé, Unilever, and nuclear waste transports, right? "No pressure, my horse is my friend, my partner, I don't want to dominate him or her." Okay, that's understandable, a hobby is most fun when both trust each other, can rely on each other, and have no fear of each other, we riders all understand that, no question.
And yet the question arises... Why this pressure then? To be able to control a horse, we need pressure. It is the essence of our riding aids to drive the horse to the hand. That means, we drive the horse with seat and leg aids toward the steady, still hand. That's it. The horse seeks contact. The rider grants the contact.
And now, just for fun, go into the riding arenas of the country and see how many horses seek contact on their own? Found hardly any? What??
The horses leaning on the hand?
That's bad because a horse that constantly leans on the hand cannot be driven because it does not push off the hand/the rider's seat. The rider therefore has only limited control.
The horse is very light in the hand and is playing with the bit?
That's bad because the horse is not stepping up to the bit. It cannot be driven, so the rider has only limited control.
In both cases, the problem is the issue with pressure. The rider is not able to coordinate and vary the pressure on the horse's bit, which, however, is a key "skill", if not the most important and the only way to ride a horse very well.
Very fine.
Very effortless.
With small aids.
That was the goal, wasn't it?
To ride harmoniously.
Okay, let's do that; it's quite simple.
The horse is stiff?
There's a simple solution, not pulling, but driving. Drive the horse through the hand. Increase the pressure on the hand through driving aids, a bit stoically in tendency, not emotionally, not angrily, and certainly not with the hand. React immediately when the horse gives in, even minimally, and offer less pressure. Yield – preferably with the hand. With some horses, even the second before – but that is for the more advanced riders among us.
The horse is crooked?
No problem, just drive. Absolutely no flexing, this "flexing" is "the devil's work," as a well-known riding instructor never tires of explaining, and yes, what you see when you watch this kind of flexing is indeed pure despair and does not straighten any horse. On the contrary. So instead, drive again! Ride the horse to both reins – that means sometimes switching from the circle line to the straight line and simply riding to both reins. Or what do you do with a bicycle in deep sand? Keep the handlebars straight and pedal hard, right?
Horses are in a way just bicycles too.
Of course, they are not, but if you treated them that way, they would often be better off than when they repeatedly run in circles and are "corrected" with their nostrils at the rider's boot tip in some arena in the middle of nowhere. Good riding instruction books are available everywhere - it is always worse to educate yourself. Any open questions should certainly be answered by your riding instructor. If they can't answer it – Bon Voyage.
Horses are wonderful animals.
Happy Riding
Your Pony Gang Team
Angi, Ashley & Stefanie
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