I thought it might be good for me to post the riding guidelines I give to the people who exercise my horses for me. Riding like this has kept my horses happy and healthy. Riding guidelines: Warm up and cool down – very important. Cold weather is coming and it will be even more important. Please walk for ten minutes at the beginning and fifteen minutes at the end of your ride. Your whole ride time should be about 45 minutes, but don’t trot and lope for the whole middle part. Trot a couple circles, then walk a couple circles, then trot a couple figure eights, then walk a couple figure eights, then lope a circle, then trot a circle, then lope three circles, then walk a circle, then switch directions. Transitions are much better at helping horses get fit than loping for longer periods of time. You can also work on leg yields, turns on the forehand, and backing up, but no hard stops – only stop from a walk, so transition down from lope to trot to walk then to stopping. It is needlessly hard on non show horses to practice any harder maneuvers. Also do not sit around not moving while you’re on your phones or whatever. Suspending our weight when they are not moving is one of the hardest things for their backs. When using your reins remember our goal is to lighten their forehand, so your reins should come UP, not down. The basic reins are as follows, and the first three reins have NO backwards action, so as to not hinder forward movement, and can be thought of as lasting in duration like a spoken word, not a steady constant pull: - The bending rein. Asks for bend. Use against the neck, straight up - The opening rein. Asks for the front end to step in that direction or to disallow the horse to turn into the direction of bend. Use straight away from the saddle horn - The neck rein. Asks the front end to step away. Use against the neck, not too tight. Should not be used in a way that causes the horse to counter bend. - Reins of opposition. Any of the above reins used with a slight backwards action, or a holding. Used to stop the front end from moving forward, to either turn on the forehand or haunches, or sidepass. Please do not ask them for any specific vertical head position. NO see sawing on the reins. If you want to work on them “giving to pressure” do it in the context of a leg yield, where they can bring their nose in a little bit and bend thru their bodies, while moving. All new research shows that asking horses to lower their heads is actually hard on their backs and does NOT relax their backs at all. This is something I already knew so of course I’m pleased that the new research is backing me up. :-) Other stuff I’ve taught for the last 7 years and that the new research is backing up is that our seat should be calm and relaxed. We should not be weighting a seat bone or trying to give seat cues for turns or speeding up. For stopping I like to sink down and let the seat get heavier and lift the toes, but this should not include grinding anything into the horse’s back. A too active seat causes a horse to stiffen his back and neck to guard his vertebrae from moving beyond their very specific range of motion, and causes lameness and pain. The horse should feel our intention, our voices, our head movements, our arms/reins, and our lower legs, and that’s it. From one knee around to your other knee, the horse should find that an inviting and consistent presence only, not something that wiggles or twists or grinds or tips. At the walk and sometimes even the trot, all my horses should be able to stop without having their reins pulled on. This is how I teach my students so it’s important you back it up with your rides. Change your body language, visualize the horse stopping, sink in your seat, take a deep breath and let it out like you’re totally bored, raise your toes, say “HO.” If they don’t stop from that, gently and then firmly lift the reins toward your head. If they are really ignoring you, change to a one rein stop at this point. Keep in mind that walking is GREAT exercise for them. I would much rather see you spending time walking around outside than loping a lot of circles in the arena. Don’t forget figure eights, at the walk and trot mainly. Use your reins and intention appropriately to signal for the change of bend. And as much riding outside as possible on the gravel, and try to ride on the asphalt as well, and work on desensitizing to barking dogs. As for your legs, people who ride a lot of horses tend to get defensive with their legs, and stick their lower legs out and maintain some tension. This is not great for you or for the horse. Try to relax your legs. They should hang alongside your horse, not stick out stiffly. For your own benefit, try to do a lot of the riding without using the stirrups. I’ll include a couple tacking and grooming points too that are very important to me. Take your time. Pet them, tell them hello. For picking up legs, remember, when I rub their legs, I do NOT want them picking their legs up. I want them keeping their legs down, just like when I rub or brush their bodies. I don’t want them moving away from that sort of cue because I want to be able to massage them, palpate their tendons, apply boots or polo wraps, meds, whatever, without them picking up a foot or moving away. When I do want them to pick up a foot, I change my body language, and start with the sequence of stare at the foot visualizing what I want, give a little kiss, reach in and act like I’m going to touch the chestnut, really do touch the chestnut, tickle it, squeeze it, squeeze it harder and harder, jam the point of the hoof pick into them… until the horse picks his foot up and puts it where I can easily grab it. Please no shoving them over or pushing on their hips. If they are standing with the weight on wrong foot, just start your sequence of asking them to pick up the foot you want, and they can figure out what to do to obey you. That is their job. Plus, I don’t want them learning to move away from a hard push to their hind ends or shoulders, because I don’t want them moving away when they are getting body work. For my horses, rubbing or firm pressure ALWAYS means stand still and don’t move. If I want movement, I’ll change my body language, stare at the part that needs to move, kiss, poke the air, poke the body part, until it moves via the horse’s own power, not from me shoving him. When saddling, please don’t forget to peak the saddle pad into the gullet of the saddle so that it doesn’t squash their withers/shoulders when the saddle is tightened. When cinching up, do it in at least three stages. Barely snug at first, then bridle them, then snug it up a bit more, then walk them, then finish snugging it up before mounting. The lesson horses have a hard enough time enjoying their work when you consider the unbalanced, untrained riders who they cart around day in and day out. We need to make the parts of their experience that we can control as pleasant as possible.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 09:58:15 +0000
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