Looking at horses, which move freely on their own one can’t help but make the following observation.
They rarely, if ever, adopt the horizontal balance or the extended position so popular in the training of horses today. Only in brief moments of hightened concentration and effort do they bend the poll or, to use the physiologically correct description, open the yes joint. Managing difficulties such as deep ground and fast turns they never lower the neck base but, on the contrary, raise it. In addition they close the croup and activate the second gear. They do so to manouver quickly and perform above the ground. They change from an open to a closed croup and back without any interruption in the flow of locomotion. They at all times seem to know exactly how far they must open the yes joint and/or close the no joint. In other words, they know exactly how much tension they must put on the long ligament from the front or from the back to accomplish a particular feat. They never get out of rhythm, never lose their footing or miss a step. Even on most un-level grounds.
This incredible quality of an albeit average horse’s performance at liberty leads me to conclude that, as concerns equitation, there is but one question: why a horse that performs with such perfection without the rider in liberty should have any difficulty in performing likewise with a rider.
