We have visitors for New Years. They arrived the 26th and plan to leave on the 2nd. And, it turns out - all want to ride. Or, to be more precise – all want to sit on the horse and feel it. This sudden interest was sparked by three-and-a-half-year-old Rahel, who you know...
from the entry, featuring her very first bike-ride.
For Rahel’s first horse-back ride we chose Pinochio, now fifteen, who was Hanna’s and Lara’s first mount as well, at then age four. Again we fitted him with a big fur blanket, held in place by a volting girth. An experienced guest was the first to mount and soon Pinochio worked freely on a long lunge in the sand of the freshly renovated inner school. The next day we also started Anna.
Anna and Pinochio, horses of promise for our upcoming school, both are square and no taller than 160 cm. Both are well muscled and have a splash of Arabian blood. Both are lively and like to carry the rider.
It took small Rahel a few rounds to fully find her bearings. After all, a 160 cm gelding of German warmblood breeding, coming in fresh from the field after a 12 month break, may not be the smoothest ride, even in the walk. Once she was comfortable I ask her to lift one arm, and then the other. In response she let her mouth walk and payed no further attention to her place high up on the horse’s back. Soon Dad was permitted to leave and she was ‘on her own’ (although – albeit the horse was led and I walked behind her, without her fully realizing this).
Next day we picked up where we had left off the day before. This time she got all involved in padding Pinochio behind her thighs and on the neck. I asked, did she want to trot. A surprised look, expressing: what do you mean? Well, do you want to go faster? A nod. So, Daddy came back and, little lady on top of Pinochio and three adults on the gound, like a little herd, began to trot. Only a few steps, to let the surprise settle. Then some more trot, and… the ice broke and little Rahel bursted into her famous laughter. She rode the horse and, enjoying her royal seat, demanded more… trot, speed, a canter…!…?
So far Rahel. But how about Pinochio and Anna? Pinochio for starts was clearly uneven his sides, his right hind leg stepping short, distributing the weight on his right shoulder. Anna blew off after a few rounds and did a couple of those coughs, which signify the closing of the horse’s croup, especially in older horses after breaks. Under the rider’s weight, however, she did not fully mounted the rider’s seat. After a few rounds of right hand walk, lunge long, the rider’s information: Although she turns to the right, her body bends to the left. I suggested that he turns his ribs into the movement’s right direction, to see if Anna might go ahead, copy this motion and begin to bend to the right. A small right circle was the immediate response. Going along the outside of the small school, interspersed by small circles, soon came the novice rider’s information: Now she is different, her back is up and calm.
Walking along I tell the same old story: If a horse comes in from the field and, under the rider, tends to lower the head and drop the neck, it is not fit for riding. It may take a few days or weeks until the back muscles are sufficiently strengthened. Experience suggests to stay in the walk and or demand but little until the horse voluntarily lifts the lower neck and breaks into a free travelling walk; the kind of walk riders in antiquity may have used to comfortably get from one point to the next. Common sense suggests to the modern rider to use this start-up phase to establish the details that make for equitation's simplicity.
The Simplicity of Riding
More to come soon…
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