Riding in Denial

I see many riders who don’t see, don’t acknowledge, don’t realise or don’t believe that their schooling problems are their own fault.  From the nagger whose busy legs desensitise and switch off their so-called “lazy” horse, to the grabby, nervous show jumper whose horse rushes around the course from “keenness” (actually fear) -  I wonder how deluded these riders really are?  Is it easier to blame their horse than to look inwards?

HOWEVER, we also need to be able to look the other way.  I teach many adult riders, particularly if they have come late to riding, who blame themselves entirely.  Who are convinced (usually by their coaches!) that if they sat ‘correctly’ and used their aids ‘correctly’ that their horse would perform ‘correctly.’  I think this is nearly as damaging and nearly as great a folly as the other extreme.  Expecting perfection is unrealistic and expecting our horses to respond to perfection when we have trained them to ignore us is folly! 

Last week I was teaching a very nice woman who has finally, at the age of 36, bought herself a schoolmaster.  Her story is surprisingly typical.  She’s had greenies and breakers and OTTBs and done reasonably well with them but in order to “learn more” she’s bought a horse with a good standard of education, working medium/advanced dressage and with good scores on the board at elementary.  The problem?  After two weeks of trying, she could barely ride him.  At the start of the lesson on the green grass of a local showground, he was excited to be in a new environment and she couldn't make him walk.  His trot work was passable, but once he started cantering she couldn't make him stop.  Round and round and round they went while I pondered how to break it to her: applying correct aids to a correctly-trained horse doesn’t mean the horse will respond correctly every time.  Put simply, the horse was absolutely taking the mickey. 

Of course he – a beautifully trained dressage horse – “understood” her aid to perform the downwards transition from canter to trot.  He just didn't feel like complying with it.  And she’d spent two weeks teaching him that he could ignore her aids if he wanted to.  Her own insecurity about how to ride a trained horse (trained by someone that wasn't her) had caused the whole relationship to start off on the wrong foot.  Happily, after a stern talking-to (to the rider) and some short sharp downwards transitions (to the horse), they are back on track.  But it is worth considering in your riding relationships: who is ignoring whom?