The Art of Training

The Art of Training

THE HORSE IS ONLY HUMAN

© Bert Hartog

"The horse is only human".  The famous Reiner Klimke said this.  He meant that the horse also has flaws and shortcomings in his character.  But many of them are man made.  It is said that once we understand the horse we can become true horsemen.  Once we tune into the thinking patterns of the horse, we can solve the problems because we know why they occur.

We do not think about our own thinking pattern, our problems and why they occur.  I was always told that we humans have lost our instincts because of mechanization.  This is not true; we do have certain instincts.  Our strongest instinct is fear or self preservation.  There are a number of things that people do instinctively that no other animal does.  Things that we take with us on horseback.  In this article I realised that also "the rider is only human"!

There are many things that we do in daily life that we can not take on horseback.

How many times are we told "Don't look down" ....... "Look up" .... "Head above your body".  Why is it said so often?  We always co-ordinate our actions through our eyes.  It is always eye-hand co-ordination.  We want to look at what we are doing.  'Am I on the correct leg?  Is the horse on the bit?  Has the horse enough flexion - can I see his eye?  Are my hands still and in the correct position?'  These are just a few of the things we ask ourselves.

We are said to be 'handy'.  That means that we do things with our hands.  We caress, create, punish or breakdown.  It is no wonder that when the horse is doing something wrong we always want to correct it through the reins.  People lift the head, lower it, make him go on the bit, slow him down and steer him, all with the reins.  In the worst case, the horse gets bumped in the mouth because he is naughty.

One of the most common mistakes is when the horse is running, the rider pulls on the reins to slow him down.  The result is that the horse pulls harder, the rider pulls back harder etc. 

In the end, the horse is still running but now both rider and horse keep each other in balance through the reins.  The horse is so much on the forehand that he uses the reins as a fifth leg.  If the rider would let go of the reins the horse would fall over or  at least run like blazes.  (Even more reason for the rider to pull on the reins).

The same could be said for the rider; he has found his balance by hanging on the reins.  He has such a dependent seat (depending on the reins) that when he lets go of the reins he can hardly keep his balance.

We can try to see how balanced the horse is and reach forward with our hands.  The Germans call this "uberstreichen" and the French, "descente des mains".  See what the horse does when we reach forward so the reins are hanging slack.  Does he fall apart and start to run or does he keep going in the same way?  A balanced horse keeps going in the same frame.  For a few steps anyway.

Other people know that the most sensitive part of the horse is the mouth.  They hold only the reins with their fingertips; after all, that is our most sensitive part.  Yet we must learn to feel with the whole of our arms and shoulders.  The rein is held firmly at the base of our ring finger.  Really, this goes against the grain!

Another example is that we want our horse to be our friend.  We love him!  It is unfair for the horse to work so hard while we sit on him like some snob with his nose in the air.  It is not like us to be so arrogant.  So we work harder and don't sit up so straight.  Both are against the horse.  We move more than required, create disharmony and make him work even harder!  With our seat we are not together with his centre of gravity, which makes it harder for him to carry us.

Other things normally done by us on the ground are performed exactly the opposite on horseback.

 Let's look at the rising trot.  Most beginner riders would want to stand on their toes when they go up, after all that is what we do on the ground.  It we want to look over someone's shoulder we stand on our toes to gain height.  If we do this in the saddle, we would get too far out of the saddle.  Therefore we must try to do just the opposite and lower our heels when our seat goes up.  The stretching of our lower leg also puts tension on the hamstring which keeps the legs steady.

When we start to run on the ground we first lean forward to get our centre of gravity forward.  Then we move our legs faster to stop us from falling over.  This is how we create speed.  The horse does not lean forward very much, even when he explodes forward, because he has four legs.  For the rider to stay in line with the centre of gravity of the horse he must not lean forward when doing upward transitions.  Allow the horse to take you with him.

There are many other examples...  When we turn on the ground we turn our outside forward to make our body make the turn.  On horseback we must keep our inside forward.  The inside hip of the horse is forward, ours therefore is too.  A stiff horse will push our outside hip and shoulder forward when he goes around a circle.  As we do this ourselves normally on the ground, it is no wonder that we don't even notice it.

Many riders don't want to try new things.  They will say "I am not sure what you are talking about"  or "I am afraid that I am doing it wrong", therefore they don't try.  Other say: "I can't".  All these statements are a result of the fear of failure.  I once read "You fail once you stop trying".

The human mind is inquisitive.  That is how we discovered that the world is round and how it is possible to send rockets anywhere in the solar system.  When the rider knows enough about the logic of riding - try things!  Learn to feel when it is wrong and when it is right.  We must know both ways in our training.  Above all the rider must realise that "a mistake is your best teacher".  Try things and assess the outcome - that is what makes the thinking rider.

Our biggest instinct to overcome is fear.  Fear of being hurt.  Fear that things will go wrong (failure).

The horse is a large animal that kicks, bites and takes off for next to no reason and will dump us in the barbwire fence or into a big tree.

How often do we take a fright after the horse has taken fright?  We suddenly jam our legs into the horse and grip the reins.  The horse has already assessed that there was nothing to worry about - and here we are telling him otherwise.  How does he know that we took fright from him and not from whatever frightened him.

 So now he takes fright from our reaction.  We pull our knees up and round off our body; we instinctively make ourselves small to protect our soft belly.  We are on the horse not around it any more and in no way in charge.  We smell of fear, the horse smells that too and really takes off,  We scream at the top of our voice, even more reason for the horse to take off in full flight.

This is real fear.  All these things happened in a split second and happened totally instinctively.  We must learn to overcome this instinctive reaction.  We must have mind over matter.  This is easier said than done!

When we look at the scientific field  we can see enormous progress in the last 50 years.  When we look at the progress with horse riding we see that it has been static more or less in the last 2000 years.

Many people have problems getting the best from their horse.  We must overcome ourselves before we can influence the horse.

We must learn to relax and our body will transmit this to the horse.  When the horse shies at something, we must make our body 'prove' to the horse that there is nothing the matter.   When the horse takes a few fast steps, our pelvis must keep walking slowly as if he had not done anything.  Our heart might go "Boom, Boom" but our legs and seat say nothing.  Our voice might like to say "Oh my God" but it says instead "Steady up, boy".

The horse must learn to believe in us, but in return we must learn to believe in the horse.  We normally solve a problem by doing something about it, now we have to do 'nothing'.

We must learn to trust the horse even though our mind tells us he is an unpredictable animal.  The horse, after all, gets frightened because of self-preservation  - not intending to hurt us (unless we threaten his need for self-preservation).  He will trust us when we say there is nothing the matter.  We must believe his 'word of honour' that he will trust us.

The fear of failure (unreal fear) manifests itself when we try to do a new or difficult exercise.  We jam up and force the horse to do it right.  We must accept that he does not want to do it wrong.  He does not always do it properly because he does not fully understand what we want from him.  We often ask a horse to do a difficult exercise with all the escape routes closed off.  We hang onto the reins, force our seat in the saddle and are ready to pounce on him the moment he does it wrong. 

How do you go into even the simplest dressage test?  (With or without fear?)

Believe your horse's word of honour.  Don't ride him in the belief that he wants to do it wrong and that is why he must be told so forcefully.  Believe that he is prepared to do what you ask.  Ride your horse in such a way that you tell him that you believe he wants to do it right.

When he does something wrong, we ought to look at ourselves.  What did we do wrong?  The horse will only execute things we ask.  The horse is only an expression of the rider.  After all, 'THE HORSE IS ONLY HUMAN' .......  or is he?

I hope that most riders will relax after reading this chapter.  It is clear that most things we do on horseback go against our instincts and habits. We must allow ourselves some time before we are able to do these" unnatural" things " naturally".   

 

Enjoy your ride.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.1 Australia License.

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