Cob Jockey

I'm currently reading a book called "Riding in the Moment - Discover the Hidden Language of Dressage" by Michael Shaffer.  I bought it because it's one of few equestrian books available on my Kindle that aren't Harlequin novels involving ripped cowboys - not that there's anything wrong with ripped cowboys.  One of the main ideas of the book is that classical Dressage is taught from the top down, so concepts are introduced in terms of how a finished horse reacts to the aids, and that's hard for both a young horse to interpret and a beginning Dressage rider to understand.  He's an advocate of teaching from the bottom up - from the most basic concepts of, for example, stop instead of halt.

Even looking right when I'm trying to take a conformation photo.  Geez!

It's been an interesting read, and one I can relate to with this current left bend predicament.  I love Dressage, almost more than jumping.  Connor is the furthest educated horse I've ever ridden, so since I'm doing all of the riding on him, you can see why we get in these sticky situations.  I've always read that horses go on the bit when ridden "correctly" and "from back to front."  As a neophyte to Dressage, that sounds a lot like "it's magic".  I've gotten close before, but learning how to teach him to go on the bit/through his back overall has been such a long, stumbly process, full of progress and setbacks.  I'm only just now learning what these concepts mean, and why classical Dressage teaches them the way it does.

There's no other way to teach it, because you have to stumble into it by feel, hopefully with some good coaching.  Riding correctly is riding the horse between your inside leg and outside rein, which I keep discovering again and again through different problems, always with the same solution.  Riding back to front is learning to use your legs to engage the hind end and ride that energy into your hands.  Sounds like complete made up sunshine and rainbows to a practical person, new to Dressage, riding a horse that isn't a schoolmaster.  Makes perfect sense on a schoolmaster.  Makes perfect sense once you finally get it, once you hear something like "It takes so much leg to put him together!" And that's Michael Shaffer's argument, and that's why it takes us adult amateurs so long to work up the ranks.  And that's okay.

Today I had a fantastic ride, because I'm continuing to explore the left-bend issue by firmly, but fairly, insisting that he bend around my inside leg, within the outside rein.  I learned that when I remember to use my left leg, I often don't have enough outside rein for him to come into, so he pops his shoulder out as yet another evasion to working correctly.  This is because it's difficult for him, not because he's a bad pony.  It took about a half hour of work at the walk and trot, not moving on from anything until he bent correctly, in order to get him really "on the bit" in a way I normally can't get on my own.

We're getting there.  Slowly and steadily, we're getting there.