After the fall

Well, it had to happen, eventually.

I've been riding Raven for several years. Bareback, usually.

I'm not quite sure what set off the normally unflappable Raven, but today, he shied (napped?) and I came off.

He'd been unusually fresh this afternoon. I think it's because Anakin, one of the mares in the barn, may have been in heat.  She stuck her head over the wall into the arena to say hello to Handsome Raven.

Raven is a gelding, of course, but being one merely means he is unable to actually mate with a mare. (and I knew a gelding who could almost achieve intromission. He pestered the hell out of his female donkey pasture mate when she was in heat.)

A gelding still knows he's a male and what male horses do. They're not misogynists. They can still chat up the ladies (when the lady allows him to.).  

Anakin finally left the side of the arena, where she'd been hanging out in her paddock, and it took more than a few minutes for me to bring Raven's mind back to what we were doing...riding.

I don't know what caused it. I apparently didn't have his full attention, because he suddenly leaped forward and I fell over his right shoulder. It happened like that.



You know the 'things they tell you to do' in a fall, of course. It's usually advice to someone in a saddle. I'm betting had I been in a saddle I would never have fallen off. But Raven is slick as a seal this time of year and I was in jeans and bareback.

So much of the advice was useless to me, talk about slipping your foot out of the stirrup, throwing the reins away, etc.   You're told to curl up into a ball. "Tuck and roll", they say, don't stick out your arms or hands to break your fall, etc.

And it's all bullshit. I mean, it is very relevant and very good advice but a fall takes a split second. One moment you're on his back, and the next moment you're on yours.

 I remember the very first time I fell off a horse. I was going over a very small jump. My school horse, a big rangy Appaloosa named "Sarge", went left and I went right. I remember thinking how odd the world suddenly looked, and then bam, I'm on my back with no wind in my lungs. 

I seriously doubt that anyone can plan on what to do when you're about to hit the ground. Our minds just don't work that fast. Gravity, we know now, works at the speed of light. Our minds don't work that fast. Even our nerves don't. Your mind is still trying to understand that you are about to fall. It can't process that fast and I'm absolutely sure that a yellow sticky note doesn't pop up into your mind saying " You're about to fall so do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in that order....."

Let's not forget that, unlike cats, we can't turn our bodies in midair. Wellllll, perhaps if one has trained as an acrobat, but, ordinarily, we don't have the leverage to conform our bodies into the desired shape whilst flying through the air.
Not relevant to today's fall, but the torques that a stirrup holding your foot is going to cause some hard to overcome elements to a 'successful' fall. 


Not for me the slip the feet out, throw away the reins, tuck and roll.  Not having all that extra stuff to do while in the middle of coming off was of no advantage. Nope, my mind had no idea my body was in the air.

What 'they' also don't take into account is that gravity is unrelenting. It works every time.

But I can say that I did have an advantage. Well, two.
The first was that I was wearing my helmet. In fact, that was the first thought I had when I realized that I had fallen. I am so glad I was wearing my helmet. This despite the fact that I didn't hit my head.
The second thought, then, was...I don't think anything is broken.  The third thought was, wow. I tucked up, without thinking, because I had landed on my left shoulder and hip, my head up and off the ground.

How I did that...well, it's funny how muscle memory...and training...stays in one's brain despite many years of non-use.

When I was in 7th grade (which means I was, um..........12? 13?) I took a class in Judo.
My sensei (teacher) was the  schools  girls gym teacher  who was  probably one of the first women in the US to hold a black belt in karate.
For a week, the first thing we learned was...how to fall. I learned to tuck and roll! I learned to stop a roll with an out flung arm, but learning how to fall was undoubtedly the best thing I've ever learned in my physical life.
She also taught us self defense measures, which, at the time, wasn't considered very lady like, but she was pragmatic. She knew girls were the preferred prey for rapists.

 This, too, came into play once in my life when I was attacked by a guy, who came at me in a fury, fully intending to knock me down and try to kill me. I kicked him in the nuts. Oh, man, that was the most satisfying kick I've ever experienced. He went down like he'd been shot and I got away, unharmed.

I don't remember purposefully filing 'how to fall' in to my brain, but I didn't have to. My reptilian brain...that hunk of brain matter at the back of your head, had filed all that muscle data into long term storage labeled 'Use in Emergency".

It worked. Again.

I lay there for a moment, thinking how grateful I was for wearing my helmet, and then saw Raven standing next to me. He was calm, head down, reins on the ground before his hooves. Good boy. 

After a few moments, I took stock of me. Nothing seemed to be broken. I got up, took the reins and thought, okay, get back on. I'm no longer the type to be afraid of riding after a fall, but...it's good to do so anyway. So I got back on and rode a few circuits in the arena, just to set things right in BOTH our minds, then called it a day.

Raven was a bit embarrassed, I think. I didn't tarry too long after our ride. I unbridled  him and put on his halter, walked him out to his paddock and let him go with my customary gift of a some carrots.
Usually, when I've done that, he either heads right out to the middle of his paddock, or he gets a drink from his trough.
But this time? As I shut the gate and was about to put up the hot wire, he came up to me and put his handsome head over the gate. It was obvious he had something to say.

Sorry.

I patted him. "It's okay. I'll be fine."

Well, as fine as a 64 year old woman who's just fallen off a horse can be and still be in one piece. My neck hurts. My shoulders hurt. My hip hurts.

I was grateful, too, that I wasn't alone at the barn. Our stable girl was cleaning stalls and two other horsemen were there, but no one saw me fall.
How many times have you gone to ride without another soul around? We treasure those moments, when you have the arena to yourself, when you don't have to deal with other humans, but sometimes...sometimes you WANT someone around, in case you really get hurt and need help.

The moment I got home, I took a hot shower, slathered on the Ben-Gay liniment, and took some aspirin. My husband came in just then and asked me the usual, "How was your ride?" and I said "Bad".

"BAD?" in exclamation point eyebrows and verbal  all caps.

"Yeah, I fell off."

"You okay?

"Yeah, but I'll be sore for a few days."

And I will be.

Will I ride tomorrow?

I should. But I'll let my body call THAT shot.


  

How do you speak for the horse??

Amongst the women in our barn-well, let me qualify that. Every horseman in our barn is female. Husbands tread very warily on "our" turf.  They know they are only enablers of our equine addiction. Like mine, the horse husbands of our barn keep the entanglement to a minimum. "I don't know anything about horses and don't want to." says my husband. 

(yet he is an incredible photographer of horses: 

Gretchen is a lovely person. She has The Eye of the Master.  She's the one who caught Raven's last bout of 'colic' (I'm still not convinced it was colic but what the hell, we'll call it that.). (See my post, "Paying it forward")

 https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8891148204403682920#editor/target=post;postID=5220019618502159787;onPublishedMenu=editor;onClosedMenu=editor;postNum=6;src=postname

I (and Sue) are so grateful for her discerning eye. It takes a real horseman to develop that instinct of NDR- some animal Not Doing Right.  (Not to boast, but I have that instinct, too.). As well, it is a pleasure to be in a barn where anyone who sees a horse-even one not her own-that she thinks is in trouble, can speak up and call attention to it. I've done it. I'd rather be wrong (and in our barn, not considered a fool for calling attention to something that ultimately is found to be inconsequential) than to be right but too afraid to say I think this horse is sick. I've been in barns where one doesn't dare to bring the owner's attention to her own horse, because then it will be YOU to blame..or worse, How Dare You Insinuate That I've Done Something Wrong. Or whatever it is that makes some women react as if you're blaming them for a horse's medical issues. (maybe it's because it usually IS their fault, and they don't want to admit it. Or realize it's that obvious.)

Gretchen's mare is a mustang. Sunny is a lovely horse, not mareish at all. She was captured as a three year old (we think) with a foal at foot. It took a great deal of time to tame her. The people who claim they can tame a mustang in an afternoon, like Monty Roberts the "Horse Whisperer", are charlatans. His so called 'Join-up' protocol is nothing but fraud, animal abuse, and out right lying. 

 Mustangs are wild animals and it takes a VERY long time to get them to 'tame'. Sunny, a mare with an awful lot of sense, and without the need to be dominant, would not let someone so  much as enter her pen for the first six months without her trying (and more than once, almost succeeding) to escape by climbing over the 7 foot fence. 

Gretchen tamed her, with love, patience, and a kindness that radiates from her. (She did not break the mare. That was done by an expert). Gretchen is the gentlest of souls.
but she's also, I think, afraid. Of Sunny. Or of falling, or of losing control.

She rides with an iron fist. This is more out of fear, I am convinced, than cruelty. She is afraid and so she hangs onto the reins.

She is like me in that I came to riding very late in life. She, like me, had to work for a living for years, moved every two years (as one does when one is in the military), and lived in military installations that had no room for horses. Unlike me, she had children. Her daughter Sadie rides like a centaur. Unlike her mom, Sadie was given the opportunity to ride from a very early age.
The difference between me and Gretchen, when we got back into riding, is that I gave it all up. All the things I'd learned from the handful of 'lessons' I had had, all the advice one reads in the books-I let it go. Other than keeping my ear, shoulder, hip and heel in a line, I 'forgot' all the rest. I figured, I might be old in body, but I am very green in my riding ability. Why not start like the greenest of riders? Start from scratch?

 When Sue finally allowed me to ride Raven, all of it was (and continues) to be bareback. The first several times I rode, Sue led Raven. I was embarrassed, but I also wanted to really and for sure learn to sit on a horse with balance, not hanging onto something. So I shut my eyes...yes...and kept my hands behind my back.

I tuned my attention to the horse, and how he felt. Once I had her permission to ride him without her presence, it was much easier to direct all my attention the horse underneath me. It was just him and me. We developed a conversation that continues every time I ride him.  As time has passed, I am more able to actually get into his mind, and he mine...and now we talk. I can feel him. He is a stern teacher. He won't do what I ask him, not out of meanness or stubbornness, but out of  duty. He is my teacher. He knows this. I ask him to do something. If I don't ask correctly, he gently refuses my requests, but is patient with my fumbling about on his back. Sometimes I get off wondering if I'll ever learn, or if I even have any business being on a horse. I must ask him, the right way. When I do, oh my god, the reward is instantaneous and fabulous. 

That was several years ago. I still ride him bareback. Now I can sit his trot without fear. I have learned harmony and balance. I seldom use the reins. I can drop them, and direct Raven with my weight, my leg aids, my head turns. Sometimes I touch his withers to tell him to turn. 

Gretchen cannot bring herself to do that. She clings to her reins like they are lifelines. Poor Sunny, she asks, she pleads, please, give me my head. I want my mouth back. Please. Gretchen does not hear. Consequently, they argue. There is no happiness, no willingness in Sunny when Gretchen rides. On the ground, they are lovers. In the saddle, they are arguing. 

Sue has very gently tried to tell Gretchen that she is too tight. The Barnlord, who is a professional trainer, has given up. Gretchen does not want to hear it. Is it pride? It shouldn't be. Look at me, I want to tell her, I'm not afraid to look foolish. No one here has ever laughed at me, or thought me a dumbass for admitting I was green. We all were novice riders at one time. No one will make fun of you for admitting you are afraid of a horse, or don't know what to do, or are worried you'll look foolish. It doesn't matter. Let it go.
Is it fear? I think so, but I wish to heaven she'd face up to it rather than cling tightly to the reins.  

Sue, ever the diplomat, gently broached the subject. She got a terse excuse back. 

I would dearly love to ask Gretchen if I may lead her on Sunny, bareback, eyes closed, hands behind her back. 
But I don't think she will listen. 

Sigh.

The OMG moment

     Most of my life was spent thirsting after horses, not actually riding them. 

   As a city kid with few opportunities to ride, I learned to ride  by the following method:

1. Find a western saddled horse whose owner is sufficiently stupid enough to let a green kid get on it.
2. Climb on.
3. Hang on
4. Get off.  

   Even when I finally was able to own a horse, I didn't ride Jordan all that much. He was beautifully trained and I kept him home, where I had no place to ride for the vast majority of the year, due to rain, rain, and last but not least, rain. That's where I learned that a covered arena is one of the finest things a rider can have. Not having one meant that one had perhaps a few weekends in the summer to ride...but with gardens, jobs, a household to keep and a lazy, high maintenance husband (not my current one) it doesn't leave much time for riding.

  I have spent an enormous amount of time afoot, learning to handle, massage, breed, teach (as opposed to train) horses, but it wasn't until 2011 that I began to seriously want to learn to ride. This was after my divorce, after my remarriage to a normal man, after I'd been laid off for the last time, after I lost hope of ever finding a decent paying job again,  and finally accepting the fact and begin enjoying retirement.

   Thus I began leasing horses, which in four cases was a expensive exercise in masochism. My "owners' (those who owned the horse) were whack jobs, shysters, or outright psychopaths. I had given up on leasing a horse after two years of pain and frustration when out of the blue, Sue offered me the use of Raven. For free. It works out beautifully for both of us: she works full time, I can do things during the time she's working, (i.e. have the farrier out or the vet check), sort of be her Girl Friday. (doesn't that date me. Now it's Personal Assistant. Whatever). I started blogging about it, too. I was truly lucky, but Sue took her time...a VERY long time...before she allowed me to ride Raven without her being present. I promised her I would not ride him without her permission.
One woman at the barn said, 'why don't you ride Raven?" I said, "Sue doesn't want me to ride him without her being here." "I won't tell. She'll never know." "True...but I will." 

I could have snuck in a ride when she was at work, but when I give my word, I KEEP it.

  When I decided I wanted to REALLY learn to ride, I realized that the best way to acquire the necessary balance and self confidence so vital to properly learning to ride could only be done by riding bareback.

   When you're ten years old, rubber boned, and convinced that you will never die, you learn to ride by osmosis.
  When you're in your late fifties, are brittle boned and all too uncomfortably aware that there are things worse than death: paralysis from the neck down, for instance; you learn to ride by conscious effort and a great deal of trepidation. And a helmet.

   Thus I embarked on learning to ride by going back to basics: bareback. 

   I don't ride every day. Perhaps I would have come to this moment sooner had I done so, but there again, I have a Life. It is full to bursting with things that have nothing to do with horses. It means I ride maybe two times a week. 
  Thus the OMG moment I had a month ago took..oh, four years.

   But it was worth the wait. 

   Last month I was riding Raven alone in the arena.  (I was given free rein ((pun fully intended))to ride whenever I chose several years ago.)  I felt comfortable. I asked, inadvertantly, for collection..and GOT it. It was an incredible feeling.

  I've held off writing this till now. First, Life got in the way, but also, I wanted to BE SURE.

  Within a week of that collection ride, I was riding..again, alone, bareback..and felt the connectivity I'd only felt a few fleeting times. This time, though, it lasted the entire ride. I was 'plugged in' to Raven. Our spines were connected. I felt comfortable, balanced, at home. I felt SAFE. I was relaxed and assured. I realized I had achieved something, very quietly, very softly...I had learned balance. I was one with Raven. He proved that to me within moments by shying suddenly and I rode it out..as I usually have...without a problem. I waggled my lower legs. I was as secure on his back as if I were locked on. There was two of me..the bottom half was horse and the upper half was human.

  That was thrilling, but I've learned to not expect too much. However, it has remained. I went a week without riding, then me, Sue, Gretchen, her daughter JJ, and another woman who was riding her QH..were all in the arena.  Everyone was swapping horses. Raven is the only warmblood and JJ had stars in  her eyes after riding him. "He's Fun. He's like a rock star" she oozed.

I know the feeling...warmbloods will do that to you. 

I got aboard first and he was HYPED...there was so much energy going on in the arena and he fed off it like a sponge. Really, if there'd been no one else, I wouldn't have risked it. He as that much horse. But perhaps that was perfect, because without warning, we were trotting. I was relaxed and happy. Comfortable, balanced, steering without hanging onto the reins. 
 I was sitting his big booming trot bareback. Sue was on Gretchen's mare and her face said it all: LOOK AT  YOU!!!! oh my gosh! 
Oh my god, I thought, that was so easy. It was my eureka moment, but I'll type OMG because..well, it's 2016. Nobody has any idea what 'eureka' means anymore save us oldsters.
  
   A week later, she insisted I ride in her saddle. We are going to trot, she said, and I was ready to try, after my first two successes. But Raven can be lazy. He's got a long back and consequently is always on the forehand unless he's been suitably warmed up, as he had been by Sue. This time he was more than warm, he was hot as a pistol and ready to rock. I asked for a trot and began posting his trot like I'd been doing it all my life. Up down up down and I was even on the correct diagonal. It was easy. It was HIM doing the bounce, tossing my butt out of the saddle just enough. I have to keep my hands low, now I know, but I wasn't hanging onto his face. I was balanced and comfortable.

  Today summed it up. Sue is on vacation and I have Raven to myself. I was in the arena when Missy came in with her grey Saddlebred/Arab cross, Jester. And the barnlord came in. Was she going to give Missy a lesson? Because if that's the case, I will evacuate. I don't mind leaving if someone is paying for a lesson. But, no. She's just there to watch us ride.

 Now that I know what being balanced and in harmony with him feels like,  I had felt something amiss with Raven's walk, so I asked the barnlord to spot me. Is he off on his right fore? She demanded I trot. So ...I trotted. Sitting his trot bareback, I went down the arena, again...comfortable and balanced. I don't think the barnlord knew that I have only recently been able to sit the trot. She had me go round and then said, no, he's okay. 

  Like it was an everyday thing for me, to sit the trot bareback. Like it was an every day thing.

   IT IS STICKING. I am on my way! I can truly say for the first time that I am learning to ride, and I can credit riding bareback for it all. I have learned balance, harmony, and most of all, self confidence. It can be a long slow trial for older folks...I am 61 now, soon to be 62, but we CAN learn to ride. It just takes time and the right horse. And the willingness to accept that starting at the beginning is usually the best way, especially if you go bareback.

   I CAN RIDE!!!

My best teacher is the one underneath me

    The saying is that one doesn’t really gain mastery of a skill until she’s done it 10,000 times.

    It may be so. What it is saying is that one must practice, practice, and practice. I know this works. There are skills I learned in the military that I practiced so often that they did become automatic. For instance, I can probably still strip down-and re-assemble-an M-16 with my eyes closed, even so many years after retiring from the military.

   I now know, too, that as one ages, that ability to gain and keep a skill, such as riding, seems to take longer.

   Riding, for instance.

   I got back into horses in early 2011. I had never been good at riding before, as I’d not been a regular rider as a kid. Nor had I lived in an area where there were horses, or when I did, I couldn’t afford lessons, or, while in the military, didn’t have the time.

   The children who are blessed with riding lessons in their early days are truly lucky. Most of the horsemen I know are like me: they had lives that didn’t include horses up until their children left home and they had enough time and money to indulge in their passion.

   I owned Jordan for the last five years of his life, and rode bareback, but I was still working and didn’t have an arena in which to ride.

  So. I’ve been riding, mostly bareback, since 2011. I’ve had a few lessons, picked up several good books, but still, I’ve relied mostly on just getting comfortable on a barebacked horse.

  At times I’ve grow discouraged. I will never get this, I would think. I certainly don’t have ten thousand hours atop a horse, even at this point. I’m old enough, though, to know that, starting so very late in life, I will NEVER be the rider I see all around me. If I can be a little bit better than I used to be, that is good enough for me.

I didn’t put a deadline on my desire to be a better rider. I decided, I won’t push it. I will relax and just enjoy the feel of a good horse underneath me.

   It was with a sense of astonishment, and I should say, pride, when I made a breakthrough last month. I have found my core and can engage it. Why that makes a difference, or whether it does, I don’t know. I don’t really think it matters, despite the fact that it seems to be the cause de jour lately.

   I was riding Raven, bareback. We were alone. I have been practicing turning him and moving him without reins. He’s so very patient and willing for me. He’s a good horse.

   I-and I hate to use the word suddenly as often as I’m going to in this post- but I suddenly felt as if I was truly plugged into his spine. I’ve had brief glimpses of this feeling, but this time it wasn’t ephemeral, here and gone like mist in the wind. No, this time, that feeling of my spine being connected to his in one fluid, crystalline piece was here. I was balanced. I was IN the horse, not on him. I was amazed. I lifted both my legs off his sides and wagged them back and forth and felt as solid on his back as if I were truly plugged into him. He spooked at something, went sideways, and I hardly moved. I even laughed.  It was a lovely feeling.

   Three days later I got back on…and felt it again. And the next time. And the next.

I am balanced. I am comfortable on his back. This feeling, it’s here to stay. I have finally learned to sit on a horse.

   That was more than enough for me. I felt proud. My patience and Raven’s teaching had finally been translated into muscle memory. My confidence has climbed several notches.

   I wasn’t done with breakthroughs.

   Two days ago, I led Raven into the arena. I hadn’t planned on riding. It was raining very hard, the wind was blowing into the arena, and all the horses have been confined to quarters, because our monsoon has arrived and the paddocks are fetlock deep in water.

   Raven is a horse who wants and needs work every day, and I knew he was very fresh. I thought it’d be safer to just lunge him.

   Raven, though, had other plans.

   He dislikes ‘dope on a rope’. Sue can free lunge him, but I am not that adept at it, so I tacked him up with a lunge line and asked him to ‘walk on.”

   He turned and faced me.

   No.

    It wasn’t arrogance, or stubbornness, or an obstinate refusal. It was just a polite no.

    “Come on, Raven, walk on.”

     His warm brown eyes bored into mine.

     No. Get on.   

    “Really, Raven? Don’t you want to work?”

     Get on. I have something to teach you.

   Okaaaaaaaaaaay. So I untacked him, left him free in the arena while I ran for my bridle and helmet. When I returned I could see he’d rolled, which I had hoped he’d do. It’s good for their spine, and I suspect he’s not had a good roll in three days.

   I bridled him and mounted. The wind was howling louder than the rain, but I trusted him to be calm as always.

  I settled myself. I always give him a carrot per side, reward for standing until I’m ready to move off. Seat bones? Got ‘em. Core? cough cough there you are. Arms, click click cuffed to my ribs. Shoulders back, head up. Breathing? Nope, I still to this day can’t remember to breathe when I ride. Someday I’ll pass out and fall off.

    We walked off, sans reins. I like to let him drop his head, stretch his topline, and just generally walk the kinks out before I touch a rein.

   I’ve been practicing my hands. I imagine my upper arms to be handcuffed to my ribs. I pretend I am holding a baby chick in each hand. Now I can feel Raven’s mouthing the bit. That’s a new one, too.

   Once we were both settled and ready to ‘’’work”” I picked up the reins. I cheated by looking at where I try to keep my thumbs on my laced reins. (I love laced reins, more for their looks than anything else, but having a definite spot for my thumbs helps me a LOT). C’mere, chicks, hop into my hands, we’re going for a ride.

   After several rounds of the arena, I thought, what happens if I just gently squeeze those chicks. Not even to hurt them, just to see what happens.  

   I have to explain a failing of mine. I don’t take verbal instructions very well. It’s not obstinacy, or arrogance. I just get easily confused, especially if the instructions are multi-faceted, as riding almost always is. It’s hard for me to put two legs, two arms, two hands, all doing different things at the same time. Let’s not forget that I must also think of seat bones and weight shifts and which side is out and which in.

   Thus, when taking instruction or lessons, I’ve listened and reacted backwards. I would tell my teacher, I want to learn to do a half halt. (a subject always one of contention. Every rider I’ve ever met does a half halt differently and can’t tell you how. They just Do it.) So my instructor would say, do this, do that, do the other thing…THERE! Did you feel it?

   Well, no. I’ll say “yes” but I know I didn’t do it. I think, I’ll memorize what she just said, and I’ll repeat it the steps in order, and by reverse engineering, I should get the same result.

   But it doesn’t ever work right. I’ll do it the same way and if I’m alone, Raven continues on serenely as if I never asked a thing. If I’m being taught, I eventually get a GOOD, you did it! But I am lying to her.

   It’s a case of Raven figuring out what I want, due to the instructor’s voice, and he does it. Hey, don’t laugh. This is a horse in front of whom we must spell ‘c-a-n-t-e-r’  because he loves it and will at the mere breath of the word. One of these days he’ll figure it out. He already knows “C”. The rest will come, sooner than later.

  I think Raven just responds because he hears me wishing he would do it. We both know I didn’t make him do it, I didn’t do the steps right or at all. He’s just a kind, loving teacher.  

   Which is another reason I prefer riding bareback, and alone. I can fumble along, take things at my own pace. If I accomplish nothing but enjoy the ride, and he’s happy, I’m good.

    But this time…this time I was listening to him. I squeezed the reins, gently…and felt SOMETHING. Something Different. Something…collected.  

   What do you feel?

   “Oh my god, Raven, what did you just do? Can we do that again?”

   Can YOU?

  

   It wasn’t until late that night, in bed, that I, rehearsing what I’d felt, finally understood a phrase I’ve heard so often but have never experienced. 

 I dropped the reins, we did another round of the arena, then I picked them up and asked the same way.

   I felt Raven “come up underneath me”. His ears were pricked forward, his neck arched so beautifully and for the first time in my life, I knew I was riding a collected horse.

   I finally know the best teacher I will ever have is the one underneath me.

   I might finally be on my way to learning how to ride.

Someone who rides worse than me

   I’ve learned that the reason warmbloods are usually scored higher in dressage tests is NOT because the judges prefer them over ‘home growns’ like Quarter Horses and Arabians. 

    It’s because, as I heard a highly ranked judge tell a complaining woman, ‘Warmbloods are not easy to ride.” My god, is that true. Raven is very difficult to ride. He’s not stubborn, but he makes you earn every correct step. Every single time. Whereas your typical mellow Quarter Horse is like a Labrador retriever, always happy to make you happy. Thus, a higher scoring rider of a warmblood EARNED it.

     I’m not going to pretend I know how to ride dressage. I am learning to ride dressage. It’s frustrating, time consuming and at times, so aggravating I sometimes wonder if I should just give up even trying.

    I don’t blame dressage in and of itself for that. I know without a doubt, it’s ME.

Having grown up poor, I didn’t own my own horse until I was grown, although I’d taken every chance I could to get aboard a horse as a kid. Those horses were always wearing a western saddle. It was de rigueur. Only sissies rode "English". Only the bluebloods rode “English”. Only the English rode "English". Thus I came to riding often late in life, long after my body had settled into its muscular routine.

My training in riding a western saddled horse was simple:

1. Get on.

2. Kick the horse’s sides to get him to go.

3. Hang onto the horn.

4. Yank on the reins to stop.

    I don’t say that all Western riders are as poor a rider as I was. Although I must say that Western Equitation (to differentiate it from plain ol’ cowboy Western) appears to be designed to give novice riders a ribbon no matter how they ride.

   I’ve seen western riders; reiners, range riders, barrel racers, ropers, cutters-ride as if they were glued to the saddle. These riders (whom I have much respect for) let their horse travel at a good canter with its head up.  Indeed, my 1965 copy of “Breaking and Training the Stock Horse”, despite its title, could be retitled “Breaking and Training the Dressage Horse in Western Drag.” Charles O. Williamson, a cowboy from the early 1900’s, wrote “when there is work to do or action wanted, it is necessary that (the horse) be collected.”¹

 

     The Western Equitation folks have gone so far from Williamson’s training advice that it may as well be called “Arena Riding.”

    I got back into horses in my forties. By then I’d realized I had no desire to ride western, especially western equitation. The barn I boarded my horses was strictly a hunter/jumper barn. My horses were anachronisms and I was sneered at, but…board money is money. I tried riding in a jumping saddle. No way. I just couldn’t get it, and I don’t jump, something my horses were in full in agreement with. I tried an English saddle and sadly, didn’t care for that, either. Thus I found myself riding bareback…and loved it.  

  I still ride bareback more often than not. Riding bareback has taught me all the basics of balance, rhythm, soft hands, etc., that are so important to riding in general.

     I didn’t like English because the lack of a horn unnerved me. Deep inside I knew one wasn’t supposed to hang on to the horn, but I had no concept of collection, contact, or most importantly, balance. The horn was a crutch, both psychological as well as physical.  

     Western riders didn’t talk of doing the work of carrying oneself. You got on the horse and rode. The more miles you had in the saddle, the more adept you became at staying aboard-but the horse was doing all the work.

One steered the horse by neck reining.

The latter has changed.  Indeed, these days, there seems to be a mindset, at least in the show ring (which again, seems to have been usurped by the Western Equitation folks) that the reins aren’t used at all.

     It wasn’t until much later in life that I first rode a friend’s 4^th level dressage horse in a dressage saddle. To say that I was completely unprepared for the exquisite sensitivity and instantaneous response a well-trained 4^th level horse provides is putting it mildly. Only because the mare loved me did she even tolerate me aboard her.

    But the saddle-the saddle! gave me the physiological equivalent of an ‘aha’ moment. It felt RIGHT to me. I immediately went out and purchased a used dressage saddle for my horse.

   As for western riders: it appears that the Western Equitation fad is dying out. Thank god. Too many truly Western loving riders were sickened and disgusted by the artificial and (let’s say it out loud) cruel way of forcing a horse to go “western Equitation style”. Horses are meant to move out in a fairly rapid speed with their heads UP, not dragging in the dirt at the pace of a slow turtle.

   But the cadre of people who learned to ride western via western equitation is legion. Like a pig through a python, it’s going to take a generation of riders to get past the WE style.

   This style, I learned, involved not using the reins whatsoever. Indeed, I wonder why they even had a bridle on the horse, as the rider would stick her hands way out in front of her, the reins drooping like wet rope from her extended fists.

Here are a few pictures of a high ranking WE rider. 

She’s not as bad as some I’ve seen, although she looks as if the reins are hot. I’m a bit pissed at the heavy mascara on the horses. When I was into Arabians, I was under the impression that makeup on horses was illegal. Apparently the show folks worked their way around that. Jesus, look at that grey. He looks like a clown.

   I feel sorry, honestly, for those folks. (although in the above pictures, the horses seem to be happy).  The only thing they can do is ride a slow horse in an arena. It’s like they’re a cult, and can find acceptance and validation only within that cult. The rest of the riding world, to include Western riders, thinks of them as vapid and silly. But it brings in money. And that’s what drives the horse business. 
   I've used this picture in the past, and will add it here, to truly give the sense one gets of the horse in Western Equitation:

    THIS is what disturbs the 'old fashioned' Western rider, and me. THIS is what Western Equitation wants a riding horse to look like.

   In the past two or three years, a new concept has arisen in the Western riding world, and in my opinion, it's way overdue and very welcome.

  It’s called “Western Dressage’. I cannot say for sure, but it seems to involve age old concepts of: collection, contact, and balance. (Concepts used daily by dressage and English riders). They’re learning that making a horse use both sides of his body enables the horse to go further, keeps him supple, and keeps him in better shape. Riding using dressage principles teaches the rider to carry herself in order to lessen the burden on the horse. Dressage is a team effort.

   It’s an admirable concept, a daring departure from the western equitation fad,and I think it’s going to do a world of good for western riders.

  But it's probably come too late for some. At our last dressage test, where a ‘western dressage’ test had been added, I saw a rider who I can (in my own mind..I'm not a boaster)(although a case could be made that is exactly what I'm doing here on my blog.) see someone who rides dressage worse than me. At last, I can look better than someone who probably is a better rider than I’ll ever be, but was, unfortunately, trained to ride Western Equitation. Which means, she’s got a handicap that she’ll be laboring under for a very long time. Old habits are hard to break.Just ask me.

    Look at this. 

  

I was embarrassed for her. I have no idea what the judges scored her. The judges in my region have proven to me (at least) that a training show is strictly that, so they aren’t savage with their pens. But the judge HAD to have seen this girl riding like this. She did TWO tests like this. She obviously has miles and miles of Western Equitation under her belt. Her horse was very willing, but didn't seem as if he was out of control or going too fast. I don’t know the rules for Western Dressage. There were four other people in her class and they all rode in Western saddles. Maybe one can ride western dressage in a dressage saddle? It’s weird.The thought hit me, maybe she's a dressage rider who wants the score but not the reputation, so she entered a western dressage class? I have no idea.

    I don’t know who, if anyone, is training her, but if so, that trainer should be hammered. Any trainer, who allows a person to do a dressage test like this, who thinks that one’s arms are supposed to be stuck out like that, should be ashamed of herself.

   But then again, perhaps the trainer (again, if there is one) was trained WE as well.

  Whatever, I am very glad that it isn’t me riding like that in front of god and everybody.

ADDENDUM:
Just when I thought I'd found the worst WE image on google, I found even more egregious ones. This is a screamer.  The rider is showing him both english and western, and oh my gosh. It's bad, folks. Really bad, when she gets ribbons for riding like this:

 If that is 'collection', I'll eat my boots. But I will give her this: her arms and hands are down.

Cite:

¹ “Breaking and Training the Stock Horse” (5^th Ed.), pg. 52.  1965  Williamson, Charles O. , Caxton Printers, Ltd, Caldwell, ID Lib. of Congress number 62-22012

Due to such early printing, no ISBN has been assigned to this edition.