Practical Horseman Spring 2020

I was at a local hunter/jumper show several years ago with my green horse, getting him used to the atmosphere. A fellow boarder’s horse was being playful at the ends of the hunter ring, pulling her petite frame out of the saddle. She asked if I could school him in the next class for her. I hadn’t jumped a course in a while, so I was a little nervous. After schooling over a few warm-up fences, we went into the ring. As I picked up the canter to make my opening circle, I reminded myself to focus on creating a forward pace and steady rhythm and NOT on seeing the distances. After each line, I rebalanced the horse’s canter and then rode forward to the next fence. We placed first…

PracticalHorsemanMag.com Countdown to the Kentucky Three-Day Event It’s almost time for the best weekend all year: the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event, April 23–26 in Lexington, Kentucky. In addition to bringing you on-site reporting, photo galleries and social-media updates during the event, we’ll also be sharing insights in the lead-up, including preview articles, photos and profiles. PracticalHorsemanMag.com Visit PracticalHorsemanMag.com for exclusive online content on training, health, lifestyle, news and competition. Lauren Sprieser’s Shoulder-In Guide On page 58, Grand Prix rider and trainer Lauren Sprieser explains how to ride renvers, as well as the purpose and benefits of the exercise. For more lateral exercises from Lauren, check out her online article, “Where Real Dressage Begins: Shoulder-In,”a precursor to learning renvers. Don’t Miss the FEI World Cup™ Action in Las Vegas! Can’t…

The last thing you should worry about riding cross country is whether you’re going to be safe to the fence if you don’t see a perfect distance. Few riders can stay perfect all the way around a course. But more than that, when your horse expects you to tell him when and how to jump every jump, he loses his initiative—and, with it, his brilliant innate ability to use his own ballet-like footwork to get out of trouble. A safe jump has little to do with seeing a perfect distance. It has everything to do with the speed of your reactions and your ability to keep your horse in the right balance with the right engine and an awareness of where he’s going on the approach. If you provide all…

What is balance in movement and how does the rider’s seat communicate with the horse? Just having a nice posture is not everything. You need to quietly follow the horse’s movement without disrupting him. If you push too much with your seat or work too hard with your pelvis or legs, the horse will want to shut down. Instead, you need to work on your internal connection, the invisible aids that are much clearer for the horse to understand. So, how do we learn these deep invisible movements? When we look at how movement is learned by horses and riders, we know that rhythm, the basic building block in the Training Scale, plays a very big role. Without rhythm—the regularity of gaits—we can’t be in balance with our horse, and…

To enhance the horse’s movement in collection, the rider needs to become more precise in the timing of the aids. It can be compared to a basketball player dribbling (bouncing) the ball. First the ball needs some push to start bouncing, but then the player controls the ball with a slight touch of the fingertips with perfect timing and feel. Similarly, the rider can use her weight aids to encourage the horse to “bounce” more off the ground and develop more cadence. The second image that can explain this is that the horse’s movements should be supple and the horse should move with a “swinging” back. When you sit on a swing at a playground for the first time, you need someone to push the swing first so you feel…

Want more from Susanne von Dietze? In her video series “The Rider’s Seat,” Susanne takes us through additional unmounted and mounted exercises that help us understand and improve our balance in the saddle. Watch her mounted demo that offers great insight to how she teaches as well as an unmounted lecture that gives you a look at the theory behind her teachings. Enjoy these free videos at ondemand.dressagetoday.com and watch the entire series, plus more than 1,700 others, by taking advantage of a free trial membership with DT OnDemand at ondemand.dressagetoday.com.…