Advanced English Riding. Sharon Biggs

remains the same: to communicate your intentions to the horse (for example, slow down, turn here, stop). Your hands are, in effect, a telephone and a way to relay your requests. These requests must be clear and easily understood. If not, your horse will be confused and frustrated and will give you the wrong response or ignore you altogether. Tense, unfeeling, or jostling hands create an uncomfortable pressure that even the kindest horse will come to resent. Riders with light, open hands that barely touch the reins are just as at fault; although not as uncomfortable for the horse, lack of contact is tantamount to lack of conversation.

      For dressage riders, a good hand position is about more than just hands. The position includes the use of the whole arm: elbow, forearm, and shoulder. The arm must be in an L shape, with the elbow bent. If you hand a rider a stack of books and she lifts only her forearm from the elbow and takes the books, she can hold that L-shaped position for a long time. If she extends that arm out from her body, even four inches, she won’t be able to hold those books for very long because her arms will pull her shoulders forward, and she will be unbalanced.

      The proper arm and hand position for dressage: the elbow is bent, and the reins are held between the thumb and index finger and the ring finger and the pinkie.

      To avoid holding with tension, imagine that your hands are an extension of your elbows. Riding from the elbow forward will keep you from gripping the rein. If you have to get demanding in your conversation (let’s say, for instance, your horse is getting strong and trying to pull the reins away), you can tighten your elbows and prevent her from running through your hands. Even with firm elbows, you’ll still be able to keep those quiet, soft hands.

      The dressage rein is held between the thumb and the first and second knuckles of the index finger and passes between the ring finger and the pinkie (held between the first and second knuckles of the ring finger). The thumb creates enough pressure to keep the reins from sliding loose, and each finger stacks evenly on top of the next. In this manner, your sense of touch is much more sensitive than if your reins are held toward the backs of your fingers.

      The use of this hand position is very simple. Squeeze your right ring finger against the rein if you want your horse to flex right, and squeeze your left ring finger if you want your horse to flex left. Squeeze one or both reins for a half halt. If you need a stronger aid, say for a sharper turn, think of turning a doorknob. If you want to go right, gently turn your right fist as though you are turning a doorknob to the right. Note: If your horse isn’t responding, check that your reins are the proper lengths. The reins should be short enough to enable you to feel your horse’s mouth.

      For hunter and jumper riders, the elbows are held in front of the body. This is because the body position for hunter equitation and jumping has to be more forward. In dressage, with the more upright position, you have the weight of your body to help when using the reins, which gives you more leverage. In jumping, you need a shorter length of rein to achieve the same sort of leverage. Hands should be held an inch apart and an inch above the horse’s crest.

      Fingers should be curled inward and closed against the hand in a relaxed manner, and all your fingers should face one another. This position allows the bit to work flush against the horse’s cheek. When your hands are flat and wide, the bit gets pulled away from the horse’s face and does not work as well. Turning your hands down also puts a dead weight on the reins and into the horse’s mouth, encouraging her to lean.

      For huntseat, the rider’s elbows are slightly forward and the fingers are curled inward and closed against the hand.

      For this hand position, think of using your rein as if your arm were a door: your hand is the knob, your forearm is the door, and the space between your hip and your elbow is the hinge. Your arm and hand (with a straight wrist) together swing around your entire body, moving toward the horse’s hip. This gives you a greater range of motion because you can move your hand from the withers all the way around your body. If you just use your wrist, you have only one or two inches of movement. This is fine in dressage, but when you are jumping a course, you need the ability to make short direction changes faster.

      For all disciplines, to keep a soft contact on your horse’s mouth, your hand and arm positions must follow the movement of the horse’s head and neck in each gait. At the walk, your elbows move back as your hips move forward and out as your hips move back. At the trot, the positions remain steady. At the canter and gallop, they move forward and back, along with the motion of your seat.

Riding the Gaits

      You may have noticed while lunging your horse that her movements affect the saddle in different ways: the trot makes the saddle move up and down, the canter moves it in a twisting motion, and the walk moves it forward and back. Very simply put, to ride the gaits properly, you must follow these motions with your seat.

      The Sitting Trot

      In the sitting trot, some horses are very smooth, and their riders don’t have to do much more than sit. Other horses are very bouncy; many riders respond by trying to sit as still as possible, but this never works. The horse is moving so you must move with her. When the horse is in her suspension phase, the sitting trot feels as though you are catapulted up, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the horse; when she comes down from the suspension, you fall back into the saddle. If you are sitting the trot correctly, you learn to absorb that up-and-down movement in your knees, in your hips, and slightly in your ankles. If you brace your leg out in front of you, no shock will be absorbed.

      Sit so that your upper body is disturbed as little as possible. Because your upper body is high above the horse, you influence her balance. If your shoulders are flopping from side to side, you may cause her to stagger sideways, which may force her to throw her head up into the air for balance. This is where your core muscles come in. If you flex your back muscles and stomach muscles, you will hold your seat to the saddle.

      Try this exercise. While riding in an enclosed space, pick up the sitting trot, and hold the pommel with your outside hand and the cantle with your inside hand (this turns your body in the direction the horse is moving). Alternatively, you can lace a leather strap or the bottom half of an old drop noseband through the D rings of your pommel to create a “cheater” strap. If your horse is calm, tie the reins in a knot, hold them against the pommel, and let your horse follow the arena wall around. It is very important that you don’t grip with your butt, thighs, or calves. If you grip, you are going to bounce because you will be holding yourself down with the wrong muscles. You must use your upper body to press your seat into the saddle. This means keeping your stomach and back relatively still, without tilting forward and back on the pelvis as people often do. Don’t wiggle your stomach, and don’t arch your back and stick your bottom out behind you. Ideally, exert a steady, constant pressure on your seat bones. This technique takes a long time to develop. As you get better, loosen your grip on the strap to teach your back to stay with the saddle. If your horse is trained to go in side reins, you can also repeat this exercise on the lunge.

      This is a good position for the sitting trot.

      Here a strap of leather has been laced through the D rings of the saddle’s pommel to create a “cheater” strap.

      Bouncing is a common theme in the early stages of the sitting trot; the important thing to know is that when you bounce up you’ll fall back down into the same place. You can catch yourself with your knees if you happen to fall sideways, but then relax your knees again so your sitting bones can fall on the saddle. If the horse’s back is properly relaxed and her neck is down, you won’t hurt her. A horse will object, however, if the rider pulls on the reins as she bounces.

      Another reason people bounce is that their shoulders are stiff. Learn to relax your shoulders with this exercise. Holding the pommel with your outside hand, swing