Horsemanship

Wouldn't it be great to ride a horse that is more interested in you than eating?

It really isn't complicated. It doesn't require expensive equipment or obscure procedures. It doesn't need years of training, for either of you. You don't need to be strong, or tall, or even ride every hour of every day.

The next step "up" isn't complicated either. That's to get to your horse needing only the slightest indications to offer the gait, speed, movement or direction that you'd like.

Contrary to popular belief you don't need a special horse, or at least not more special than the one you may already have.

Everyone knows that any horse can walk, trot, and canter, but even more contrary to popular belief, pretty much any horse is able to do lateral movements, flying changes, piaffe, passage, canter straight out of a backup or stop immediately from a canter. How far do you want to go?

Even more surprisingly again the ways to get to these things aren't particularly "secret", hundreds of years of knowledge is available to us, and funnily enough those "old dead guys" had some very useful stuff to say. Oddly enough most people know so little of what's been written that they're unaware that there are quick results to be had that can also lead on to a lifetime's experimentation with fun and learning.

Of course the problem with what¡s written, old as well as new, is that any spoken language doesn't quite match the language of touch that we need to communicate well with a horse. The literature can be more confusing than helpful if you haven't felt what they're talking about, which might explain why so few people are teaching the lightness and ease of good horse riding.

How do "natural" & "classical" fit into this? Well read on...

Natural Horsemanship

Horsemanship is about a lot more than just "making a horse do something", in fact it could be said that it is nothing to do with that at all. Properly speaking horsemanship is an art not a competition, the art of (two way!) communicating with the horse.

This is of course where "natural horsemanship" has (re)entered the public eye, as a very necessary reaction to... well shall we just say a tendency towards a less two-way relationship.

Natural horsemanship encourages us to get the horse's mind involved with what we're doing.

Natural horsemanship does not suggest that everything will be luvvy-duvvy and we'll never need to stand up for ourselves.

The horse (desparately) needs a leader. If no-one else steps up to the plate then the horse will take the lead. That's rarely a good enough idea, enough of the time for it to be a sensible option.

Funnily enough, when the horse is frightened she gets frightening, even the smallest horse is pretty strong. So learning to allow them to be safe usually allows us the same thing.

The first element of horsemanship is nothing to do with getting on a horse's back. It's about finding a way to communicate with the horse so that he is clear what's going on and is not frightened. Then when she feels safe she can get interested enough to participate rather than object.

You will notice that I said that natural horsemanship has "re-entered" the public eye. If you read some classical horsemanship literature, particularly the by French authors, you will find many of the same ideas expressed; allowing the horse time to understand, letting the horse be free, being extremely light.

In fact this is not as surprising as it may at first sound. When the American cavalry was looking around for a training model to follow, they settled on the French tradition. There is particular reference to the garrison at Fort Worth (?), and you will also find Bill DorranceHailed by many as the founder of "Natural Horsemanship", Bills book, True Horsemanship Through Feel, is definitely a "must read". In fact it's a "must read, and re-read and re-read" referring to a French book by Francois Baucher, one of the giants of the French tradition that he had read.

So what is classical horsemanship?

It sounds like a silly question really, until you start looking for a defining difference. What is it that makes horsemanship classical rather than any other al?

You might think that it's something to do with stuff they write about in the old books. Sounds good. But how much does it need to be "to do with" that? It's not unusual to see people riding in old style clothing, does that do it? Or what if they're riding with the old tack? Have you seen the tack they used to ride with? You'd probably be worried riding in a curb bit with six inch shanks, and is the equipment really the point? What they wrote suggests, often very baldly, not.

The grand-daddy of them all suggests to me a definition that certainly I am partial to. He (Francois Robichon de la Gueriniere) says that the hand is the primary aid. Perhaps, since he is generally acknowledged as being the father of modern equitation, riding that is concerned with the use of the hand is classical...

Why is riding with the hand a good idea?

The hand, via the rein, is connected to the horse's head. Not only is this where his mind is, but it's usually what's leading any movement that's going on. It's much easier to communicate with what's leading than anywhere else.

More than that, the hand is what most people are best at using for any intricate tasks. As a species it's what we're good at.

What's it all about?

The aim of Classical Horsemanship is to produce a good riding horse. The good riding horse is easily guided, responsive, and willing. All of this points to the horse being light. When a horse is light to the touch, wherever you touch, then riding really becomes a joy. And it's no effort. Why would riding be tiring? The horse is supposed to be the one making the effort. Why would we want to be exhausted after a ride as well?