In between pedigree assignments and taking care of my cat, I went looking for pictures of Pacers, and diagrams of horse gaits, but what I found was something even more interesting.
I haven't ridden since 2006, but I rode a lot between 1992 and 1998, then took a quick break from 1998-2005. I was a good rider when I was younger, but I've learned more about riding since I stopped riding in 1998 than I ever did while I was riding.
What I had as a young rider was a quiet, polite, stubbornness that even the most difficult of horses responded well to. I rode horses that were known buckers and bolters, I rode horses in riding lessons that needed to be taught how to jump, and I got results. Sometimes it took me a while to explain to the horse what I wanted him to do, but I always got there eventually.
What I lacked as a young rider was physical strength, and the mental maturity I needed to understand the really tricky things. I understood a lot about what the horse needed, I learned that from Holger Heck and Volker Greiner's Start to Ride. That book was bought as a birthday gift two months before I started taking my first riding lessons. I read it many times before I started, and kept returning to it even while I was receiving instruction.
What I didn't understand was what the rider needed. I confess, I skipped whatever chapters there may have been in that wonderful Start to Ride book that told the rider what they needed.
Now that I'm older, and revisiting all of my horse knowledge, I'm suddenly understanding things that were beyond my ability to understand as a child. I'm beginning to understand where I was lacking bodily, and how to strengthen those weaknesses, and to work around those that I can't strengthen, in a way that will interfere minimally with the horse. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that if I were to ride a horse tomorrow, I would ride even better than I did when I was younger.
Today, I found something that comes to me quite easily, explained in a way that has to be shared. These articles, by Leslie Desmond focus on "Feel". Feel is something that, for me, comes easily. I empathize well with animals, I always have. To me, feel is empathy, patience, consistency, and a positive attitude.
It might seem like all of this is of no use to the model horse enthusiast... but I think it might be. Performance showing is supposed to show winning moments. If your horse model is tense and showing stiffness and resistance, he's showing a reluctance to work with his human (rider, driver, handler), for some reason. This could be the difference between a win and a loss in the performance classes, I think.
To use an example, the Classic Mesteno model is standing very tensely. I don't think he's suited to many performance classes. He's tense and alert through his whole body, and wouldn't be paying attention to what a rider or handler is asking, but to something that appears to unnerve him.
The G3 Cantering Warmblood, by contrast, is still alert, but moving loosely, in a relaxed, but disciplined fashion. There's no tension in her, and she's moving along with what looks like it would be a lovely rocking horse canter (albeit a hard one to sit if you have a weak core!)
I think I'm going to try and approach my customizing with a nod toward remembering this idea of "feel".
This is a really good post. I think a lot of performance showers only ask the question "Is this horse doing what he's supposed to be doing?" That's important, of course, but it's only half the equation. It's also important to ask "How well is he doing it?"
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the comment. I have to admit, I really wouldn't like to judge performance classes, precisely because there's so much to take into account when looking at the entry. I think I might have seen this idea of "how well is the horse performing the movement" somewhere else. I want to say it was a preview page of Dressage for the Model Horse Arena, but I'm not sure.
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