Not much of a winter, so far, in Central Texas.  While northern states are pummelled with snow and wind, we are having spring-like sunny days, with an occasional rain.  I wonder when the other shoe will fall?

The good news, however, is that the break in the weather has allowed us to build obstacles and do work in the arena and the stables to prepare for the upcoming clinic of Working Equitation to be taught by Diona Fisher, from Europe.

Yesterday, as I was prowling pasture on a client’s horse, I realized that daily ranch work is indeed an informal course in working equitation.  I opened and closed at least seven gates horseback.  I crossed three streams, some with steep banks and sucking mud.  I crossed a bridge, wound through brush and wait-a-minute vines, and even had to back out between some deadfall logs before stepping over them.  We had to move a few heifers from one pasture to another, and that required walk-trot, canter-trot, and stop-and-back-up transitions, in addition to several quick reverses.  This is a sport which comes very close to imitating reality, at least for ranchers and cowboys.

“Fix it up, and let ‘em find it.”

were the words of Ray Hunt, the immortal “horse whisperer” of the twentieth century.  But what did he mean?

For a long time, I repeated it like a mantra, without really feeling that I truly understood it.  Then, over time, and many saddles, it began to make sense, in the way that the horse’s logic works.  Horses have excellent memories, but their deductive power is not like ours.  They learn from experiences and they make associations, some of which are useful and some not.  

“I got stung by a bee in that trailer once, so I’m not going in there,”

is an example of an association that is not helpful.  However, the other day, I was trying to get a young horse to go straight, but he kept wanting to push to go left.  I let him go a little, then put my left leg and rein and seat bone on him to push him back on the straight line.  The instant he was lined up, I released.  This went on for several repetitions, but finally he continued on straight ahead, rather than to be bothered by the “every time I try to go left, he’s there irritating me.”  He found it, because I’d let him make a mistake, then I “fixed up” a correction until he did.

“Micromanagement” doesn’t work well with horses — or people.

As I’ve been exploring equitation now for over five decades, I’ve come to conclude that true control of a horse comes not from the hand on the reins, but the seat and legs controlling the hindquarters.  I live with one boot in the stirrup of vaquero or cow-horse tradition, and the other in the stirrup of the classical school.  In both schools, when you get down to brass tacks, there is less interference with the mouth, and more input into how the hind legs reach, carry and push the horse’s body.

The key to achieving this state is the lateral movement known as shoulder-in, or two tracking, in the two schools mentioned.  But don’t be fooled!  this movement is less about shoulders than it is about hind legs!  The essence of the shoulder-in movement is the reaching forward and toward the center of the area under the horse’s body with successive hind legs.  This requires strength, as well as balance, and builds the foundation of collection.  The horse develops the ability to maintain a moving stance of an athlete or a dancer.  

Nuno Oliveira referred to the shoulders in as the ‘aspirin of equitation’ and said, ‘I do nothing before I do shoulders-in!’