Horse Crazy (8 page)

Talking while you're riding is often good
because it tends to help your breathing and it's also very calming.
As we all know how insanely telepathic horses are, talking can also
help to calm them.

In fact, singing tends to relax both parties
too. I find "Shenandoah" is a good song choice. So is "Yesterday."
Heavy metal tunes, however, will do little to nothing to induce
your horse to be calm.

Your position on the horse should be:

1. Heels down

2. Toes in

3. Legs back

4. Hips pushed forward

5. Seat bones felt

6. Back relaxed

7. Shoulders straight

8. Neck relaxed

9. Eyes forward

10. Hands still

All right, it's not that simple. And if you
do none of these things and can still stay on consistently (plus
have fun), great! An old newspaper photo of Jackie Onassis riding
to foxes, showed her leg forward and her heels not down. Obviously
Jackie O knew how to ride so perhaps failing to have
picture-perfect seat isn't as bad as armed conflict in the Middle
East. It's at least possible.

To indicate to the horse that you want to
move forward, you should lightly squeeze him with your calves. (In
some cases, this requires an accompanying stick of dynamite.)

Turning him differs depending on whether you
are riding English-style or Western. In the case of Western, you
neck-rein by pulling the reins in one hand, across the horse's neck
in the direction you wish to go.

English-style requires that you pull back on
one rein only--the one closest to the direction you wish to
turn--and touch the horse behind the girth with your opposite
leg.

To stop, you apply pressure to the reins and
sit down solidly in the saddle. Yelling "whoa!" doesn't hurt
either. Some horses won't stop when you ask them to and then it's
necessary to ask them a little more emphatically. This is done by
various methods. Pulling harder on the reins is one way. Steering
them into a side of a barn is another way popular with many
frustrated riders.

Now that you can balance yourself, keep
yourself more or less in position, walk, turn and stop, you should
be aware of the horse's other gaits. Each has its own pleasures,
benefits, nuances.

The trot is a pace of two-time where the legs
of the horse all move in diagonal pairs almost simultaneously. (Got
a clear picture of that?) English-style riding asks that the rider
post, or rise to the trot, which is a way of relieving the horse of
some of your weight at a point when both the horse's inner legs
come together under him. (This rising up also helps relieve the
rider of the typically-jarring effects of this particular
gait.)

It's all managed by heaving yourself out of
the saddle and settling softly back into it in a sort of one-two,
one-two, up and down action.

The heaving action--which comes from your
knees--is done by thrusting your hips forward, much as if you were
shoving a book onto a table with your pelvis (as you no doubt do
from time to time, right?) Keep your elbows in, with your
hands--although steady--moving back and forth with the horse's
head.

The trot is not typically the most
comfortable of gaits.

The Western counterpart to this gait is
called the jog. The horse handles his part the same as his English
cousin, but the Western rider simply sits to the trot and lets his
big, comfy saddle absorb a good deal of the shock of the gait.
There's not a whole lot of information on what this does for the
horse.

A "canter," which is the English-style term,
is an exquisite gait, very smooth and comfortable to ride. It is a
pace of three time in which the near hind foot hits the ground
first, then the near fore and off hind hit together, and finally
the off fore leg--which, in this case, would be the leading leg.
Got it? Now, of course, if the near fore leg leads, then the off
hind leg will hit first, and the off fore and near hind will thump
down in unison. But you probably already deduced that.

To manage it all, the rider sits up very
straight, or fractionally forward, heels down, toes in, hands
quiet, eyes forward and rides with the horse. The rider's seat
should feel glued to the saddle and the hands should move back and
forth with the horse's head.

Called a "lope" in Western lingo, the horse
behaves much the same, but the rider usually tends to lean very far
forward, arms akimbo, while emitting piercing, drawn-out sounds
such as "Yaa-hoo" and "Yee-hah."

One exercise that's particularly good for
developing that all-important seat, although less good for
impressing any members of the opposite sex, is to walk your horse
in a circle while you perch over him, your rear end out of the
saddle, your hips thrust forward--as if frozen in mid-post.

This position is called "two-point". It's
used when you're in a mad gallop and you want your horse to go even
faster, or when jumping an object, or possibly when trying to
unsnag your scarf from a tree. As it requires much inner-thigh
tensing and knee-gripping to avoid toppling back into the
saddle--or over the pommel--it's an excellent way to build up your
riding muscles. Chances are, you'll never work them in any other
activity other than riding, so if you can't ride for long every
day, this is a good exercise to help you get your "riding
legs."

Once you've mastered the rudiments, and maybe
that's only in so far that you're not afraid in spite of your
inexperience, you can begin enjoying the reason people ride in the
first place.

That reason can be as simple as being out on
a crisp Autumn day in the middle of the country, your friends with
you, your dogs frolicking happily below you and the feel of your
horse under you: alert and relaxed.

Some of the best conversations you can have
happen when you're walking quietly on horseback with only the sound
of rustling leaves as background music. If you have a gentle horse,
and often (but not always) this means old and decrepit, you can
enjoy these treasured trail rides right off the bat.

In many cases, however, as a horse tends to
get strong or a little more willful when he's away from the barn
and out of the ring, it takes a more experienced rider to
successfully maneuver him around bushes that may attack him and
creeks that threaten to gobble him up.

After twenty years of driving cars, it can be
hard to adjust to steering something that has a mind of its
own.

After years of inattentive, preoccupied
turning and stopping in your Toyota, you're put in a situation
where the fundamentals are the same, but your Toyota now has an
opinion about which direction you go.

It's easy for the green rider to glide into
feeling that the horse is simply a lumpy, less responsive Toyota.
This feeling, I feel compelled to add, is a dangerous one.

As much pleasure as riding is--even in its
dullest moments--there is the downside and unfortunately, with
riding, that's meant quite literally.

Falling hurts and falling is bad and falling
is definitely to be avoided.

And falling is unavoidable.

Unless you're going to only trot and then
only in the ring, and canter only briefly, and then only once in a
great while, sooner or later, you will probably experience that
truly sinking feeling of sliding off your horse unexpectedly.

If it's a bad fall: over your horse's head at
a canter or as he slams to a halt--and it happens--then you'll
probably have just enough time to pray you don't land funny. If
it's a normal fall, you'll still know you're going off, but you'll
probably only end up with the wind knocked out of you.

In either case, it's terrifying and
unnerving. There can be few things braver than remounting your
horse, with hands trembling so bad you can barely grip the cantle,
after you've just been dumped. Yet, girls not eight years old in
front of hundreds of people at horse shows all over the world do it
regularly.

After their pony has balked sharply enough to
unseat them, or after they've momentarily lost control of the beast
to land themselves in the azalea bushes, these girls have to signal
that they're okay, stand up, straighten their little jackets and
march back over to that damned pony and not only get back on him,
but, in many cases, finish the course--knowing they've blown their
chance at placing.

It's an act of bravery and only someone who
rides knows quite the extent of it.

When you get to the point where you've taken
a few minor spills and can actually accept that it's a part of
riding and don't let it stand in the way of your continuing to ride
and continuing to take enough risks to improve your riding, you're
well on your way to becoming a solid equestrian.

On the other hand.

Taking risks is scary. If you get hurt, or
almost get hurt, or see somebody else get hurt, you can easily
develop a fear that will put you right out of the game

In several of the how-to books you'll read on
riding, you'll find that losing your confidence at some point in
your riding career seems to be a thing that's shared even by the
greats.

Everyone has a reason why they lost heart,,
and in many cases, they also have pat, step-by-step ways that they
regained it.

My own particular loss of nerve happened as a
result of a not very serious accident on a very expensive
animal.

In order to supplement my sagging freelance
writing income, I took a job one Christmas season in a tack shop
called, optimistically enough, "The Good Rider".

I hoped, along with the extra income, for
some riding lessons from the shop's owner, Angel Barnes, who taught
upper level dressage at her barn not far from the store and who
seemed to have some local repute as a former equestrian as
well.

Angel, although a classic horse person in
many respects, ("Darling, there are some absolute absolutes in good
horsemanship, remember that.") was, nonetheless, a warm and
pleasant person and her interest in me increased proportionately
with my interest in dressage. That interest, as it happened, was to
be brief.

Her little shop was a natty cottage chocked
full of tack and books and bits. Neat and tidy, with ruffled
curtains in the pretty frame windows and colorful scatter rugs on
the floors, it was a warm and welcoming place where people loved to
come and visit and sometimes buy.

It was a delightful job. I worked alone most
of the time and Angel encouraged my reading or writing when there
were no customers in the store.

As a result, I was able to quickly devour all
the reading material the little store contained as well as gain the
benefit of horse-knowing customers who had time to lean on the hunt
accessory case and chat.

Mornings were cold in the shop before its
heater kicked in, and I'd pull on leather chaps to keep my legs
warm. With no one in the store that early--the first customer
rarely made an appearance before ten--I'd sip tea in mugs that said
things like: "My Other Car Is A Horse" and "I'd Rather Be Riding",
and wander about the store, which was pungent with the smell of
leather and grain.

The friend whom I had ridden with for the
last six months had moved to New Zealand (as it happened), and had
left me unenthused about going out to the barn and riding
alone.

Some say there is nothing quite like a
solitary canter through the woods or field, but for a green rider,
the company, comments and critique of other riders is not only
comforting, it's necessary. Riding solo in the dead of winter in
the riding ring did not have my excitement level high.

The Appaloosa, Lightning, was occasionally
available to me and once in awhile, so was Traveler--the neglected
quarter horse whose young owner was always on probation--although
he'd been lame on and off all fall.

In my reading at the tack shop, I'd read that
riding bareback can increase your balance and riding acumen at a
rate slightly triple to simply riding with a saddle. (It's doubtful
as to how they came up with this figure, but it sounded good at the
time.) Another book, of course, warned that riding bareback was
inherently dangerous and not, under any circumstances, be
attempted.

I began to spend my mornings out at the farm
when these horses were available to me and to jog limply around the
ring on Lightning or Traveler without benefit of a saddle.

Invariably, I did not look forward to these
mornings with any real pleasure. But Lightning had a very smooth
trot that made the sessions less awful, and Traveler was so sweet
and gentle that even his jackhammer jog was at least bearable. I
simply kept my eyes on the prize: by summer I'd be doing
somersaults off their backs.

Meanwhile, back at the shop, Angel would ask
about my progress and applaud my tenacity. Although she made it
clear she never taught green riders, she said she would make an
exception for me as I was working for her. The cost of the lesson
would, of course, be deducted from my paycheck.

We'd had many long conversations about our
horse experiences and I tried not to misrepresent my abilities. I
was green, but I was keen too. To Angel's credit, she seemed to
derive as much excitement from my burgeoning fascination with basic
dressage as I did.

Together, we poured over the many equestrian
books in the shop and I was relieved to think I may have found a
mentor. It might have been, too, if not for an imposing German
Warmblood by the cuddly name of Amadeus.

One morning, on my way home to spend
Christmas with my family in Florida, I stopped in at Angel's barn
to take the much-touted, talked-about and anticipated lesson.

It was a wet and chilly morning, not a
morning normally given to thoughts of horseback riding unless it's
the only way to fetch the doctor and the contractions are four
minutes apart. But I was keen, and truly keen riders, green or not,
don't let a little wetness stop them from enjoying a good hack.