Rider showing a correct balanced seat. This position allows the rider to use their core to position themselves, thus allowing the horse to find its own balance.
Leaning back and bracing against the horse. This forces the rider to use the reins to balance themselves, creating tension and making it impossible for the horse to find its own balance. Instead it is pushed around the arena.
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It would seem this rider is exaggerating the position but sadly, if you watch tests at high levels, you will often see the rider’s position particularly in canter and extended trot - is almost at a 45 degree angle with the horse. Thanks to Debbie Warne (mum) for ‘modelling’ for photosgrahs.
For the horse, well, Nuno Oliveira used to say that “the horse is not a machine, but a living being. Therefore, we must know what dose of relaxation and degree of vigor that we must employ with each horse.” What he meant, of course, is that the dose of strength vs. relaxation required on one horse, will be vastly different to that required on another.
We must learn to set the horse up for the movement and then let it do the work, allowing it to relax into the movement, move alone, and build the strength to carry out said exercise with ease.The horse will then learn to not only relax physically in the exercise but also mentally, because its rider is not banging and crashing about with every stride. Finding relaxation from a position of strength, poise and balance, is about patience, feel and adjustment. All the elements of dressage that we must incorporate into every training, until things become effortless.
“The criteria of a good rider is a rider that we cease to notice, and we only watch the horse,” said Nuno Oliveira. February/March 2021 - Page 57
