Introduction
You have probably all heard of books with titles like “7 Habits of Highly Successful People”, or something similar. It recently occurred to me that you could compile a small list of habits that will make you a successful rider. If you prioritize the items on this list, you and your horse will progress, slowly but surely. Whenever you feel lost or frustrated, return to this list, check if you have been implementing it or if you have become sloppy with some of these items. If you put one foot in front of the other, you will succeed step by step, even if progress sometimes seems to be painfully slow for all of us.
8 Habits Of Highly Successful Riders
Here is a list of 8 items that I came up with spontaneously. These were first the action steps and priorities that came into my mind when I thought about making a list of habits. This is not set in stone of course. You are welcome to make your own list of priorities that you consider to be most important for success. Even the process of thinking about which values, goals, and technical aspects of riding are most important to you personally will improve your understanding of the subject, and it will move you a little closer to your goals.
So here is my personal spontaneous list of 8 habits I am cultivating in my daily training:
Calm your mind
Focus
Tune in to your horse
Choose a line of travel
Put the horse's feet on it
Find the right tempo
Find the right stride length
Find the right energy level
Calm your mind
You may have noticed that you probably don’t ride well if you’re angry, nervous, anxious, upset, or somehow not emotionally centered. So, before you go to your horse, you could check in with yourself whether you feel emotionally and psychologically calm and grounded. If you notice that you are not in a good frame of mind, you can try to ground yourself and to calm yourself before you work with your horse. If that is not possible, it is better not to ride that day because it generally doesn’t go well if we try to work and achieve something in the training, if we are not calm and grounded ourselves. Our emotional state often transfers itself to the horse, for better or for worse. Many horses need us to ground them and to support them emotionally. If we can’t be there for them in that capacity, the training will not go well, and it’s much better to recognize when we are not up for the task and skip the training that day, rather than trying to power through it and “make progress happen” anyway.
Focus
Only a calm mind can be focused. When we enter the horse’s paddock or stall, we need to focus on the horse and on the task at hand. We need to give the horse and our communication with him our full, undivided attention, which is sometimes difficult when our lives are very busy and there are many different things on our mind all the time. Still, we should make it a habit to be present and focus on the horse and what we are doing right here, right now. This not only gives the horse a feeling of security, but it also prevents accidents. The risk of injuries and accidents increases dramatically when the human is not paying attention to the horse, to the situation, and to what they are doing.
Tune in to the horse
Every horse has his or her own character, personality, energy, and history. Before we enter the horse’s space, we need to tune in to his energy, how he is feeling that day, what he may need from us, etc. so that we can adjust our own energy, our posture, and our actions to the individual horse. This is especially important when we work with several different horses a day who have very different personalities and needs. If we approach with the wrong energy, or with unfocused, scattered, spiky energy, we may scare the horse and cause training problems.
Choose a line of travel
Once we’re in the arena and ready to begin the training session, we need to decide where to go, so to speak. We need to choose a specific arena pattern, just as we need to choose a road we want to drive on when we travel somewhere by car. It doesn’t matter if this arena pattern is a circle, a square, rectangle, or triangle. But it matters that we make a clear decision and never wander around aimlessly.
Selecting a specific line of travel allows you to balance and straighten the horse, which forms the gymnastic foundation of training, because balance allows the horse to relax, to make a light, steady, even rein contact, and to develop impulsion and ultimately, collection.
This applies not only to ridden work, but to all work, longeing, double longeing, work in hand, and long reining.
Put the horse's feet on it
Once you have selected an arena pattern that you want to ride, put your horse’s feet on it, so that the left pair of legs is on the left side of this line of travel, the right pair of legs is on the right side, and the spine forms a segment of this line. Observe if the horse wants to leave the arena pattern with his ships or his shoulders, or both. In which direction is he trying to deviate from the line?
This shows you how functionally straight, or how crooked your horse is, and in what way he is crooked. It helps you determine whether your horse is hollow right and stiff left, or vice versa. Understanding your horse’s asymmetry helps you to make the right training choices.
Bring him back to the line of travel immediately, as soon as he strays from it. When you know and understand your horse’s crookedness, you can anticipate which end of his body will tend to leave the line, and in which direction he is most likely to drift.
The horse’s balance and posture is always built from back to front and from the ground up, from the feet to the spine, with the head usually being the last part of the body that settles into place.
Find the right tempo
When you have selected an arena pattern that you want to ride, you also have to decide on a gait. Do you want to walk, trot, or canter on this line? And we never ride just “any old” gait, but we always ride a specific version of the gait that is defined by tempo and stride length. How many beats per minute do you want? What is the optimal number in each gait for your horse today? This number will be different from horse to horse, and it can change for the same horse from time to time. Some horses are always too fast and need to be slowed down in order to be able to find their balance. Others are too slow and need to be woken up so that they can move in a slightly quicker tempo.
If the tempo is too fast or too slow, the horse won’t be able to find his balance, which means he won’t be able to relax or to establish a good rein contact.
You can begin by letting the horse offer you his natural tempo. But try to find out whether the tempo he offers you is really the best one, or if you need to modify it.
Find the right stride length
Stride length is the other major defining parameter of the gait, together with the tempo. Do you want to ride, for instance, a collected trot, a working trot, a medium trot, or an extended trot? These different versions of the trot are distinguished through the stride length. Just as each horse offers a certain natural tempo, they also offer a certain natural stride length. Some horses have naturally very long strides, others are rather short-strided.
Every horse has a specific tempo and stride length in which he feels most comfortable because he can balance himself best in this version of the gait. Try to find this combination of tempo and stride length with each horse and in each training session. Keep in mind that the tempo and stride length that the horse offers is not necessarily the one in which he can balance and relax the best. Some horses need the rider’s help to find the most comfortable tempo, stride length, and balance. That’s especially true of green horses and rehab projects.
Find the right energy level
The energy level is something that is not often talked about, but it’s a very important paramenter of the gait as well. Some horses are very high-strung. They have a lot of innate energy. Others are very mellow and relaxed. Their natural energy level is generally relatively low. Horses with a high natural energy level tend to be tense and nervous, which interferes with relaxation and suppleness. The priority in their training will be to establish calmness and relaxation.
Horses with a low natural energy level won’t have enough muscle tone and engagement to do more advanced work. Here the priority will be to wake them up and raise the energy.
As a rule of thumb, you can say that higher gaits require more energy than lower gaits. Turns require more energy than straight lines. The smaller the turn (volte, pirouette), the more strength and energy it requires. Lateral movements require more energy than single track work. Within the lateral movements, shoulder-in related ones require less energy than haunches-in related ones.
When you work your horse, always ask yourself whether the horse’s energy level is appropriate for the type of work you are trying to do, or whether you have to lower or raise the energy. Do you have to calm and mesmerize your hot, tense horse? Or do you have to wake up your sleepy horse?
Summary
These are 8 habits that I personally consider to be of vital importance in the training of the horse. If you implement the items on this list every time you ride, regardless of whether you're riding dressage in the arena, or jumping a parcours, or if you're out on a trail, or if you are long reining, working in hand, etc., you and your horse will build good habits that will help you move up the levels. If you're very disciplined in these basic habits, you and your horse will get to the point where you can't ride any other way.
You are welcome to make your own list of priorities that you want to turn into habits. You can shorten my list or extend it, or you can choose completely different items. Just make sure that you choose “basics” that will build a good foundation and ensure that you and your horse progress through the levels in the long run.
