PrintOur columnist believes that if you achieve these eight goals you’ll improve your future performance.
Although 2010 is just an artificial number on a calendar, it’s still the start of a new decade and an appropriate take-off point for new resolutions. I absolutely guarantee that event riders who manage to achieve some of the goals I’m about to list will ride more effectively and will achieve greater satisfaction in their chosen sport.
Each one of these goals is attainable for riders who aren’t badly handicapped with medical issues. They aren’t necessarily easy goals, but they are all achievable.
Goal No. 1: Try to develop the correct horse-rider match-up for you. This directive may be hard, because you already love the one you have, but try to make an honest assessment. “Is this horse the horse I need to achieve the goals I want to achieve?”
Here are a couple of examples. If you need confidence on cross-country, and your horse calmly and bravely marches out there and jumps those fences, doesn’t rush and rarely refuses, then that’s a great match-up. But if he spooks, races, quits and scares you, maybe it’s not so great a mix ‘n’ match.
If you’re struggling to acquire an independent seat (more on this topic later) does your horse let you make mistakes, or does he overreact to your bouncing, thus making your job infinitely more difficult? Be as honest as you can about Goal No. 1.
Goal No. 2: Get yourself and your horse in better physical condition so that you aren’t a menace on the highways either to yourself or to him.
Go to any event and stand where you can watch the riders about three quarters of the way around the cross-country course. Many will be doing just fine, thanks very much, but some will look like The Addams Family character, Lurch. And not just lurching a little but lurching a lot—and lurching while panting, wheezing, gasping and bobbing about. This exhausted state is not conducive to safe riding. Be safe; get fit.
Goal No. 3: (Related to No. 2) Learn how to safely, securely and effectively gallop a horse out in the open over hilly, undulating terrain. I’ve heard the saying that “galloping is one-third technique, two-thirds fitness,” so that’s why I’ve listed this after Goal No. 2.
Shorten those stirrups, and start by trotting in the arena without posting. Then add some canter sets. Then take it outdoors. You don’t have to be able to fly 4 miles of Maryland Hunt Cup, but you should absolutely be able to maintain your galloping position around your cross-country courses.
Goal No. 4: Develop an independent dressage seat. Jack Le Goff used to preach this as Goal No. 1, the basic prerequisite to becoming a good rider.
Think of your horse as a horizontally built shock wave producing machine. Think of yourself as a vertically built shock wave absorbing machine. When his movements are in harmony at the trot and canter with your movements, the bouncing, jouncing and flailing about disappears. Your hands have the chance to become quiet, feeling and steady. So do your lower legs. But until you achieve core body strength so that you can sit the gaits without posting at the trot or hovering at the canter, no true harmony is possible. Goal No. 4 is a big, important goal.
