Geoff Teall on Riding Hunters, Jumpers and Equitation. Geoff Teall
A thorough understanding of the fundamentals of good horsemanship benefits the rider in many ways. As a rider, perfecting your form and position provides you with a wealth of skills that will help you cope with the problems and difficult situations you will surely encounter in your riding career.
Equitation work stretches you. Equitation riders learn more about lengthening and shortening, turning, lightening, and making their horses responsive than most riders in other disciplines.
Since fine-tuning your equitation skills involves learning how to ride into and out of specific problems, you learn a lot about training. Not only do you learn how to train yourself to jump with fluidity, style, and grace, but you also learn how to train your horse to do the same.
The Equitation Foundation
When equitation is done well, it creates a solid riding foundation. It will help you understand sound training principles. An equitation background has the potential to give you a wonderfully broad base for your riding.
Focusing on your form, your balance, and your position will improve your riding in other areas. It can help polish you as a spectacular hunter rider. Your training will make your style greater, which will dress up any horse you ride.
Perfecting your position, your poise, and your timing can help make you a great jumper rider because your basic skills will be grounded in efficiency. You will also have gained invaluable experience in training horses and in making them rideable.
The Larger Picture
Many benefits may be gained from concentrating on perfecting your equitation—and not all of them have to do with better riding.
Equitation work takes discipline. It improves your time management skills. It teaches you to control your attitude and your outlook. It strengthens your coordination and gives you experience in getting along with both people and animals.
In many respects, just about all of life’s lessons—anything you need to know in order to deal with people in the “real world”—will be learned from working with horses, trainers, and fellow competitors.
2
Why Ride?
Motivators and Philosophy
The Classic Approach
“Classic,” to me, means using time-proven methods. The study of horses and riding has been around for centuries. Good, solid, classic training principles are based on horses’ consistent reactions to various stimuli. These reactions are the same now as they were hundreds of years ago (figs. 2.1 A & B).
Since horses have not changed over the centuries, there is much to be gained from studying and emulating the training techniques that achieved results long ago. I don’t believe that training techniques need to change to fit our “modern” sensibilities. It isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel in horse training. It is far better, in my opinion, to study the masters that have come before us and do our best to learn from them.
I believe that all training solutions are out there. It is our job as riders to learn them and discover how to best use them.
Classics in a Modern Age
A traditional approach to riding is no less applicable now than it was several hundred years ago. Such an approach has great value in the twenty-first century. As time goes by, and horses are no longer an essential part of daily life, we run the very real danger of losing the knowledge that was once commonplace.
The more horses become luxuries rather than necessities, the more it is imperative that we learn as many time-tested techniques as possible. I believe an understanding of these techniques is critical to effectively communicating with the modern horse.
2.1 A If you close your leg on a horse, he will react by moving forward.
B If done properly, closing your fingers on the reins will cause him to slow down.
In with the Old; Out with the New
By nature, I am suspicious of “new.” I prefer tried and true. I prefer to stay with proven practices that I know work. If something has been effective for the past generation, and the one before that and—in all probability—the one before that, then I can reasonably assume that it will work for me as well.
In my experience, people will try something “new” in training because they believe there is a substitute for good, old-fashioned, hard work. They will go all the way down the road on that new approach, only to discover that it doesn’t work for various reasons. Very often, those people will then set about looking for another quick fix —which doesn’t exist.
An understanding of the physics of riding tells me that if I ride a horse in a particular way, and I do a particular thing with my hands and my legs, then I will get a particular result. To my mind, there is no need to look for new ways to accomplish the same things I can using tried and true techniques.
“New” ways tend to be more complicated. By definition, they are unproven. They often involve gimmicks and equipment to force the horse to do something rather than train him to do it. For these reasons, I believe they are generally inferior to traditional methodology.
The Form of Function
Correct equitation is all about style. It is about function. It is the form that follows function (fig. 2.2).
It often seems that people are too quick to let go of things that are a little difficult to attain. Riding a horse invisibly, in a beautiful, solid position, with sound, deliberate training techniques has never been—and never will be— easy. But it is better than the sloppy, rough, haphazard alternatives.
2.2 Equitation evolved as a form for a specific function. Here, the rider is correct and accurate in her position. She has independent hands and an independent seat. She is a secure rider, but at the same time, she’s relaxed. This allows her horse to be relaxed and working forward. The rider’s balance and position enhance the horse’s performance.
Throughout the years, man has learned where to sit on the horse for the best balance and control. He has discovered how to get the horse to react in a certain way. But man did not invent these training principles. The horses themselves have taught us the methods that work consistently.
Getting a desired response from the animal is the reason for riding him in a particular way. And, since horses don’t react any differently to stimuli now than they did hundreds of years ago, the time-honored approach simply makes sense.
It is critical that we don’t lower our standards to focus only on form or on function. An appreciation of both is needed for effective riding. A good rider, regardless of his riding discipline, needs good position. He also needs to be able, within that good position, to perform his function. One helps the other. High standards