Man Vs Horse

[Yem]

Hi All,

I just had my 12/13th lesson this weekend. For a few of these lessons I have been riding a beautiful horse called Rosie. She is eager to go and needed the lightest touch in order to get her to do anything. I was riding her last week and everything went smoothly, trot, canter, even jumping (Did my first jump).

This week, I had a horse. Another beautiful horse but a lot less willing to do anything. I could barely even get him to trot.

This got me thinking - What really makes a rider? Is it the horse, or is it the rider themselves? If you put a world class level rider on an unresponsive RS horse, do you think they would be able to make it perform better? Also, on the flip side, do you think a novice rider would perform better on a world class horse?

I understand it's a little of both. Obviously, the ideal match is a world class horse and rider! But, I am interested to see your responses.

:confused3:

 

[milo'n'molly]

Like you said it is a little of both to some degree. A world class rider will be able to get more from a lesser horse than a novice rider as the rider will be able to school the horse to be make it more responsive, to some extent. The aids will be much clearer and the rider will be able to put the horse in the best position to be able to Cary out the riders requests than a novice rider would.

On the other hand I think a novice rider on a world class horse would generally be a recipe for disaster. A horse that is athletic enough and responsive enough to be truly world class ( think uthopia or valegro ) would do little to improve a truly novice rider. I imagine even the majority of everyday horse owners would be bounced out of the side door and be totally over horses with most world class competition horses.

A schoolmaster is different, that's a great way to improve a novice rider

 

[TrasaM]

Firstly well done on your 1st jumping experience jumping was one of my major milestones when I first started riding and I was so pleased with myself when I finally got to do it.
You've been fortunate if you've had a forward going horse so far for your lessons. It makes those first weeks so much easier if the horse is a willing participant. It's good now that you're getting the basics established to try riding different horses. Horses are very good at sussing out a new ruder very quickly and most aren't slow at taking advantage of any gaps in our ability. A good rider should be able to get even a reluctant RS horse moving better. But I'm not sure how a very novice rider would deal with a very highly trained horse. I'd suspect that it'd end in grief for most of us.

 

[Echo Bravo]

And this is where you learn that not every horse like humans are the same and have to be handled differently and have different capabilities and different frames of mind and ways of going.

 

[hnmisty]

If I got on a top dressage horse and tried to make it go in a straight line I would probably be going backwards, sideways, up, down...any way but the one I wanted! And I've been riding 16 years.

I would think horses like that would dump a novice on the floor pretty quickly. I call Barry a beach donkey, and I've put my housemate on him who has sat on a horse once before. We walked around the arena, and Baz was really good...for 10 minutes. At that point you could tell (even Matt could tell!) that he needed to get off or risked being dumped on the floor. He'd just had enough!

Good work on starting jumping already!

 

[Pigeon]

I have a friend that can get on anything (and I mean anything) and ride it well. I envy her

It's a bit of both, but riding a top horse is a skill in itself, you have to have a ridiculous amount of poise and balance and feel to not only give the right aids, but avoid unintentional shifts in balance or unintentional aids - or like Hnmisty says, it'll be all over the place.

 

[its_noodles]

I have a friend that can get on anything (and I mean anything) and ride it well. I envy her

It's a bit of both, but riding a top horse is a skill in itself, you have to have a ridiculous amount of poise and balance and feel to not only give the right aids, but avoid unintentional shifts in balance or unintentional aids - or like Hnmisty says, it'll be all over the place.

yep, schoolmaster could be so sensitive and unintentional aids is a problem...

 

[TrasaM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrR-mBbNcm4&sns=em

This is when Nicky Chapman tried one of Carl Hester's horses. Horse tanked off and she panicked and fell. The fall has been edited out of this clip. Quite brave of her though and she got back on and kept trying.

 

[NaeNae87]

I was lucky enough to sit on a PSG level Hanovarian stallion (by Bellisimo M) after only riding 18 months. My seat sucked, my balance was worse and I still managed to get a decent walk and trot out of him. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't terrible either and you could not wipe the grin off my face for the rest of the week... I do think in general though, most top horses would be too much for a novice rider, too sensitive, too forward, etc.

A well schooled and/or world class horse will be able to hide and compensate for some of his riders faults just as a world class rider on a not so good horse will be able to get a better result then an average rider.

I do think you need to match horses to rider ability.