Your favourite training/reference books.

[tigers_eye]

Seeing as it's hibernation time for many of us, and possibley time to start making christmas lists for those with more demanding relatives

, I thought it could be a good idea to see what "bibles" we all have. I will start!

The Event Rider's Notebook - Mary Rose
A brilliant book, really informative even if slightly out of date. Good horse management doesn't change that much I think, so quite often find myself looking through my well-thumbed copy. Particularly like her section on finding the suitable event horse, think if everyone followed that there would be far more happy riders and horses!

The Event Groom's Handbook - Jeanne Kane, Lisa Waltman
See above really, great reference tool covers pretty much everything on management!

Centred Riding - Sally Swift
Not sure where my (mum's) copy of this went, but it relies very heavily on imagery, much of which has stayed with me for years. I also use her ideas very often in my teaching, she often uses several different images to describe a similar feeling, and usually at least one will work for each student!

Cross-Country Riding - Lucinda Green (not sure of title, the one with loads and loads of photos of different types of fences)
Love this book, brilliant photography really illustrates what she's trying to put across.

Am sure I will think of more!

 

[only_me]

"Mary King's eventing year"quite old but very informative - her advice can never go out of date

"Practical eventing" by Jane holderness - Roddam = an excellent book

and Mark Todds eventing book - great for me as it tells me on how i should be approaching/jumping each and every type of cross - country fence there is

the one above has helped enormously

 

[madhector]

Now this may seem strange considering my hatred of showjumping but my bible has to be Training Showjumpers by Anthony Paalman

 

[Bossanova]

Mark Todd's autobiography- my copy is falling apart as it has been read so many times!

Phillipe Karl's 'The Twisted Turths of Modern Dressage' which is just crammed full of incredible stuff

 

[tigers_eye]

Tell me more about the twisted truth's one! The title's got me hooked already!

 

[lucretia]

madhector, the man who wrote that was genius as was Bert de Nemethy and if you can get a copy of his training showjumpers book it is so wise. alois podhaisky (sorry about the spelling not at home so cant look) complete training of horse and rider, xenophon's the art of horsemanship, reime klimke's training the young horse (just rewritten by ingrid, the essence of horsemanship by seunig, academic equitation by decarpentry and god's gift to equitation 'ecole de cavalerie by de la guerinere. and if you are wondering tiger, i do spend a great part of my life reading what the riding masters of the past had to say. in general they were wiser than us!

 

[madhector]

Agree totally, he is amazing

 

[Bossanova]

[ QUOTE ]
Tell me more about the twisted truth's one! The title's got me hooked already!

[/ QUOTE ]

It's very descriptive, very easy to follow and puts training methods into context for everyone from prelim to grand prix and talks about common problems and faults in modern riding. Phillipe is a beautiful classical rider and uses flexion and yields to get submission- working from the ground and at the halt a lot.

 

[tigers_eye]

See now this might start a debate: I have read The Complete Training of Horse and Rider, and whilst I think there are many excellent passages which are more thoroughley explained than anywhere else I've found, particularly concerning the rider, I remain unconvinced that the methods described produce a supple horse. I realise the author trained mostly Lippizaners, which are naturally shorter in the back and neck than most modern sport horses, but many of the photos illustrate what I see as a weakness of this method, with tense underneck muscles a frequent feature. Just my view, be interested to hear others'.

 

[saddle]

Tony Crossley's "Training the Young Horse" - my bible for everything from a 12hh pony to my 16 hh eventer!!

 

[Halfstep]

Walter Zettl, dressage in harmony. brilliant book. BBs currently has my copy!!!

xx

 

[kirstyfk]

You can never go wrong with 'The Manual of Horsemanship'! It is till the first book I turn to if I have a problem.

Ernest Dillion's Showjumping for fun or glory has really great grid exercises.

I love My Mary King books. And Pippa's book about young hosres was constantly looked at when I had a youngster.

 

[kit279]

'The Less than Perfect Horse' by Jane Thelwell (although she is now Jane Wallace) for every eventing problem under the sun. I also like Jennie Loriston Clarke's book about training young horses, a lot of the advice works for older horses as well.

 

[Gamebird]

I love The Event Groom's Handbook.

I'm better with a lot of pictures than a lot of words, though my copy of Mark Todd's autobiography sounds as though it's in a similar state to Bossanova's.

Of the recent books I like WFP's Schooling for success. Thousands of pics of different riders at events jumping the same obstacles so that you can contrast their positions and approaches - uses a lot of that clever trick where they take 20 or 30 split second frames over one obstacle. Analyses and critiques why things are going wrong. There's some shocking pics and even the top names don't always fare well.... (Bettina Hoy's XC position comes in for a lot of stick

).

Also Celebrity Jumping Exercises which, despite the rubbish name, has loads of brill exercises and grids for every situation.

Training the Dressage Horse by Jennie Loriston-Clark I bought when I was a kid before I even knew what dressage is (some would say I still don't

) and has a lot of good pics and straight forwards talking.

 

[Seahorse]

[ QUOTE ]
Now this may seem strange considering my hatred of showjumping but my bible has to be Training Showjumpers by Anthony Paalman

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes that's my favourite book too, the trouble is I don't showjump any more and have lost my copy but I still remember most of it!
The diagrams are fab

 

[RachelB]

I have my bookcase in the study stuffed full of horsey books, but there is only one by my bedside - Carl Hester's 'Down to Earth Dressage'. I find it so easy to pick up, turn to a specific problem I have with a horse, and find a few ideas to tackle the issue. Usually at least one works! It's nice and easy to read right through as well. I also have Carl's other book but find it to be a bit too much about his horses - nice to have examples to look at but not everyone has a 4yo with a trot like the one in the pic..!

 

[lucretia]

see the thing is about the spanish riding school tiger is that they are training carriage horses! because of their short necks when the are highly collected they will appear to have a slight bulge under the neck but its because of their conformation their isnt really anywhere else for the developed muscles to go in such a short neck. i am not explaining this well but try putting your chin on your chest and feel how your neck muscles go.
anthony crossley said once theat no one in t he spanish riding school would get more than a seven or eight for any movement after watching one of theit tours here. even if he said a six or a sevene i think anky would be not too disapointed with a 70% score on horses that according to purists can do dressge!
you have to remember they are training the horses from scratch, and by the time they are allowed to do so they are very educated riders so thst book is quite 'pure' and therefore not what i would call a 'problem' solver' but its principles are what i try to adhere to when breaking and training my own.