Rythm, suppleness and contact

It was way back, sometime in the seventies and I was watching a riding clinic at Bud Heatley's place in El Paso. Jeffray Ryding was warming up a group of young girls mounted on a hodgepodge of quarter horses, Arab crosses, ponies and ex racehorses.

"We are warming up to jump today, but none of your horses are trotting consistent," said Jeffray in her soft Alabama accent. "You all need to get these horses trotting consistent."

She told them to post the trot for five posts and then sink into a half seat for five posts.. She kept them doing this - five beats posting and five beats in a half seat - for quite awhile, talking to them and correcting their position and their rhythm. "Your horse should not slow down when you post and he should not speed up when you half-seat. The trot needs to be consistent"

After awhile the horses had all started moving pretty well, The riders were focused and horses were calming own, chewing and stretching on to the bit. She started them trotting through four cavelletti and changing directions, all the while posting for five posts and half-seating for five posts and maintaining a "consistent trot."

After awhile she introduced a cross rail, telling them, "Keep posting for five posts and doing the half-seat for five posts. When you approach the cavelletti or the crossrail, just keep on doing what you are doing." When they landed from the crossrail, they would canter around the turn and bring the horses back to the "consistent trot" and resume the exercise.

It did not take very long before the group was ready to jump. The riders were calm and focused and their heels were down, their eyes were up and their positions were correct. The horses, large and small, were happy, supple and relaxed. They were all trotting in an even, "consistent" rhythm. They were going softly on the bit.

Jeffray had ridden with the Hungarian Cavalry officer, Bela Bettykay. The horses she and her students rode all seemed to work in a soft, balanced manner of a horse that was carrying itself and not interfered with by its rider.

This session make an impression on me. As I proceeded on in my career and in my education, I saw Jeffray's approach to warming up in a number of places.

Another Hungarian officer named Bert Denemethy later released a series of videos displaying the same approach -- slow patient work at the trot and canter. Bert's voice was in the background, correcting the riders, setting the tempo and the cadence. There was no razzel dazzle in these sessions -- just even "consistent" work at all gaits. Bert must have had a very calming effect on the sensitive thoroughbreds with which he had so much international success. Those tapes were so calming I remember, after a long day at the barn, struggling to stay awake while watching them!

Over the years I rode in clinics with a number of Denemethy's students. Their approach to flat work was similar. Anyone who has watched a George Morris clinic is familiar with the even, methodical tempo that he sets in his flat sessions.

I remember meeting George for the first time when he came to do a clinic in Virginia in the seventies. I was standing around when he arrived at the host's house. I was available to carry George's suitcase up the steps and into the house. That suitcase must have weighed about a hundred pounds. George watched me struggle with it and said, "Books. It's full of books about riding."

I figured George must have read these books at night to get ideas for his clinics. I later got into the habit of reading books on training to get ideas about how to proceed with different horses and riders. I have a lot of books now.

Several years ago I got the Principles of Riding, the manual of the German National Equestrian Federation. While my father and early instructors had been more influenced by the "French School," I found the German manual to be very helpful. It is simple, clear and systematic. I was particularly drawn to the "Training Scale," which I find useful in my day to day training -- determining "where you are" with a horse's training and deciding where you need to go next.

The training scale goes like this:

Rhythm
Suppleness
Contact
Impulsion (schwung)
Straightness (alignment)
Collection

The first three lections -- rhythm, suppleness and contact -- are where I spend much of my time while working with young, green horses. This is the phase where the horse gets used to carrying the weight of the rider and begins to develop his "propulsive force." At this stage, the horse works with his head low, a little on the forehand so that his hindquarters are unburdened and able to swing freely. The horse becomes comfortable under the weight of the rider. As he becomes stronger, he will flex laterally, bend in the body and gradually seek a contact with the bit. As the horse settles down and his strength develops, the rider can begin to sink softly into the thighs and the front of the saddle -- the half-seat. The Principles of Training says that an indication of suppleness is "A rhythmically swinging back (rider able to sit.) P162

This is what Jeffray had meant when she told her riders that their horses had to trot "consistent." When the horses move in a consistent rhythm, their muscles can relax and their back will begin to swing. This is the foundation that all training is built upon. Once the rhythm is lost, the rider needs to take a step back, take a breath and re-establish it.

My childhood coach, Col Frierson had told me, "First comes cadence, then comes collection and then comes elevation." He was talking about the same process -- the horse trotting in a calm, consistent cadence and stretching into the contact with the bit. As the horse's connection with the bit and the rider's hands and arms becomes more consistent, then the rider can, as Col Frierson used to say, "Take a frank feel of his mouth" and use his legs to develop impulsion. When this is possible the horse can be straightened and rocked back on his hocks.

Fast forward about thirty years to the 2009 Pickwick Grand Prix. I had entered on my young mare, thinking it would be a "soft" 1.4M class. Having just walked the course, I was having doubts. There were about fifty entries and it looked a lot like 1.45 or 1.5 meters to me! It had been years since I had ridden a course this big. Every line was a half-off distance and the oxers seemed a wide as pickup trucks. The last line came away from the end gate -- a short approach to a narrow vertical and a dead-on three strides to an oxer - oxer -vertical combination.

As I warmed up, I knew that I was going to need impulsion and I was going to have to come forward into the last line if we were ever going to get out of the triple over those oxers. The danger was that I would get too aggressive and run the little mare off her feet and scare the hell out of her. My plan was to start out energetic and bouncy and come forward to the jumps a bit, but to add the stride in the early lines (they were half off, so you had to be definite -- go or steady. I figured we would take the forward options in the last third of the course.

I had hacked the mare in the morning, so she was about half warmed up. As I began to trot I went into my default warm up -- five strides posting and five strides in a half seat. Forward for five posts and then sink in and package for five steps in the half seat without letting her slow down. It took a bit of seat and leg, even though she sensed the excitement and was animated -- in a good way. Her back was swinging and she rounded up into firm, elastic contact with the bit. I could feel her back coming up underneath me when I put my legs on her.

We jumped a couple of smaller oxers and I kept her together in a pretty tight package, holding her close to the base. As they got bigger, I could free her up and let her come forward through the turn and she would back up to the deep hole and jump the oxers big and round. We finished with a forward ride to tall vertical. She curled up over it as tidy as a cat.

We started the course with a fabulous first oxer across the middle of the ring. We added strides up the first line and had an early rail as I got her back a tad late in the tight four stride to a big square oxer. It did not phase her -- he was jumping confidently. Toward the middle of the course I began to let her gallop into the forward options. I wanted her "thinking forward" when I came into that last line. The next to last line was a tall vertical set close to the far end of the ring and a very forward five to the open water, which she got to easy. Landing from the water was a six or seven stride bending line to another tall vertical. I chose the forward option but went to direct and we got too deep and had the rail. Rode it too hard -- Danm!. Should have steadied and bowed the line but I was not thinking backward at this point!

As we made the roll back turn into the last line I looked early and kept galloping to the narrow vertical. We hit it perfect and she carried on confidently through the triple. I think my adrenaline got us over the wide oxers, but cost us our third rail at the last vertical. Too bad! We got around with three rails in a good time. There were only a couple clean and a couple with four faults. Eight faults would have put us into forth place!

Still, I was on cloud nine over the way my little mare jumped around that big course. That is a feeling that money can't buy.

My thanks to Jeffray and the Old Hungarian cavalry officers for putting us on the right track!

Nothing aside from the dearest human relationships can give the pleasure found in working and playing with a horse. That magnificent, powerful, yet dependent creature so willingly gives so much that surely it behooves his master to study thoroughly all things which may help in understanding his mute and faithful sevant. An American cavalry general once remarked: "Association with the horse is enobling." It is hoped that what follows may assist in making more pleasant that noble association between the reader and his horse.

Gen. Harry D Chamberlin, Preface to Training Hunters Jumpers and Hacks