Sdp Dressage

Signing off for now. May be temporary, may not be

In the list of things that cannot be bought, I do not think a person can have proper and thorough feel without numbers 1-6

Horse world things that CAN be bought---
1. Fancy horses
2. Fancy farms
3. Good saddles and equipment
4. Fancy horse clothing
5. More lessons
6. Ability to travel to ride in temperate climates year round
7. Trucks and trailers

Some of the things that CAN’T be bought
1.Courage
2. Strength
3. Agility
4. A good seat
5. Intelligence
6. A calm and kind nature
7.Feel
8. Perseverance
9. Drive
10. Athleticism
11. Horsemanship.

So which list is more important?

👌

You must be strong enough to keep from compromising the athleticism of your horse, in the very least

Physical Fitness

My guess is that if a comprehensive survey could be made of the average sports team, irrespective of which sport, at the high school and college levels, one common denominator would be an emphasis by the coach on physical fitness, strength, endurance, general “toughness.”

So here’s a question to consider---“Is physical fitness high on the list of the average horseback rider?”

And if not, why not? Wouldn’t a fit rider have a far easier time than someone who lacks strength and agility? And yet we see so many riders who the average coach of any average sports team would tell us need to get on a fitness program.

This is the ONE THING that anyone who rides has a degree of control over. And it comes right down to another question----“Are riders athletes?”

Each rider has that to decide.

(Barring, of course, illness and injury.)

To follow up on my last point

On the daily 🙄

So simple yet so complicated 🫠

No tipping left or right, no compressing or collapsing sides. No unparalleled sides.

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS:🐴 To post more efficiently for forward motion …

Imagine your body as a box with hinges at the hips. Keep your box square as you rise freely in the posting trot. This “squareness” (no tipping left or right) will keep your horse’s body traveling straight and forward, too.

— Janice Dulak, dressage rider and pilates instructor

The problem with training horses is that society is designed to believe that you can buy a service and have things the way you want in a period of time. People think of training horses as if they are spending their money on a product. And yet, even the best horse trainers will tell you that the horse takes his time, and no one can guarantee that a horse will do what you want when you want it. The other problem is that even though your trainer can do it with your horse, it doesn't necessarily mean you can. Getting the right horse requires some commitment from the owners to develop the same type of relationship with the trainer. Otherwise, how can you expect from your horse what your trainer gets from himself, when they are the ones who programmed the number of hours, sweat, patience and desire to be with that horse?

The fact that money is at stake leads people to believe they deserve something for what they paid for, and that's what they do, but it's happening at the expense of animals, not humans.
I think any good trainer would say he would do it for free if he could, just to help horses and staff. And yet we all must eat.

~Amy Skinner

Agreed

William Funnell: “We need to produce horse people who understand horses”

"If we are not careful, we will have less and less real horse people in the future, which is something I worry about," William Funnell tells WoSJ.

Read the latest WoSJ Exclusive ➡️ https://www.worldofshowjumping.com/WoSJ-Exclusive-interviews/William-Funnell-We-need-to-produce-horse-people-who-understand-horses.html

💯

A thought-provoking read.
By Jane Smiley

Most horses pass from one human to another - some horsemen and women are patient and forgiving, others are rigorous and demanding, others are cruel, others are ignorant.

Horses have to learn how to, at the minimum, walk, trot, canter, gallop, go on trails and maybe jump, to be treated by the vet, all with sense and good manners.

Talented Thoroughbreds must learn how to win races, and if they can't do that, they must learn how to negotiate courses and jump over strange obstacles without touching them, or do complicated dance like movements or control cattle or accommodate severely handicapped children and adults in therapy work.

Many horses learn all of these things in the course of a single lifetime. Besides this, they learn to understand and fit into the successive social systems of other horses they meet along the way.

A horse's life is rather like twenty years in foster care, or in and out of prison, while at the same time changing schools over and over and discovering that not only do the other students already have their own social groups, but that what you learned at the old school hasn't much application at the new one.

We do not require as much of any other species, including humans.

That horses frequently excel, that they exceed the expectations of their owners and trainers in such circumstances, is as much a testament to their intelligence and adaptability as to their relationship skills or their natural generosity or their inborn nature. That they sometimes manifest the same symptoms as abandoned orphans - distress, strange behaviors, anger, fear - is less surprising than that they usually don't.

No one expects a child, or even a dog to develop its intellectual capacities living in a box 23 hours a day and then doing controlled exercises the remaining one.

Mammal minds develop through social interaction and stimulation.

A horse that seems "stupid", "slow", "stubborn", etc. might just have not gotten the chance to learn!

Take care of your horses and treasure them.