RE: [RC] fear-alice-how to keep your "seat" - Alison Farrin
Picking up on what Kathy
has said, also work on keeping your horse's attention on you when he is out in
front. Do not just canter down the trail. Begin canter, shorten the
canter, legenthen the canter, move the horse off your leg to the right and left
at the canter, even if it is only a foot or two. Ask for shoulder in at
the canter. If your horse does not know what you will want him to do next,
he will start to pay a lot more attention to you than the potentially spooky
things on the trail. Even if he does see a spooky, if you are asking him
to move off your leg at that moment, he will be responding to that even as he
tries a spook, which will likely make the spook much smaller and easier to
ride. BTW, this is exhausting for the rider<G>. So don't do it
for long periods at first. Take the lead, canter 1/2 mile asking for
various differences in the canter, then drop back to a position not first in
line. Do it again a little while later for a couple hundred yards
longer. Pretty soon you can canter a bit, ask for something different in
the canter, go back to regular canter and canter on. Repeat. Your
horse will have confidence that you are in command even if he is out in
front.
Alison
Farrin
Keep your leg long and balanced (not too long, but definatly
not a jockey seat). I find I like my heals about 3/4 to 7/8's
down the horse's rib cage. I ride with my stirrups shorter on
Blue than I did on Magnum.
The most important part of staying on a big spook is to ride
centered on the horse. If you are forward over the withers
and
front legs you have to stay with a much bigger sideways
movement than if you are centered over the horse's center of
gravity.
Kathy Myers
in Santa Fe, NM
Things I learned from coming off:
1) ride centered
2) don't ride "left" when the horse cuts "right"
3) Keep the head up while galloping up a hill 'cuz sometimes
the little blue horse likes to launch / buck at the
top...
