I started reading non-fiction books about horses for about 47 years ago when I got my first serious horse book "Cavalcade of American Horses" by Pers Crowell. Since then I have been trying to read just about every non-fiction horse book I have run across. In 1963 I got access to books on HOW TO RIDE in my junior high school library and have been reading books on how to ride ever since. In high school I finally got access to two serious riding books, "Common Sense Horsemanship" by Littauer, and "Horsemanship" by Seunig. Little did I know that I would still be reading these two books 44 years later.

At first, when reading these books, I spent hours trying to puzzle out what the writers were saying. I read passages over and over again, despairing of ever being able to UNDERSTAND. All I had to go on was distant memories of trail riding in the foothills of the Andes in Chile and on the white sand beaches of Uruguay years before I started reading riding books. Not exactly a solid foundation of equestrian theory. "Common Sense Horsemanship" was understandable, but I could not understand Seunig at all when he got beyond the very basics. Of course I read other riding books, basic and intermediate, but these were the first serious riding books I ever read. Ever since I have been compulsively buying and reading equitation books whenever I could find them in the library or I could afford to buy them.

When I got my first horse and started riding seriously I continued to be completely puzzled by most serious books on riding. What I did not understand was that I would not be able to understand what these horsemen and women were talking about until I rode near or at their level. Thank goodness for the simple humane logic of "Common Sense Horsemanship", I could try things from this book and not irritate and confuse my horse. Not so from most of the dressage based books, my horse was always quick to inform me that I had no business trying to do this stuff, that I did not know what I was doing, and that I was totally irritating him. Wise horse.

After decades of riding my horses my MS got worse and I got weaker and weaker. I figured out that if I gave an aid at the proper point of the horse's stride I would only have to give the aid ONCE. This saved me a lot of energy. Once I had gotten all the info on coordinating aids from my forward seat riding books I started delving into the dressage books again. Much to my surprise I actually understood some of what the authors had written. I knew I still could not ride it, but I was actually understanding what they were doing and had some idea of WHY they did stuff. Then one fine day I realized that it had taken me longer to learn how to read these books than it had taken me to become a good rider.

Every serious equitation book can be read at several levels. When I was a beginner I'd often try to read the whole book in a desperate search for understanding. As I got more experienced I would just read the passages covering whatever issue I was dealing with. Both approaches, however, just penetrate the first level of understanding. Broad philosophical theories and generalized advice often do not reflect the reality
I face on horseback. Then I started noticing that the real deep knowledge in these books was often just in one to two SENTENCES, often repeated in different contexts throughout the book, but sometimes appearing just once. If I blink I can miss that all important sentence that has the solution to my problem. Re-reading these equitation books, I started finding more and more sentences with true solutions. It has gotten to the point that I judge an equitation book on how many sentences really help me develop as a rider. I feel really lucky if I read a new book with three sentences that teach or illuminate me, these books are rare. In the REALLY good equitation books I can find three sentences that can help me with my current problem no matter what my problem is. I refer to these books again and again.

Every riding master has their own system of horsemanship. Every riding master who writes tries to put the most important ideas and methods in their books, but there is no way that anyone can communicate all their knowledge about riding--it would make these books too long and unwieldy. So each riding master writes about what has worked the best on the most horses, and since each master rides different horses, different problems occur and different methods of solving them are developed. I read a lot of equitation books, mostly hunt seat and dressage, because in each book I run into different solutions to common problems. Every time I am faced with a problem, I have in my memory the solutions of several different horsemen. I have found out that the more answers I have in my head the better the horse cooperates with me. This is why I can still ride difficult horses (mostly at a walk and trot) in spite of being disabled with MS.

The riding books I refer to the most often are "Common Sense Horsemanship" by Vladimir Littauer, and "The Way to Perfect Horsemanship" by Udo Burger. I started reading the first one in 1965, and I still read in it regularly. The second one I've been reading in for around 25 years.

Enjoy your ride and read some good riding books.