Riding the Horse That is Brought out for You    

When I started riding in 1957, there was a different culture around in the riding lesson world.  Stables that gave riding lessons did not have perfectly conformed or perfectly trained horses.  There were several reasons for that.  One reason was cost, perfectly conformed and trained horses have always been EXPENSIVE animals and no riding stable wasted these rare animals in a lesson program with ever changing riders of various abilities in the saddle.  Most riding stables could not afford these superior horses, what they could afford were imperfectly conformed and imperfectly trained horses who might have a decent disposition, a disposition willing to forgive riders for their mistakes. 

A lot of the riding teachers back then either were, or had been taught by, ex-cavalrymen.  In the cavalry the soldier rode the horse assigned to them, and there was no option of disobeying (or complaining to) a military superior.  In this school of riding the emphasis was on learning how to ride well enough so the rider would have a chance of surviving riding any horse that came around.  If a rider had a reasonable amount of money, there were opportunities to just go out and ride a horse.  Back then, often people with horses might treat a houseguest to a ride on one of their horses.  Stables that did hourly rentals were common, and the rental stables had even lower standards in buying horses than the lesson stables.  Since the riding teachers were well aware of the training status of the normal horse back then, and well aware of how most riders tended to “ruin” the horses they rode, they tended to figure that they were not doing their job if they did not make their students learn to ride these less than perfect horses.

The really good teachers often made a point, at some time during a lesson rider’s time in the saddle, to mount a rider on a horse that emphasized the rider’s worst faults.  For instance, when I went to horse school Kay Russell noticed that I had a problem with releasing my foot aids, thereby irritating the horses.  Her solution was to put me up on a chronic runaway (Manny was his name.)  I rode that horse for several weeks before I learned to release my leg aids each and every time I applied one.  Manny often made me look like a total fool in the saddle as I desperately tried to keep him from running away.

Kay Russell’s solution to imperfections in her serious students (residential program) was to put the rider on a more challenging horse.  If a rider could not sit the trot, well, guess what, that rider got assigned the horse with the roughest sitting trot in the stable (a half-THW 17 hand gelding who pounded the ground at the trot) until they learned how to ride his sitting trot.  The students that did not learn how to ride this horse’s sitting trot were assigned homework, hours of homework riding this horse at the sitting trot.  Once a rider learned to ride this particular horse’s sitting trot every other horse’s sitting trot felt nice, smooth, and soft.

But it seems that times have changed.  I was talking with my riding teacher this week during my lesson and she told me she lost a student that complained about EVERY horse that she rode at Debbie’s stable.  No horse was good enough for this student.  I admit it; my mouth fell open in disbelief.  How in the world are people going to learn to RIDE horses if they never mount an imperfect horse?  This student of Debbie’s plans to leave Debbie’s program to get lessons at other stables with hopefully better horses.  That is her right, I am not saying that this in and of itself is wrong, but how in the world is this student going to learn to RIDE if every horse she rides makes her look like a superior rider?

Kay Russell did me a BIG favor by making me ride Manny, the confirmed run-away, a favor that paid off for me a few times during my riding career.  First, my parents bought a totally unsuitable mare for their level of riding, a 7/8 Arab mare named Suzi.  They finally gave up and gave me the mare, and I got a horse whose favorite defenses were either bolting at a dead gallop or balking and refusing to move at all, and who was always inverted when ridden.  To deal with the balking I HAD TO wear spurs, but if I ever, ever, ever touched that mare accidentally with the spurs she lit out for the wild blue yonder with no intention of ever slowing down.  Well, Manny, the chronic runaway, taught me how to ride such a horse.  I had to put her in a standing martingale and a double bridle just to have any hope of controlling her when she decided to gallop away at top speed, as well as the spurs to get her going when she refused to move.  It took me six months, but in six months I had her going willingly in a snaffle and no martingale, safe on a loose rein, and not balking.  I could not have ever done it without those hours on Manny, desperately trying to keep him from running away with me.

Then, many years later, when I first came to Debbie’s stable, she was planning to put me on her old reliable 30 year old blind Appaloosa since I am crippled with Multiple sclerosis.  However, first she asked me the most advanced thing I had done on horseback, and I told her about retraining Suzi, the balking/bolting/inverted mare.  Then Debbie asked me if I was willing to try an Arab gelding she had, Glow, who was super, super sensitive to hand and leg and who did not suffer fools gladly.  She had sort of given up on having regular riding students on Glow since he was apt to bolt if his rider hurt his sensitive mouth.  Trained in the school that said that I had to ride the horse that was brought out for me, I shrugged my shoulders and said yes.  I was amply rewarded, Glow is easily the best horse I have ever ridden, soft responsive mouth, quick off the leg, and learning every new thing I taught him easily.  I had SO MUCH FUN riding Glow!  He cheerfully made allowances for my imperfections caused by my MS, and he took care of me every time I could have fallen off, so long as I made sure not to hurt his sensitive mouth.  I never could have ridden him if I had refused to ride Manny or Suzi; those were the horses that made me a good enough rider so I could ride Glow safely and effectively.

You see, I was brought up in the school that it is not the horse’s responsibility to make me look good, it is my responsibility to make the horse look good.  It is not the responsibility of the horse to give me a good ride, it is my responsibility to ride well enough that the horse willingly gives me a good ride.  It is not the horse’s responsibility to look beautiful, it is my responsibility to ride well enough that the horse looks more beautiful in response to my riding and training.  I ride horses with the assumption that whenever anything goes wrong it is my fault, either I do not ride the horse well enough, or that I am not effectively dealing with all the deep-seated fears that the horse has about being ridden badly.

One day I rode Suzi (the balking/bolting/inverted mare) in a big crowd of horses who were gathering to do a “wagon train”, both harness horses and riding horses.  I did this because Suzi did not have much experience being ridden in a crowd of horses, and she was super hot and reactive.  After about 10 minutes a very elderly man I did not know made the effort to hobble up to me to tell me that I was a very good rider.  Now this elderly man probably had ridden saddle seat, on American Saddle Bred type horses, not the Forward/hunt seat I ride.  But he was experienced enough to rate my ride on Suzi, who was obviously on the verge of melting down if I rode her badly (trotting with a good bit of impulse while “saying” snort, Snort, SNORT!!!).  Suzi obeyed me that day because I had trained her properly to be responsive to my hands and legs, and she was beautiful because she was not inverted, had a proper arch to her neck, she kept her mouth shut even though she did not wear a noseband, and she moved smoothly.  It was perhaps the biggest compliment I ever got for my riding.

And I never would have gotten it if I had ever refused to ride any horse that was brought out for me to ride because he was ugly, badly conformed, or not perfectly trained.  Since I started riding seriously, whenever I go to a new stable, I tell the instructor my experience and limitations, and I ride the horse that is chosen for me.  I am sure one day I might turn down a horse because I am worried that I could not control him, but that will be the day that I stop considering myself a good rider and realize that I may only be a decent passenger that the horse kindly carts around.  There is nothing wrong with that, horses appreciate a good passenger too.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran