POINT OF VIEW
three feet on the ground) and also the one in which the movement of the legs can be influenced and expanded the most easily (without the horse using suspension to gain ground). It is also the gait in which the rider, undis- turbed by suspension, can play with the speed, cadence and reach of the horse by modifying his/her weight dis- tribution and the motion of his back. It is achieved by the placement of the rider’s shoulders to effect the seat and by the dynamism (or lack of) of the pelvic movements. The rider can learn to use his/
her seat to create the extended walk, collected walk and “counted walk” (a super collected walk), all the variations of the lateral exer- cises, interspersed with halts and reinbacks (the best way to flex the loins and back). The practice of the “shenkel” exercise of alternat- ing forward and backward steps, known both in France and Ger- many, would be most useful today when we see so many irregular and crooked reinbacks in the arena. The diagonal walk prepares the horse for both piaffe and passage and the Spanish walk (or its lower version “the School walk”) frees up his move- ment and allows the rider to check on his symmetry. All these exercises are key to the development of col-
back before the hand, he meant literally a micro-second of delay. If the rider uses the hand alone (by bending the el- bows) on a horse who loses his balance, s/he will act only on the neck by pulling the head up or back, without really affecting the back motion or the push of the hind legs that created the loss of balance in the first place. On the other hand, if the rider opposes his/her shoulders to the move- ment by leaning back as much as needed to be effective (in a half-halt effect), with the hands just following the re- traction of the back, the horse gets a signal from the seat first and a correction from the hand second. In this way, he learns to listen to the seat to avoid the correction of the hand. When teaching the horse to get
While in piaffe Cedar demonstrates yielding of the aids. The horse remains in self-carriage and in self- impulsion. The rider has no need to push or hold, so she can stay on the vertical with her hips en- gaged and her chest up, arms relaxed.
into the bridle, to be “in the hand” as we say in French, the quiet, pas- sive push of the seat pressing the front of the saddle (without shov- ing) pushes the withers toward a “fixed hand”—a hand that is neither displaced forward by the head of the horse nor backward by the elbow of the rider. Under this steady push of his withers, the horse will first try to drop the base of his neck but
lection. And it is important to note they are just as valu- able to educate the delicacy of the rider’s seat as they are for the sensitivity of the horse’s back. A famous French master of the eighteenth century, François de Lubersac, trained all his horses exclusively at the walk for 15 to 18 months (probably due to a back infirmity). At the end of that period, his cavalry mounts were quickly trained at all gaits and at any speed.
Perfecting the Contact The contact obtained by working the horse’s back from the seat while practicing walk exercises is a much more ac- curate and profound way to teach the horse to follow the bit and yield to it than to do so in the more energetic trot and canter. In my practice of the last half century, I have never started a lesson from the saddle without spending ten minutes doing gymnastics at the walk to loosen up the horse, “tune” his awareness of my seat, improve his sensi- tivity to the aids and perfect his uprightness and symme- try of gesture. How to teach the horse to respect the hand by using the back? When Nuno Oliveira advised riders to use the
48 July/August 2018
the rider’s hand prevents this by its immobility. The horse usually then reacts by starting to push back against the saddle, lifting his withers and retracting the base of his neck (the C6 and C7 vertebrae). This is the technique by which Oliveira obtained the
legendary lightness of his horses and it was due entirely to his position in the saddle. In this approach, the poll opens by the neck arching and not by the nose moving forward. This arch in the neck is the primary condition of the horse’s perfect balance, typified by the posture of a parading stal- lion. It is a beautiful thing to witness. In part two, we will look at the use of the seat to obtain independent aids, balanced turns and the lateral flexion of the back and its effect on collection.
JP Giacomini’s career spans 50 years, during which he has trained close to 20 Grand Prix horses and worked on thousands of reme- dial horses of every imaginable breed, both in Europe and in the U.S. He studied under of Nuno Oliveira and later at the Nation- al Portuguese Stud of Alter Real. He has produced international winners in all three disciplines and invented a unique training method called “Endotapping.” JP also focuses on training the Ibe- rian Sport Horses he breeds at his and his wife Shelley’s Baroque Farms USA in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. JP can be reached at jpgia-
comini@gmail.com.
Kim Taylor
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