It’s been crossing my mind lately how fun it would be to sit on Gus. Just for a second or two. And then slip off again before he knows what hit him.
Training horses and building a relationship with them is easier from the ground than from the saddle. Leading and longeing, striding near their own legs, and meeting them eye-to-eye all contribute to a way better connection than sitting behind their heads and above their hooves. Clicker training, with its reliance on quick delivery of food treats, is literally a hand-to-mouth proposition. Not that it’s impossible when mounted (and in fact, the reach forward by the rider and the sideways neck-curl by the horse can be good stretching exercises), but it feels a lot more natural when both parties are on their own feet.
Most horsepeople aren’t clicker trainers, and most horsepeople do little or no groundwork. They’d rather sink as much time and focus as possible into the sport of riding. And no wonder: it’s a freakin’ blast. First up, you’re up. And that high perspective is a high all on its own. Then, just at a plod, the rocking of the horse synchronizes your whole body with a four-beat power-walking movement. (Those big but slow and steady waves of motion have been proven therapeutic for children and adults with disabilities. As a volunteer for a therapeutic riding program, I saw it with my own eyes: kids who normally couldn't sit up on their own could sit up, tall and smiling, in the saddle of a walking horse.)
At the trot, you’re bounced up and down on the horse’s shoulders, but by posting — repeatedly rising and sitting at the right rhythm — you dance a jaunty bebop with him. With each rise, you can feel yourself being carried forward in midair. For me, it’s reminiscent of being a wee kidlet and having my burly, kindly big brother toss me around. (A sitting trot is great too, as you stay glued to the horse’s back for all the aeronautical thrills of lift, weight, thrust, and drag. But since following those big movements requires a lot of flexibility in the rider’s abdominal muscles and joints, and since my musculoskeletal core is an ugly train derailment, sitting the trot brings me more spinal agony than it’s worth.)
The canter is a driving, exhilarating waltz: the horse’s feet go fa-da-DUMP, fa-da-DUMP, fa-da-DUMP while the human’s center of balance is lofted and rolled forward and back with each DUMP. (And jumping a horse — which I haven’t done since I reached the age of reason, when my cerebral cortex passed its beta-testing and went fully online — adds even more surge and height and hang time to the experience. I see its allure, even at the risk of, and again after, all manner of crashes and injuries.)
True horsepower can’t match a speedboat or a rollercoaster, but unlike them, it’s softly, warmly, heavily, blood-thrummingly animal, so it’s atavistic: it speaks the body language of our primitive souls. No, I don't believe it's some displaced sexuality, but it's certainly sensual. Moreover, that animal sensuality comes with a lively mind that’s independent and not of our species, so it engages horse and human in an ur-Esperanto, reconnecting branches of life that evolved so widely apart so long ago. Communing and partnering across species can bring a rare delight to life, and doing it bodily with a body as awe-inspiring as a half-ton horse is a peak experience.
OK, yeah, clearly I still miss riding . . .
Training horses and building a relationship with them is easier from the ground than from the saddle. Leading and longeing, striding near their own legs, and meeting them eye-to-eye all contribute to a way better connection than sitting behind their heads and above their hooves. Clicker training, with its reliance on quick delivery of food treats, is literally a hand-to-mouth proposition. Not that it’s impossible when mounted (and in fact, the reach forward by the rider and the sideways neck-curl by the horse can be good stretching exercises), but it feels a lot more natural when both parties are on their own feet.
Most horsepeople aren’t clicker trainers, and most horsepeople do little or no groundwork. They’d rather sink as much time and focus as possible into the sport of riding. And no wonder: it’s a freakin’ blast. First up, you’re up. And that high perspective is a high all on its own. Then, just at a plod, the rocking of the horse synchronizes your whole body with a four-beat power-walking movement. (Those big but slow and steady waves of motion have been proven therapeutic for children and adults with disabilities. As a volunteer for a therapeutic riding program, I saw it with my own eyes: kids who normally couldn't sit up on their own could sit up, tall and smiling, in the saddle of a walking horse.)
At the trot, you’re bounced up and down on the horse’s shoulders, but by posting — repeatedly rising and sitting at the right rhythm — you dance a jaunty bebop with him. With each rise, you can feel yourself being carried forward in midair. For me, it’s reminiscent of being a wee kidlet and having my burly, kindly big brother toss me around. (A sitting trot is great too, as you stay glued to the horse’s back for all the aeronautical thrills of lift, weight, thrust, and drag. But since following those big movements requires a lot of flexibility in the rider’s abdominal muscles and joints, and since my musculoskeletal core is an ugly train derailment, sitting the trot brings me more spinal agony than it’s worth.)
The canter is a driving, exhilarating waltz: the horse’s feet go fa-da-DUMP, fa-da-DUMP, fa-da-DUMP while the human’s center of balance is lofted and rolled forward and back with each DUMP. (And jumping a horse — which I haven’t done since I reached the age of reason, when my cerebral cortex passed its beta-testing and went fully online — adds even more surge and height and hang time to the experience. I see its allure, even at the risk of, and again after, all manner of crashes and injuries.)
True horsepower can’t match a speedboat or a rollercoaster, but unlike them, it’s softly, warmly, heavily, blood-thrummingly animal, so it’s atavistic: it speaks the body language of our primitive souls. No, I don't believe it's some displaced sexuality, but it's certainly sensual. Moreover, that animal sensuality comes with a lively mind that’s independent and not of our species, so it engages horse and human in an ur-Esperanto, reconnecting branches of life that evolved so widely apart so long ago. Communing and partnering across species can bring a rare delight to life, and doing it bodily with a body as awe-inspiring as a half-ton horse is a peak experience.
OK, yeah, clearly I still miss riding . . .
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