Nothing drives this point home more than riding mares. Once upon a time, not so long ago, I owned a little buckskin QH who enjoyed jumping quite a bit and was under the impression dressage was created by man to torture horses. Nothing could get her ready to go like the whistle starting a jumper round and nothing threw on her brakes like trotting down center line. So, she spoke and I listened. Our relationship was not entirely balanced, though better than that she had with others who tried to ride her. It was best described as a truce by Sue Berrill. Unfortunately, the truce as written did not leave room for negotiation after years of very firm training of the rider by the horse. Or, rather, the point became mote as she was of retirement age before I gained the skills necessary to put alternatives on the table.*
During and after that time, I rode quite a few other horses, most geldings, and got along with the majority fairly well. Geldings are different, there's no suprise there. For the most part, you ask and they either listen or you ask a little louder. If they find something you do offensive, they soon forget or become dull to it and generally move forward with life.
If I don't listen to The Atomic Mare, she informs me my ignorance is unacceptable in very clear terms. Slowly, she tried to do what that little buckskin did so well: train me. In some ways, she was successful. But, much to her dismay, I grew savvy to her agenda as I was a significantly more experience rider. And, when I was unsure about how far was fair to push, I enlisted some help to ensure I remained fair in my requests. Slowly, but surely, I became more adept at negotiation and dancing the fine line between too much of one aid, too little of another, and what sort of acting out was valid versus an attempt to circumvent my instruction via her own version of teen drama.
One such negotiation was the warm up. I have been struggling with various philosophies of warm up. In my life, I have been presented two schools of thought: work into the hand right away and loopy. I have also had horses that prefer different warm ups as well as those who are more predisposed to moving leg into hand.
I tend to prefer to loopy warm up, but I could not figure out how to convince Suki to refrain from going Mach 10 at the trot without some contact. So contact it was. This made her bounce between a wretch and happy for the first 20 minutes of most rides. Finally, I gave up and decided to try a method I had seen Denny use that also reminded me of the method used to teach a dog to walk on a loose leash. Off we went, loopy rein, in half-seat (something done every ride, even in a dressage saddle) and if she got quick, "whoah." If she didn't respond, firm tug on one rein. If she blew that off, halt. If she gave me a perticularly cranky response, calmly back up. Rinse, repeat.
After a few repetitions, one rein was enough (potentially because once upon a time she had a one rein stop at the walk). Then, it was whoah by voice. This allowed her to have a looser warm up and, low and behold, a happier horse when I started picking up contact.
Note: posting on the buckle in your dressage saddle, fighting the urge to pick up contact at all, and keeping "light in the irons" is a great position reminder. Also, pulling out the old up-up-down exercise on top of it can be quite the work out while your horse doesn't suffer (versus the bribery necessary for a horse to tolerate badly sitting the trot).
* She now leads a very happy, spoiled life as a therapy horse at High Horses. Nothing pleases the anti-dressage horse more than a life lead being ridden off the halter and children ready to treat her like a princess. I am very grateful she is able to give back and have such a loving home.
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