I was riding my Connemara Ozzie over the last few days and he taught me an important horse riding lesson that will improve my riding skills for years to come. 

When I use any type of cue – whether that’s a rein adjustment, a weight change in the saddle, looking in a different direction, moving one or both legs, or any other type of cue you use – you must not increase the level of tension in your body. 

I’ll explain it all now 🙂 When we ride our horses, we are looking for lots of qualities. Accuracy, precision, athletic ability, focus, confidence, relaxation, performance and so on. 

But the cornerstone upon which all successful riding partnerships are built on is relaxation, confidence & trust. 

Let’s take a look at a real life horse riding example. 

You are riding your horse. Everything is going beautifully. You are doing a beautiful circle in trot on your horse. There is a lovely consistent rhythm & your horse’s feet are landing very lightly on the ground. Your horse is happy & relaxed, and their body echoes the arc of the circle they are travelling on. Your body is relaxed and your breathing is slow & regular. Everything looks good. You’ve been practising your lateral work & shoulder in, and there is a lovely gentle end through your whole horses’s body.

Then someone appears in the distance, and your horse loses focus. They look towards the strange person, the gentle arc through their body disappears, and the connection with you is lost for a few moments. 

So you think – ‘AHA, I need to get my horse focused on me again, and to reestablish the bend in his body again’. So there are certain cues & manoeuvres I would use in this situation, but there’s probably 10000 ways to do this, depending who you talk to. 

But there is one thing you want to avoid, regardless of what cue or new movement you want to introduce to establish that gentle bend & focus. 

When applying the new cue, strategy or movement, you MUST not in any way increase tension in your own body. 

Any rise in tension (I’m talking tensing up your leg, tightening your fingers, frowning, etc), will directly negatively impact your horse. Horses are very sensitive creatures, so they pick up the good stuff but also the bad stuff. 

So then instead of needing to fix a loss of focus & a change in bend in your horse, now you also have to fix an increase in brace & tension in your horse too!

It can be hard to think of all of this in the moment while you are horse riding. I actually recommend that before you ride your horse, you spend 5 or 10 minutes doing some liberty horse training.

But while riding might take you 30 or 60 minutes, I do truly believe that THINKING about how you rode and how you deal with different situations should take you 1-2 hours per day! And that’s exactly what happened with Ozzie & I. 

We were working on softness & bend, Ozzie was doing great but then he lost focus & we lost the bend. 

I felt the change immediately and applied a cue to fix it, but in hindsight at the specific moment I also unwittingly created some tension in my body. 

So instead of just fixing the focus issue, then I also had to take a moment to fix the tension issue I had unwittingly caused. When we stood still a few moments later, Ozzie had a rest & I analysed what had happened. 

Then I realised my mistake, and the powerful horse riding lesson Ozzie had just taught me. 

Any movements your body makes, when you are horse riding, must not cause any brace or tension in your body. 

And if they do…ask yourself, how can I fix this situation in a different way. 

Perhaps there is a different exercise, a different strategy, maybe you could add in a fun polework exercise or a different approach you can use instead. 

Because the more your horse can feel your body staying calm & relaxed in the saddle, no matter what gait you are in, or what cues you are using, or what transitions you are doing, the more they can offer you trust, softness & lightness. 

Looking back, can you identify any situations when you were riding that you unwittingly increased the tension & bracing (even just a tiny bit) in your body?

Let me know in the comments.