Riding Intuitively

I used to get my horse saddled, walk into the arena, glance at my watch, and then ride for an hour. I had some vague concept of a warm up, and what I wanted to work on, and then a cool down. But it had to be an hour. Sometimes, it was more. But I used my watch to tell me whether we were finished.

These days I ride a lot more intuitively. That is, I consult my intuition. Regarding everything.

I get my horse saddled and walk into the arena. Then I stop and listen to what my intuition tells me to do. Sometimes, I will walk my horse in hand a bit before getting on. I get on and again listen to my intuition. It might tell me to walk two 20m circles. But those two circles have to be perfect. Then I might change direction, and do three 20m circles. Then we might do some circles in trot. or go large, or do some turns on the forehand. And finally, my intuition will tell me that we are finished.

The beauty of riding like this is that you become a lot more in tune with your horse. Your riding is much calmer. You become a lot more focussed on the task at hand - which, oddly enough, is exactly what your horse is focussed on. And you search for perfection in your current task, because you don't know if that's the last task for the day or not.

When I ride Gally in this manner, he responds like a pro. He is keen to cooperate with me, and try and do what I am asking. In fact, his willingness to move away from my leg has astounded me. (Remember, this is a horse that was labelled "bomb proof" by my coach, and "a bit lazy" by my trainer.) Since I have started riding Gally in this manner, his progress has just astounded me.

(Usually these work outs last somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes. But it's all very high quality work.)