MAY 2006 • VOLUME 9 • ©HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

On the Walk and Hands

You know it was so long ago, I don't know who and I don't know where, I was taught that my hands, when I rode, should go with the horse. This meant that at the walk my hands should go back and forth to accompany the natural movement of the horse's head which goes up and down.

So I have always trained my horses this way, ridden this way and taught my riders the same thing. Then a couple of years ago, a couple of riders came to me that had been riding and taking lessons for years. They got up on my schooling horses, one of which is wonderfully athletic and super soft in the mouth, and who usually puts himself into a collected headset which has little to no movement, and my horses would *not* move.

I asked them what they were doing - they were sitting there kicking with their legs, my horses not moving, and their hands sitting quite quietly but not moving. They explained this was how they were trained. I shook my head in wonder at what I thought was this strange aberration.

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