United States Eventing Association

Winter Challenge

*The Natural Rider: A Right-Brain Approach to Riding*

By Mary Wanless (Trafalgar 1987)

There is no cover picture because it's not about one particular book, it's about finally reading that book you have been intending to read for years. This was mine. I challenge you to while away the filthy winter weather reading yours. Unless you are headed off to Florida, in which case, your hands will be too slippery with sunscreen to hold a book.

As much as I admire Wanless, 300+ pages of theory is a slog. I had to work at the book as if it were required reading in college. More correctly, as I should have worked at my college books. But that was another century. There are downsides to consuming a book the way a snake consumes a mouse. When an author has a unifying theory, each separate instance comes back to the same information, again and again. Also, inward reflection and suggested exercises become casualties of the relentless march toward the finish. Finally, the brain can only retain so much before data starts leaking back out. The ideal would be methodically and studiously processing one a chapter at a time.

What is the upside of storming through all those pages? First, you get the entire theory at once instead of bits & pieces. Second, you develop a feeling for the author's voice. Third, later ideas may illuminate early issues or sheer repetition may drive a point home. Fourth, momentum. However, do not make the mistake of taking a break for a novel. You will have to recreate your momentum all over again. Fifth, git 'er done. If the regular monthly installments were ever going to happen, the book would not have been sitting in that pile glaring at you.

What did I learn? When I tried to integrate what I was reading with the directives from my last dressage lesson, I lost my grip on both. The pieces were from two different parts of the puzzle. However, at my next lesson we had the best trot the mare and I had ever done. The instructor's words, not mine. Coincidence? Causation? The world may never know. We have all heard the earnest, self-improvement reasons for reading riding theory. Here's mine – if I am going to have incessant, internal yapping in my head, it might as well be useful information.

In the event that this book is on your to do list, many of the ideas have been explored and accepted in the intervening 22 years. Ride kinesthetically rather than analytically. In other words, think about the whole horse and the feel rather than leg here, hand here, toes over there. Secondly, body position is all. Get your pelvis in the right position and your half passes will flow like water. For instructors, Wanless talks about teaching styles and how to get through to students.

A limitation is that her specific critiques appear to be aimed at a rider who drops back and hangs on the reins. She constantly invokes the need to sit forward with a specific pinch feeling in the seat. From what I've seen in bad UK riding books, this appears to be how British riders start out – effective but in the back seat. Americans, on the other hand, start out with hunter/jumper. At its best this leads to what used to be called American Style. At its worst, we need to sit down, shorten the reins and stop leaning over our horses' necks.

What's in your pile?