The Art of Riding
A SERIES OF ARTICLES BY BERT HARTOG

Part 4: The Seat and It's Influence

When riders refer to 'the seat', the tendency is to think of the bottom in the saddle. But, of course, our whole upper body is used to influence the horse.

Imagine carrying a person piggyback who is moving around unnecessarily; how difficult will it be for you to move in a balanced way. So, the rider must sit still with a seat that follows the movement of the horse harmoniously. He must not move more than the horse. Any extra movement of the rider if it is not in harmony will go against the horse.

In the previous article about rein contact, I mentioned following the mouth passively. Now too, we must learn to follow the horse passively before we use our seat as an aid in the movement.

We describe it as a good seat when the rider sits upright. There must be a straight line through the ears, shoulders, hips and heels. The seat is tucked under. An upright seat means vertically to the ground, not the horse.

A young horse is on the forehand; it seems to be going down hill, and this makes the rider lean forward. When the rider sits vertically to the ground, he seems to be leaning backwards because the forehand is lower than the croup with the green horse.

Most women have a hollow back, so it is especially important for them to tilt the pelvis backwards and sit on their seatbones. By tucking the seat under we straighten the spine and avoid back aches. It also makes it possible to sit upright (and not forward). Sitting on the seatbones with a slightly titled pelvis also allows the rider to follow the movement of the back of the horse and above all, the influence of the centre of gravity of the rider is now directed to the hindquarters.

The length of the stirrup must not be too long. The ideal length is to the ankle bone when the leg is stretched downwards. With a young horse who is not yet well balanced it is better to ride a hole or two shorter.

By sitting upright, we encourage the quarters to engage (step under more). The engagement of the quarters is the beginning of balance. Green horses have more weight on the forehand, and with his seat the rider encourages the horse to shift some weight from the forehand to the quarters. This way the weight distribution becomes more even.

Our seat with the help of our legs controls the quarters. Once we control the quarters we control the horse. Once the rider sits correctly, the horse will place himself correctly under the rider and become more balanced

It seems strange that our small body can influence such a large animal. The young (or untrained) horse will not make it easy for us to sit correctly. He has difficulty carrying us and throws us forward. The rider must correct his position every two or three strides and make himself sit upright again each time he finds he is leaning forward.

After a few months the horse will find it easier to carry his rider. The legs also slide forward because the horse is on the forehand. We need to check them every two strides. When the rider's legs are forward, he can no longer sit upright as he will lean forward to move his centre of gravity above his heels again.

Try this easy check to see if you are sitting upright. Drop your arms loosely to the ground (absolutely no effort), and see if they hang straight down. First try it on the ground. Ballet dancers extend their arms horizontally sideways, index fingers out and look left and right to see if the arms are in extension of one another. This also puts your head above your centre of gravity. Now drop your arms and enjoy this upright and balanced feeling. Lower arms can now be taken forward to take the reins and away you go; Grand Prix rider in the making!!

When the rider leans forward, the horse will not engage the quarters. There will be no improvement in the way the horse balances himself and in the strength of the quarters. There is no point in starting to influence the horse until he has developed muscles with which to carry us.

How to create those muscles? Long and Slow!

Long: A young horse should be ridden on a long rein. There must be a light contact with the mouth. Try to feel just the tongue. The long outline encourages long strides with maximum shoulder movement. Once a free shoulder movement is established it will stay for life. Take time to build these foundations.

Slow: One sees athletes doing running exercises on the spot to loosen up. Try this for comparison: Run on the spot with a very quick leg action. You will find the body hardly moves up and down, but we make a lot of leg movement. Now move slowly from one leg to the other. The body bounces up and down. But there is also a lot more effort in the calf muscles. When the horse moves slowly, he, too, has to move up and forward. A quick movement encourages the horse to fall forward and therefore on the forehand. Slow movement encourages the horse to take more weight on the quarters and move with more bounce.

With the upright seat we also encourage the horse to engage; now we have two influences to strengthen the quarters. When we, in the early stages encourage the horse to stride with a slow rhythm, it will be easier to progress to extended trot, half pass or piaffe, without becoming grounded and losing expression.

To keep the trot slow yet give the horse maximum shoulder movement, the rider must stay low in the saddle in the rising trot. He must not push his seat forward over the pommel with a large movement like children on ponies. When the rider pushes his seat over the pommel and/or leans forward, he will force the horse on the forehand. The horse will quicken the stride and therefore his movement will flatten out. If we rise too far forward, the horse has already taken the next stride before we have with our seat. The consequence may be that the horse appears lame because of our exaggerated movement, which is repeated every stride. Stay low in the saddle.

When the horse feels like he is becoming too lazy, send him forward with your legs alternately left... right... Do not hop harder up and down to make him go more forward. In that situation, the only one working harder is the rider. Moreover we get out of time with the horse, which has more a braking effect than a driving effect.

Don't be surprised if after a short period of time the horse is quite tired. We seem to be doing nothing, but, believe me, it is hard work for the horse. Slowly but surely the horse will become stronger. We are creating an elegant large striding horse with lots of bounce, elastic movement throughout the horse and a swinging back He starts to move like a gymnast.

However, the horse can only do this when we have an allowing, supple and following seat and an allowing hand.

Half Halts:: The half halt is a momentary slowing down of the horse with the purpose of increasing the attention and the engagement of the horse. There are many ways of achieving this. We will discuss now how we can achieve this with our seat. When the rider asks for a half halt he must sit taller by stretching the upper body.

Raise the sternum (breast bone) by taking a deep breath. (Don't stand in the stirrups). This action changes our centre of gravity and encourages the horse to step under more. The horse will find it more difficult to move, with increased bend in the stifle and the hocks, and will slow down. Now send the horse forward again in the rhythm he had before the half halt. The half halt strengthens the quarters of the horse. When the horse slows down he brings the quarters under more and this increases his weight carrying capacity. When he pushes forward again the propelling muscles are strengthened. If the half halt is effected with the seat alone, it increases the balance of the horse, as we are not helping him with the rein.

Half halts are usually made in preparation for an exercise - eg. change of direction, change of pace - but they must be made regularly to keep the horse balanced. Each time the horse gets heavier in the hands, make a half halt and he will lighten in the contact. Half halts must become part of the rider's routine.

Our seat is an important aid to influence the horse. Let's experiment some more with our seat. We will try to make a downward transition from trot to walk by using our seat only. The sequence of our actions should be as follows: (bearing in mind that the horse cannot receive five signals at the same time, nor are we able to do five things at once, so one follows another)

1. Are we sitting truly upright?

2. Make a half halt by stretching up with the upper body.

3. Now slow down your rising trot (when we always follow the horse in harmony and then move slower than the horse, he will adjust to us).

4. Sink into the stirrups as the hindlegs are moving forward left and right. This action encourages the hindlegs to step forward more, which he needs to do to slow down. This is another type of half halt.

5. Close the knees. Our knees are normally only wrapped around the saddle without firm pressure. Now we apply firm pressure and it becomes a slowing aid.

The rider should try not to pull on the reins. He must become more dependant on the seat. However the rider must maintain contact with the mouth as most horses like to get a little physical support from the rider's hands in the transition. In this article we have concentrated on the seat as used to slow the horse down. We need this slowing down to make the quarters work, engage, carry and propel.

Our seat can also work forwards. This is never done with a lot of movement in the saddle. This only rubs a hole in our jodhpurs. Sit still and tuck the seat under, that is the best way to ride the horse forward and help the legs. Let us not make horse riding any more difficult than it is! Our legs create impulsion; our hands guide this impulsion and our seat controls the quarters and the rhythm of the horse. Keep it this simple for now.

When we start to do exercises with the horse we will discover many more ways to influence the horse with our seat, reins and legs, and when! First find harmony with the movement of the horse. To keep the horse from running on is only a preventative measure. When we have slowed down the horse to the point where we have to push him, then and - only then, we start creating. When we have to push the horse forward we can develop a brilliant rounded stride.

Have a nice ride!

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"Hi, I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Let me tell you; they are just a point of view. I did not invent horse riding or dressage. I wrote them to share my experiences in training horses with other riders. Tell me what you think!"

My email address is bhartog@horseridingcoach.com