Riding Success

My goal, as a rider, is to be able to make every horse that I ride better. My philosophy is that ever ride (heck, every interaction with a horse) is a training situation. You are either training them to do well, or untraining the previous good that has been accomplished.

For a long time, especially when I was doing polo, I was just a passenger rider. I exercised horses, I played polo, I got them to at least listen to basic commands (stop, go, turn, etc) but that was about it.

Finally now I feel like I'm finally learning how to improve each horse I ride. I'm learning things like getting my horse collected, with proper head carriage, versus being hollow with a jacked-up head. I'm learning the basics of lateral, and how to introduce it to my horses to work on flexibility and suppleness. Recently I've been focusing on transitions, and how to get correct transitions that aren't heavy on the forehand.

I feel like I could be learning how to ride for the rest of my life, and I still would not be able to learn all there is to know. That's what I love about riding. There is always something to learn; always new disciplines to explore, and you find a lot of really successful riders are quite a bit older than what many other professional athletes (Ie, in their 40s and 50s). This gives me a lot of hope. I don't ever plan on being a professional rider, but if I want to get really good then I have a lot of time to do so!