Megan Ward

2009 Region 4 Gifted Scholarship Recipient, for Training in 2010

The Transformation of a Working Team

Photo courtesy of Barbara Hall

I want to start by thanking The Dressage Foundation. Thank you to Carol Lavell, the Gifted Selection Committee and The Dressage Foundation Board members and staff. Everyone was kind and helpful. I also want to thank everyone at StarWest, especially my trainers Martin and Kate and my hostess Alice. Most of all I want to thank my horse Autopilot. He is my willing teammate and a constant source of inspiration.

I am one of those ‘ladies of a certain age’ who has been horse crazy all her life but could not afford a horse until her mid thirties. I gravitated to dressage quickly and began soaking up as much knowledge as I could. I needed a suitable dressage horse but didn’t have much money. Low and behold a friend asked me to ‘rescue’ a young gelding on his way to auction. Now 12, Autopilot is an amazing horse and loves to learn. We worked with Amanda Johnson, who took a green horse/rider combo to Third Level. After she moved we turned to Anne Cizadlo, who has schooled us to FEI. I have a USDF Bronze Medal. I need one more Third Level Freestyle score for the USDF Bronze Freestyle Bar. My goal was to make Autopilot the best horse he can be. He surpassed that long ago and is making me the best rider I can be.

For the grant I chose to work with work with Kate Fleming-Kuhn and Martin Kuhn, USDF Certified Instructors at StarWest in New Berlin, Illinois.

It was great to be able to utterly immerse myself in dressage training. It seemed so self indulgent but at the end of each day I was mentally, physically and sometimes emotionally drained. What kind of DQ masochist am I?

My goal was to prepare Autopilot and I for our debut at Prix St. Georges by concentrating on these aspects:
• Create a more harmonious horse and rider team.
• Polish the test movements and overall flow.
• Improve my seat, leg and hand position.
• Make my aids accurate and invisible.

Part of creating harmony with a horse is that I needed to relinquish the workload. I find it extremely difficult to not squeeze, push, kick or nudge when I feel my horse is behind the bit. This constant barrage of body movement needed to stop.

My tension inadvertently restricted and blocked Pilot’s ability to move freely. I learned to ask and release instead of constantly holding. I had heard about relaxing muscles, going with the horse, and breathing. I know riding is a physically demanding sport but if you exert too much energy you lose the harmony between horse and rider.  I had to scale back my body language and let Pilot do the work.

Delegating is really hard. I grew up with two older brothers. I learned the way to get things done was to do it your self. So I tried to do all the movements for Pilot.  I was giving big aids for misguided reasons. I wanted to be clear to the Pilot but putting my leg back further for a half-pass didn’t help either of us. Poor guy. But after some reassignments of the workload he was willing to step up to the plate and do his job but only if I quit trying to do it for him!

Every lesson I tried to be quieter with my body and use more subtlety in my cues. Every time I use a light aid I expect a big response.

A hard mental lesson was to go with my horse even when the movement felt too big. Fear makes me back pedal. When I felt a little unbalanced I would hold him back. When I felt his back come up and under it seemed like he was ready to buck. My instinct was to stop the misbehavior. But if that power is for expressive impulsion laden gaits and I react as though it’s misbehavior, I could train the brilliance right out of Pilot. I would teach him not to offer that much power because it unnerves me. Pilot is a very willing horse and he would give me exactly what I ask for - a safe, lack luster walk, trot and canter. BORING!

Even though I have my USDF Bronze medal I still struggle with my seat. It is hard to understand exactly what to move, relax, or tense to have the perfect seat. In trying to have a quiet seat I tighten everything in my torso using the core for stability. My legs stay relaxed, wrapping around the horse like a wet towel. What should have created balance didn’t work. The upper half of me bobbed around on my seat bones while my leg muscles flopped around. I couldn’t keep my balance and actually caused my horse to lose his balance too. I needed better instruction in how to follow the horse's movements.

I had lunge line lessons on a school horse most every day. I figured some things out and am hoping I can keep it correct.  Everything was about the basics (surprise, surprise!). They fixed a lot of little details to put me on the true path of USDF sanctioned ways.

Some of the small changes that made the biggest differences came about during the lunge line work. I was carrying my right leg too far forward. But it was because I was trying too hard to keep my heel down. As I forced my heel down I pressed into my stirrup more and my leg would go forward. It went forward because I was straightening my knee to get the heel down. By taking bend out of my knee the pendulum of the stirrup had to swing forward to take the extra pressure. By remembering to relax the ankle and think about lifting my toes, instead of pushing my heel down, I was able to keep the leg at the girth.

The rider's body must be taught how to move parts of their body independently. It is easy to be set up in the correct position when the horse is still but once the horse departs the rider needs to move with the horse. One must follow the horse’s movement and still be able to influence the horse’s way of going. A rider is not a mere passenger. A rider is the driving force. I need to lead my horse but must do so by following his movement.

The great riders have those coveted invisible yet highly effective aids. It looks like the horse is doing all the work because the rider follows their mounts movements by staying quiet with their body. All the while it is the rider who is leading the horse’s performance.

Like many beginners, earlier in my riding I used the reins to help me balance because I lacked of body control. As I have improved in the isometric muscle control I do not need to balance on the reins. Having this improved control has also let me have a keener sense of how to influence the horse’s movement. By correctly using the seat and body I can guide and mold the gaits, tempo, and impulsion. A softer seat helped to lift Pilot’s back and correctly timed half halts brought out a lovely cadence to his stride.
 
In laterally in movements, like shoulder-in, I was over-flexing the neck. I was using too much inside rein and not supporting Pilot’s outside rein. He would over flex laterally anytime I asked for bend simple because I asked for too much of it. To correct this I kept him straighter. This helped to get him more engaged. As he accepted the correct engagement he began to use the upper neck muscles and shoulders. The stability of his head and neck improved greatly.

I also learned how to lunge correctly. I spent many hours with a telescoping lunge whip trying to master the location of the lash. Someday I will be able to flick the fly off the leg - for now I am happy to get somewhere in the vicinity of the horse without tripping myself up. I was able to borrow a copy of the USDF Lunging manual. I had to reread it several times and was quizzed on it the next day. Oh man. I hate pop quizzes. I think I passed and it inspired me to re-read the manual to clarify tack choices. I had always run the line through the inside bit, up over the head and attached to the outside bit ring. I thought this was kinder to the horse’s mouth but it can actually create a gag effect if the line is taut. A kinder way is to simply attach the lunge line to the inside bit ring. I thought this was harsher because the bit could slide through the horse’s mouth but when you have the side reins properly affixed that does not happen. Plus, it is so much faster to change directions when all you have to do is unsnap and snap. The threading line through a bit ring takes longer, especially if the horse is shaking his head, fidgeting and sizing up your hands as a possible sugar dispensary.

I have a new outlook for Pilot and I. It’s teamwork. Every ride is a training session. Even a hack through the fields is a time to reinforce that with a quiet seat I am the boss and he is the worker bee. I know how to get him pumped up by following his movement instead of trying to do it for him. I know I must keep insisting he listen to my quieter aids and let him show me how he can use his power for the good of the team.