Coquin - february 17, 2009

Large indoor arena. Cold weather. Coquin's owner offered me to try her new dressage saddle. I have mostly ridden so far on my old English hunting saddle and I like it for dressage because it is very close to the horse. It is rather flat, and has no knee-blocks, which leaves a lot of freedom to seat and legs position. Of course, I had occasions to use dressage saddles, but was never thrilled. This time, it just produced the same effect. I felt like blocked in this saddle, which is very hollow between pommel and cantle. I must say in addition that it was probably too small for me anyway. The huge knee-blocks added to this discomfort.
Notwithstanding this issue, I tried the approach taken by B. that I mentionned in an earlier post, i.e not pushing the horse forward strongly at the beginning of the session. It did not work very well with me I must admit. Walk was fine, with good engagement and bending in shoulder-ins. But I did not get a steady ramener at trot. Either the angle head vs. neck was too wide, or the head and neck too low. I used 'jambes sans mains, mains sans jambes', which I hold as a key principle that I have been applying for so long. In retrospect, I believe this was not a good idea in this scheme, because forwardness was not sufficient. My previous approach did provide forwardness at the beginning, and it was there for the all session afterwards. This approach, I suspect requires legs 'pushing the horse on the bit', which is something I do not favor as being often detrimental to lightness. So my conclusion is that B. might do this, albeit very skillfully and discreetly, so much so that it did not jump to my mind at first observation.
The canter session was not bad, and the ramener better, because I did use legs more strongly to get sufficient energy in the strides.
This session was useful though, in spite of the frustration because I could draw two conclusions:
-do not use the wrong saddle (!)
-do not forget that with a cold horse like Coquin, forwardness is the main point of focus. Either you install it right at the beginning, in the old military style via brisk posting trot with strong leg aids, or you get a surrogate to it by combining actions of hand and legs with a degree of opposition. The latter is mixing up collection and impulsion, and is not compatible with Baucher's 2nd manner. I believe it is not for me, because of my background training and culture. But I have to acknowledge that B. does get beautiful things out of it...