“Remember…he hasn’t read the book.” This is a phrase I have heard from my Florida coach Lou Denizard often in the past week. What does he mean? Horses cannot read any books! And what is “the book”?
THE BOOK There is not just one dressage bible that gives you the answers to all your questions about how to ride dressage. There are dozens of books that offer many different answers. When you do shoulder-in you must have your seat this way or that way and your inside leg in such and such a position.
MY HORSE DOESN’T READ No, he does not. So he doesn’t know which is the right aid or the wrong aid. He just feels my aids and takes a shot at doing what he thinks I am asking for.
FOR EXAMPLE: The shoulder-in; the text book says that the riders weight should be on the inside and the inside leg is asking for the sideways movement and the outside leg assists in keeping the horse moving forward and sideways in the same rhythm. BUT for some horses they may respond better to the riders weight being on the outside and then they move forward and sideways as they move to stay under the rider. This is not the classic approach but for some horses it may work well.
So this past week Lou was often reminding me that Biasini has not read “the book” and I had to determine how to make my aids clear to him so he would know what I wanted. Sometimes those aids would be according to the book and sometimes not. I had to be precise with my aids and decide how to apply them to be effective with my horse not the “textbook” horse but MY horse.
Just by the way….Biasini is a horse that responds best in shoulder-in to my weight being on the outside and not the inside. I was let in to that secret by my Canadian coach Belinda Trussell who knows him well as she trained him!
My next post with ‘training tips from Lou’ will let you know about the cantilever. Yes! the cantilever point and the rider’s body. I will post about this next week. That is if I can manage to find the words to explain it. Enjoy your weekend!
HorseAddict 
I’d love to hear from you!