December 5, 2015 
Why do show hunters, equitation riders and horse show pleasure riders so often lope along in that “dead zone” canter?
Part of the answer must be that the slower, more sluggish the canter/lope, and the less impulsion that the horse creates, the less “threatening” the gait must feel to those who are afraid of speed and energy.
That’s why kids need to be turned loose on ponies, preferably bareback, when they are young, supple and gutsy so they don’t grow up with so much damn paralyzing fear. Horses gallop, and any rider who even pretends to think of himself/herself as a “good rider” ought to be able to gallop with balance and self assurance.
©Tamarack Hill Farm
I don’t get any equitation class that doesn’t ask to see the whole rider. Equitation ought to mean the ability to ride the whole horse, not some attenuated, restricted version.
If I were designing equitation classes that actually meant anything, those kids would get stretched, not coddled in some damn little fenced arena, so their little anxieties can be assuaged.
Want to be a rider? Go do it all, not some safe little drug or strong bit or enclosed arena or all of the above induced fake versions of what horses can do.
Seriously, learn to ride, kids, if you want to be “equitation champions”, where that term means anything. That will include fast galloping, sitting the gaits without bouncing, as well as jumping anything out there that horses can handle.
If the horse can do it, you should be able to do it, too.
King Oscar ©Tamarack Hill Farm
So I’ll make a deal with any equitation kids (or their mothers or coaches) who get offended by what I say about needing to be brave riders in order to be worthy of being considered good riders is this: I did this with Oscar when I was 55-56. All they have to do to shut me up is do it at 18,19, 20, when they ought to be twice as gutsy as I was.
Simple challenge:
I don’t read all the glowing reports of equitation finals or buy the Kool-Aid because I want to see what they can do on a horse that’s hard as well as pretty. As the saying goes, “Show me, don’t tell me.” Go do it, and that will convince me and shut me up.
Here’s a Medal/Maclay winner who could do it all, Bernie Traurig, at a steeplechase race meet in Southern Pines in 1964.
Bernie Traurig
Be brave, kids, do the whole enchilada—then call yourself a “great rider” (like Bernie).
In no way am I against equitation classes. After all, these three equitation winners, Plumb, Traurig and Page, also became international level event riders. Many of our best USET jumpers were eq winners as kids.
Mike Plumb
Bernie Traurig
Mike Page
What I am against is the idea that eq classes are an end in and of themselves, rather than a jumping off place to learning how to get good in the real world.
I advocated in a “Between Rounds” a few years ago that eventing institute some kind of eq division, and got shot down by dozens of whiners who want to flob-a-dop around up there, apparently.
Use equitation to develop correct basics, then take that good base out there into the big scary world and build on that.
About the Author
Named “One of the 50 most influential horsemen of the Twentieth Century” by The Chronicle of the Horse, Denny Emerson was elected to the USEA Hall of Fame in 2005. He is the only rider to have ever won both a gold medal in eventing and a Tevis Buckle in endurance. He is the author of “How Good Riders Get Good“, and continues to ride and train from his Tamarack Hill Farm in Vermont and Southern Pines, NC.
