The
Centerline
Arizona Dressage Association
Vol. 15, Issue 7
www.azdressage.org
July 2015
Three Germans and a Hungarian Walked into an Arena . . . (Part 2 of “Put Me In Coach”) By Susan Downs Parrish, Ph.D.
This is the second part of “Put Me in Coach.” I planned for this half to include a summary of notes taken during “A Balancing Act: ‘riding with your horse’s health in mind,’” a symposium/clinic presented by Gerd Heuschmann, DVM, on May 16, at the Tucson Fair Grounds. I really was going to write a summary, then life happened. I’d say sorry, but it would be a lie. Part one described how Dr. Heuschmann’s ideas influenced my warm-up. Now I’ll tell you how he changed what follows the warm-up. My path hasn’t been a straight line. Irony abounds in this statement, but you will have to read on to get it. During the clinic portion of the symposium, Heuschmann spent time on each rider’s rein contact. He encouraged soft hands. Soft hands maintain steady contact and they reward a horse for seeking the bit. In Das Gymnasium des Pherdes (one of Heuschmann’s favorite books), Gusta Steinbrecht refers to the power of the yielding hand. Charles de Kunffy has an easy-to-remember phrase: “the leg energizes, the seat modifies, and the hand verifies.” Steinbrecht explains that the old masters started young horses with the reins attached to the nose band rather than the rings of a snaffle bit. On reading these words, an image popped into my head: Gerd Zuther tying the rings of my snaffle to the cavesson during a lesson a couple of years ago. We were working on canter half-pass and Maronda refused to stay on the bit. With two pieces of string, Zuther changed my contact with Maronda’s mouth, and the half-pass improved. Overwhelmed by the thought that maybe my hands were hopeless, I failed to grasp the significance of this experience. Trying to recall the feel of the reins, my thoughts drifted to a more recent event, watching a video of Charles de Kunffy working with students in California. He told the rider to anchor her hand to the pommel of the saddle. In this way, he changed her contact with the horse’s mouth. In that moment, I realized that Zuther gave me a chance to experience correct contact, soft and steady. He neutralized a natural tendency to do too much with my hands.
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