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Benefits of Owning a Fuzzy Quadruped

- My posture (legs, hands, back, elbows).
- My horse’s posture.
- What I’m doing at the moment.
- What I’m planning on doing next.
- Rein tension.
- Any other people riding around me.
- Rhythm.
- Keeping myself relaxed.

This list is only while walking my horse. The list gets much bigger when
I’m trotting, cantering, jumping, and let’s not even talk about when I’m doing
dressage lessons. As you go on and practice, things become natural. However,
there is always so much more to learn, and details always matter. In my case,
the more things start to become natural, the more things my trainer asks me to
do to keep me challenged. If it’s not something with my position, then it’s so-
mething that my horse should be doing better. It is no surprise that sometimes
you have to go back to the basics. Not so long ago, one of my trainers put coins
between my hands and the rains because I always hold the rains very gently,
which makes them get longer very easily. For every coin that fell off, I had to
ride five minutes without stirrups or buy my trainer an ice cream.

MAGNUS TALKS

Going back to the basics is a great way to im-
prove your riding. Once I was having a dressage lesson
and the trainer said that I didn’t know how to make
a good turn. You can imagine how bad I felt when a
tiny dressage trainer told a showjumping champion
like myself that I didn’t know how to turn. Anyway, we
practiced every day, and now I can notice the differ-
ence because I feel more comfortable, and I do better
and faster turns in showjumping competitions.

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