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If you ride jumpers and you want to be good, don't jump to any
conclusions.
Frederico Caprilli (1868 to 1907) had a few things to say about jumpers
and saddles and
position.
Caprilli said to understand a jumping horse, watch a riderless horse
jumping.
(That's very clever, and something a lot of riding instructors should do,
but apparently
don't.)
That sly Italian said, "The principal lesson to be learned is that
the rider should
be at pains to allow the horse to jump with his natural movement.
Sounds exactly
like the fourth secret of perfect horsemanship: give, let go, free the
horse; in order to
be victorious in horsemanship, the rider must surrender.
Having watched a lot of riderless horses jump, Caprilli developed a new
theory, then a new
rider position, and finally, a new saddle: The Forward Seat. The
forward seat
changed the rider's position when approaching a jump from straight up to
a slight forward
incline, but "without exaggeration." And it left the
rider slightly
inclined while the horse was landing, rather than at an exaggerated
incline backward as
was the habit of the day.
Caprilli never said, "bend at the waist and throw your head and
shoulders down toward
the horse's neck and off to the side."
This practitioner of his own new theory also said, "to signal to the
horse when he is
to jump, as some people advocate, is extremely difficult, and, even if
perfectly timed,
does as a rule more harm than good...." In perfect
horsemanship the rider
asks--in the case of a jumper by showing the horse what is to be
jumped--and the horse
performs. Horse's perform best when the rider interferes the
least.
Caprilli said a capable jumper should not be interfered with, because the
good horse will
"measure his obstacle" and will decide on his own "the
strength he needs to
clear it without the rider requiring to add any more." The mediocre
jumper, Caprilli
said, can only be improved by rational and continuous practice and not
through the aids,
or violent and sudden means." That's a little tough on mankind's
ego.
What Caprilli disapproved of most was the takeover of a good horse by a
rider.
"A horse schooled on my principles knows enough, when jumping, to
realize that he is
about to need extra energy and therefore acts accordingly. Any
interference on the
part of the rider can only be harmful."
Caprilli was against "spot" jumping, and the attempts of a
rider to "put
in" and extra stride, or "stretch out" a stride.
The Italian didn't want his riders determining the point of takeoff, he
wanted the horse
to make that determination. He said, "I would like someone to
quote a single
case in which it would have been better that the horse be less
free."
Furthermore, he said, "If a horse's head is free he will look where
he puts his
feet. Scatter a few stones on the landing side and notice how
cleverly he will avoid
them."
Caprilli wrote it all down so wise riders could learn from the experience
of others.
Funny, isn't it, Xenophon, a Greek, also wrote much the same thing about
2,300 years
earlier.
And today, the same ideas are being written again in a slightly different
way.
It is a wise man who learns from experience, and a wiser man still who
learns from the
experience of others.
I don't know who said that. I just know while it was pretty clever
thing to say,
unfortunately a lot of people aren't learning from it.
It seems they are jumping to the conclusion they can't learn a lot of
horsemanship from
books. If that's true they are going to continue crashing into a
lot of jumps.
Each month you'll find a new column on our web site. We hope you'll enjoy it, and maybe
e-mail us with questions or suggestions for other
columns. A Horse, Of Course is a weekly column syndicated
by Success Is Easy. If you like the column, call your local newspaper, or local horse
publication and ask them to subscribe by contacting Success Is Easy, 13610 N. Scottsdale Rd., Suite 10-406, Scottsdale, AZ 85254
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