Biggest riding pet peeve.
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| Thumbs on top! |
So for this prompt, I'm thinking it means what bugs you the most when you see other people ride? For me, I'd have to say just poor riding or riders who are rude to either their horses or other people. Kicking and yanking on your horse's mouth repeatedly for apparently no good reason is not ok.
I strongly dislike poor equitation: seeing people (people who have been riding for years and compete) not have their heels down and have flat, "puppy paws/piano hands" when riding. These two things seem like such fundamental pieces of equitation and are usually so simple to fix, and I hate when people don't take the effort to correct these small things, especially in a competion setting.
Hyperflexion is another pet peeve (I'm not talking about LDR/Rollkur, that's a whole nother topic in and of itself!) but simply riders that may not realize that being behind the vertical is not desirable or don't realize that they are behind the vertical. Usually this is because they are too active/heavy with their hands or have inadvertently taught their horse to avoid contact by over flexing. To fix this all you have to do is have someone watch you or video tape you so that you can see/feel when they are behind the vertical and when they are properly flexed. Oh and please don't refer to your horse as being collected when they are simply flexing at the poll! A "headset" is not all the constitutes collection.
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| Granted, this is only one snapshot in time, but this horse is very overbent. |
My broken wrists are currently a big problem for me, unfortunately they aren't that easy to fix. Sure, physically turning my thumbs up isn't hard, but the dang things keep falling back down. Retraining years worth of bad muscle memory isn't easy.
ReplyDeleteMy pet peeve is a heavy handed rider. I admit that my equitation is far from perfect and I need to work on some things, but I think the best part about my riding is that I'm very gentle with the reins - I wouldn't like someone yanking on my mouth!
ReplyDeleteHeels down is a no brainer! Even when I was a little girl I knew that one and it does annoy me when I see people showing that can't put their heels down.
I think my biggest issue with riding is that I sometimes grab the saddle when going into the canter. I never used to, but when I started riding again, for some reason I started doing that as well. It's all in my head, I know that, because realistically I can sit a buck better when I don't hold the saddle and it's not as though my horse bucks a lot. I'm working on it and I had nearly stopped completely at one point, but then I lost some confidence and started again - it's a bad habit but I am getting better with it.
@Smazourek - at least you're trying! And I completely understand, muscle memory can be super hard to retrain.
ReplyDelete@Megan - aha! I'm glad someone agrees with the heels down thing :)
I think everyone has their little equitation faults. Mine developed while working with Jetta - leaning too far forward, almost in a half seat. While I feel like it helps me maintain control and be ready for any bucks thrown my way, it certainly isn't pretty or correct!