Leg On Eventing

05/07/2025

We’ve got a bigger rig! Keep an eye out for us and don’t be afraid to come say hi!

05/06/2025

I've come to the conclusion that you never really know someone...until you see their horse get loose at a show.

It started with a sound, a metallic clink, a frantic scramble, a saddle pad catching the wind like a pirate flag.

Then came the cry.
From somewhere across the warm-up ring, in agonizing slow motion:
"WE HAVE A RUUUUUUUUUUUUNAWAAAAY!!"

Heads whipped around.
Parents clutched their children.
No one knows their true athletic potential until they hear the words, 'Hey... isn't that your horse?'
You can train for years, lift weights, run marathons... but nothing unlocks your final form like seeing your horse loose on the showgrounds.
A woman dropped her tall Caramel Macchiato with extra whip, and ran.

It was her horse.
Of course it was her horse.
The same horse who, just this morning, had refused to walk past a puddle.
Now galloping with the chaotic grace of a drunk pegasus.

And she, who normally needed three reminders to pick up the canter, became a heat-seeking missile with a lead rope.

Gone was the woman who once needed encouragement to "be a little quicker off the aids."

In her place:
Jason Bourne with breeches.
A suburban gazelle.
A tactical unit fueled solely by sheer, primal horror.

She hurdled hay bales and small children.
She slid under a sponsors banner like an action hero escaping an explosion.
She parkoured off a mounting block like she'd trained her whole life for this single, stupid moment.

The horse zigged. She zagged.
The crowd gasped.
Someone’s Great Aunt Cheryl fainted near the Porta-Potties.

And just when it seemed the gods of chaos would win,
she launched herself, full Superman form, grabbed the reins, skidded fifteen feet across the gravel, and stuck the landing like an Olympic gymnast with an unpaid vet bill.

Silence.
A single folding chair toppled in the breeze.
Then, scattered applause.

She stood up, hair full of footing, eyes wild, holding her horse like a Viking brandishing a captured enemy.

Some say she never even warmed up after that.
She just dusted herself off, tacked up, saluted the judge, and went straight down centerline, and pulled off the best test of her life.

All we know is you don’t choose to be a hero.
Sometimes, your horse chooses for you.

04/15/2025

Most riding students today start their lessons at a discipline centered barn. Few of these barns begin with the fundamentals of general riding such as balance. Instead, these discipline focused programs teach the forms and positions of their specific discipline. This leaves voids in their training that they discover many years later when they try to switch to some other discipline or type of riding.

The best way to teach riding begins with teaching the fundamentals of horsemanship. In addition to riding, driving or other activities, authentic horsemanship includes teaching basic elements of horse care and horse training. For example, the first thing I teach new students about horse training is that we are always training or untraining a horse when we ride. Regarding horsemanship horse care, I teach basics like getting a horse out of a pasture, how to safely approach a horse, hoof cleaning, careful saddling and bridling, as well as how to do a simple assessment of a horse's condition and state of mind that they are about to ride.

Effective riding instruction begins with having the student add new skills or tools to the student's equestrian toolbox. Balance comes first. Much later, when a student develops an effective balanced seat, we stop adding tools and refine their use of their acquired tools so as to help them achieve unity of balance and movement with their horse.

Once they achieve a degree of unity, we stop adding new tools unless new tools are required for specific discipline. Much later, when the student learns to ride consistently in unity, we optimize the use of their acquired tools to allow them to do more with less. Optimization of their acquired tools eventually expands the range of some tools' applications such that the applications overlap with other of their tools' uses. This is when we begin to remove tools from their toolbox because they can do more with fewer tools.

I believe that the elevated fear and the many injuries riders experience today are the result of having never learned the fundamentals of balance and shared movement with a horse. Instead, they learned to be a Hunter Jumper, or a Reiner, or some other specialty without ever establishing a solid, effective, balanced seat. They are rightfully fearful and get hurt because balance is essential, and it should be established before learning specialized methods.

basic related post on safely approaching a horse -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02sP2HpSPwofCPTcoa6J9ziob4Y1dhbvUWpfBiA9bJUZmADwQBqRKn6VjMUjqxtpcYl

related post beginning riders stirrups length -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02973AXNj7tcRCTrr6s9WQASUtLA3rJSGmSnXc6gwyFasQTtMyQWdivRsd63htxJidl

related post for advanced riders -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02tfc9K6eQSzFgRzigsGUnvypafbnsFhf4PBNqjrEnFR9eo2daoaMnkbFY1Af9zQBdl

04/10/2025

Professional Amateurs, Amateur Professionals.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been lucky to spend a lot of time shadowing some of the best coaches in the world, and watching how the best riders in the world train and work with their horses.
Officially, the difference between an amateur rider and a professional rider is that one rides for pleasure and one rides for payment - but I’m a massive believer in that amateur riders can ride like professionals.

The key differences:

1️⃣ Stay in the moment.. Amateurs are led by emotion vs Professionals are led by logic.

2️⃣ Choose your hard.. Amateurs want it to feel good/easy now, which can make for hard later down the line vs Professionals will work hard now with the hope it’ll make the next ride easier.

3️⃣ Setting yourself up for success.. Amateur riders usually wait for an opportunity vs Professionals create opportunities, they make things happen.

4️⃣ Pilot/passenger.. Amateurs are usually led by the horse vs Professionals lead the way.

5️⃣ Forward thinking.. Amateurs are usually 1 step behind the horse, or the course, vs Professionals are usually 2 steps ahead.

6️⃣ Ready4Trouble.. Amateur riders start to anticipate an issue vs Professionals acknowledge there may be an issue, are ready for it, but stick to the plan until it happens.

7️⃣ A good dressage judge.. Amateur riders tend to sit on a 6.5 pressure scale (not enough when needed, too much when not needed) vs Professionals will go up to a 9 and down to a 3.

8️⃣ Subtlety.. Amateurs will often use 1 big aid, wait, then apply 1 big aid vs Professionals will continuously be working the power, balance and softness every stride.

9️⃣ Expectation.. Amateurs will often settle for ‘good enough’ vs Professionals will always strive for 1 better.

🔟 Balance.. Amateur riders will be dependant on the horses balance vs Professionals will be completely independent.

1️⃣1️⃣ Stick to the plan. Especially XC and with young horses, Amateurs will try to put the horse on the line and go with them vs Professionals put themselves on the line, and bring the horses with them.

1️⃣2️⃣ Reaction time. Timing of an aid is critical, by the time an Amateur has applied an aid or corrected a mistake, Professionals will have already moved onto the next thing.

1️⃣3️⃣ World Class Basics. Horses learn by repetition, often we think as you go up the levels it’s all about fancy movements and jumping big jumps, but 90% of the time Professionals will continuously be chipping away at the basics.

I asked Chris Bartle last year what makes the guys at the top so good, and he said ‘in the moment, they are willing to do what is necessary, not what they would like to do’.

A BE90/100 rider that has a full time office job outside of horses can ride like a professional, whilst still riding for pleasure (and I’m lucky to work with lots of them).
Having 20 horses in your yard does not make you a professional.

👊🏽
‘That makes you look like an amateur’
‘You rode that like an absolute pro’

03/31/2025

Horse centered horsemanship explains the correct way to do everything with horses. However, today the separation and isolation of the disciplines has fractured authentic horsemanship into many different pieces. Horses are harmed by having to deal with the countless different ways everyone handles them today. The result is horses must constantly be vigilant against threats as they are forced to adapt so many different methods for doing the same thing like approaching a horse. This post is about the correct way to approach a horse so that the horse feels safe and comfortable.

When everyone approaches a horse in the same way, the horse experiences familiar actions. Familiarity is comfortable. I know people feel entitled to say, "I do it my own way. It's my horse." This ignores the fact that at most stables there are many people who handle your horse. And even if you keep your horse at home, someday you might have to sell your horse, and your horse will be forced to adjust to the next owner's methods.

Image (1) shows the correct way to approach a horse, from the side at the shoulder followed with a touch to the shoulder. This is the least threatening to the horse, and it keeps you in the safest location where a horse has difficulty biting or kicking you in defense of your approach.

Image (2) shows the next step of sliding your hand onto the horse's neck at a place just ahead of the shoulder while you continue to stand at the shoulder, the safest place.

Image (3) shows how we slide our hand up the neck toward the poll. You can see that this horse raises their head and steps backward to get away from the trainer's hand. The trainer remains in the safe place should the horse pop up or strike forward in defense against the human touching. By repeatedly touching the horse's neck by sliding the hand up toward the poll, starting by the shoulder each time, the horse becomes familiar with human touch and becomes less sensitive to it.

Image (4) shows the turning point where the horse accepts human touch. The trainer has comfortably moved his hand up the neck to the level of the horse's eye. Next, while leaving his right hand there, he reaches up to place his left hand on the horse's face just below the eyes. He then slides his left hand down the face to the nose. When a horse allows you to do this approach sequence to this point, you have developed early trust.

Image (5) is after establishing basic early trust. The goal then becomes touching the ears. To accomplish this, the left hand remains on the horse's nose (not shown). Or we grab the halter with the left hand (shown) while the right hand returns to the neck, and we slide our right hand up to the base of the ear by the poll.

Image (6) shows the final step of touching the horse's ears. This is the sequence I learned as a boy in the 1950s. This was the standard method used by the military, which back then was everyone's ideal or standard. When everyone used this method, horses saw humans as more predictable and safer to be around. Today with everyone approaching a horse in different ways, horses are forced to be hyper vigilant to protect themselves from the unknown. This creates anxiety in horses.

For example, approaching a horse from the front, eye to eye, is often interpreted as a potential threat. I see this all the time today and it is dangerous. We never want to be or appear to be a threat to a horse. We do not want to cause anxiety in horses. We want to do the opposite. We always want to make them comfortable.

By following proven methods like this that consider the horse's potential reactions, we do a service to horses. It is important to remember that there is no set time schedule for teaching a horse this approach sequence. With some prospects you might get through all six steps in one day. With others, you might have to take a few days for each step, which means it might take weeks. If we try to force any of the steps, it just adds time to the training period because we have more resistance to overcome.

By using uniform standards of horsemanship like this we make the horse's life easier and safer as well as our own. Using personal idiosyncratic methods creates circumstances of inconsistency and this can be threatening to horses.

*Check out my new YouTube channel. The link to my channel is in the ABOUT section of this page, or you can go to YouTube and put in the search line. Facebook shuts down the reach of any post with a YouTube link in it because they compete with Google in the video and reel space.

02/25/2025

Credits to Naomi Tavian for this one.

02/06/2025

We're not crazy.

Hours of training come down to three minutes in the ring. Months of preparation come down to eight minutes on course. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds come down to six minutes riding a page of movements.

What you see is three minutes in the ring, a six minute test or an eight minute run. You see that rider being judged on a matter of seconds, seconds that they have worked days, weeks, months, even years for.

But what you don't see is the rider sat up in the stable for night after night, wishing, praying and willing their horse to eat after colic surgery.

You don't see the rider sitting in a vet's reception, filling out yet another set of insurance claim forms, knowing that the claim will be rejected and what little savings had built up since the last vet bill would soon vanish.

You don't see the rider who works 14 hour days but always heads to the yard after work to lunge or ride and put their horse to bed for the night, despite the fact they haven't eaten all day.

You don't see the rider who invests every single penny they have into lessons and training because they couldn't afford a schoolmaster and had to settled for a half-cracked reject horse with a whole bunch of ''quirks''.

You don't see the rider who sits on the edge of their bed each night and worries they aren't doing enough, they aren't training enough, they aren't spending enough, that they aren't good enough.

You see seconds of a horse and rider, what you don't see are the parts that matter the most. The hard work, the blood, sweat, tears, the horses we lost, the horses we saved, the horses who saved us...

Friends, partners, long suffering husbands and family spend years watching us chasing goals and dreams only to find that, when we achieve them, we just raise the bar a little higher a start all over again because we don't give up, we always want just a little bit more.

You don't understand what we do, you don't have a passion that sets your soul on fire, you don't have huge dreams that are scary just to think about, you're the ones who call us crazy.

But looking at you, living a life without a passion, a life without dreams...well, from where we're stood, you're the crazy ones.

© cromwellandlucy ©

Photo credit: The Eventing Dentist taken by Dave Cameron Photography

01/25/2025

Do you understand?

01/17/2025