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LESSONS TODAY were all about the trot. The trot is a rhythmic two-beat gait and is the next natural gait up from the walk (unless you are a pacey pacey standie, like Billy/Max/Major/Archer). In a trot, the horse’s legs move in diagonal pairs (so the front right and the back left leg move forward together, and vice versa), separated by a brief moment of suspension (where all four hooves are off the ground at the same time). This moment of suspension allows the horse to propel itself forward. Trotting is BOUNCY, and is one of the most difficult movements to comfortably ride. Asking for the trot without understanding what the horse is doing or how to mitigate the bounce is a recipe for disaster (and where most riders have their first fall - ‘flopping’ off the side at the trot). An important skill for successfully riding at the trot is to ‘post’ or ‘rise’. Riders must use a combination of their core muscles and leg muscles to stand up out of the saddle for one beat of the trot, and then gently lower themselves back into the saddle for one beat of the trot. You will often hear instructors yelling ‘up, down, up, down’ or ‘one, two, one two’ to their trotting students to assist with timing. The purpose of rising to the trot is to absorb the vertical momentum from the horse’s movement. Our bodies will get bounced around if we do nothing, so we embrace this natural movement and absorb it into something more controlled. We feel like we are getting thrown out of the saddle, so we stand up. We then feel like we are going to get dragged back down into the saddle, so we sit. Rider position for rising to the trot is the same as that of the walk (and halt). Shoulders are back, elbows are bent, forearms are soft. There should be a bend in the knee and feet should be flat in the stirrups, with only the ball of the foot pushed in. Feet should be facing forward, and gentle contact between the horse and riders knee to ankle should be present. A straight vertical line can be drawn from the ankle to the hip to the shoulder of the rider. When a rider rises to the trot, we will see the knee become slightly less bent as the rider uses their feet and the contact point of their leg and the horse’s side to rise up a few cm, before gently lowering themselves back down. Gently sitting down is the harder part of trotting, as you have to mitigate gravities attempt at ‘helping’. We should not see any drastic changes in rider position when rising and sitting. Some common problems we encounter when learning to rise trot are: Balancing off the hands. Trotting requires an independent seat. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the body is doing, a rider’s hands must remain steady and contact (tension on the reins) remain consistent. We see a lot of riders using the reins to help pull themselves up and lower themselves down, which means they are using the horse’s mouth to balance rather than their core strength. You may see us take the reins away and have the rider place their hands on their hips or head whilst standing and sitting to help them find their point of balance. Standing too far up and falling back down. There is a common misconception that riders need to stand up as high as they possibly can when rising to the trot. Standing up this high results in the knee becoming straight, the toe pointing down and the legs being pushed forwards and outwards away from the horse’s side. When this occurs, the rider has lost the ability to control their sit and will fall down hard onto the horse’s back. When this happens it will look like the rider is swinging themselves up and down and their legs will sway forwards and backwards. Often, their feet will go all the way in the stirrups and they will inadvertently kick the horse (press the accelerator) every time they rise. Getting out of rhythm. The two-beat nature of the trot makes it easy to get into a rhythm. Each footfall is either ‘up’, or ‘down’. The most common reason for getting out of rhythm is taking too long to stand up or sit down. When the rider is airborne (in their ‘up’ part of the rising trot), and they start to lower themselves down, the horse’s back is already coming back up to meet them. This results in a bounce (I liken it to a double bounce on a trampoline) and can be very difficult to fix. We call this ‘being behind the rise’, and it’s often a result of trying to stand too high or being hesitant and missing the window. Being on the correct diagonal is the next stage in the rising trot journey. The correct diagonal describes when the rider is sitting and standing in relation to how the horse is moving. On a circle (or any kind of bend), the horse’s muscles on the outside edge of the circle must stretch and contract more than those on the inside. For example, on an anticlockwise circle, the right side of the horse is the ‘outside’, and those muscles must expand/contract more than the ones on left side for the duration. When the outside of the horse is at full extension (with the front leg thrown forward and the back leg extended back), the rider should be out of the saddle and off the horse’s back to allow this to happen as best it can. When those legs come under the horse’s body, the rider should sit. When trotting, the rider should be sitting as the outside front shoulder comes back towards them. We practice this at the walk and have the rider call out ‘up, down’ while watching the outside shoulder. If you’re not on the correct diagonal, it can be easily fixed! The rider simply stays sitting (or standing) for two beats before continuing the pattern of ‘up, down, up, down’. Ask your kids what they find the hardest about rising to the trot. Can they tell if they’re on the correct diagonal (we sometimes call it the correct leg)? Do they know how to change it if they aren’t? Do they know an alternative to rising to the trot? If they do, can they do it? What part of the body absorbs the impact if they don’t rise trot?
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