For weeks now my instructor Amanda Brewer has been asking me if I have been doing my ‘homework reading’ and up until today I had guiltily been avoiding picking up the rather dull and boring looking book she had recommended that I read, what a mistake!
This book is probably the most sensible, insightful, and philosophical work I have ever read about dressage training and how to build a harmonious and successful partnership between horse and rider. I wish I had started reading it years ago!
The book is called ‘Dressage In Harmony’ – from basic to grand prix by Walter Zettle. It is book No4 in the masters of horsemanship series, and I don’t have the other 3, because only this one was recommended to me, but once I’ve finished it I may well buy the others if the authors are as good/from the same training background as Walter Zettle.
I don’t want to say too much about it because I really think everyone should go out and buy their own copy, but here is a quote and a passage I read today that I thought was very insightful and poignant.
If you want a copy you can buy it from Amazon click here
‘The Good Ride Danger
When you have a good ride one day, it is wonderful, but it is also very dangerous. On the next day as soon as you mount, you tell yourself. “I hope it will be as good as yesterday…” and the rider expects the same performance from the horse immediately. I remember Dr Reiner Klimke, after his team ride in the Olympics at Los Angeles said “Only once in a lifetime does it happen that everything comes out perfectly! Tomorrow I am sure that I will do 25% less than I did today” If the rider tries to get the feeling he had yesterday right away, then he will start to get tight. I cannot expect to start my search for a butterfly with him already in the net! I have to wait for him”
“Ride your horse, calm, forward, and make him straight” Gustaf Steinbrecht