There are so many articles, books and videos out there now based on the idea of having a soft feel with your horse. It’s definitely a very important topic, finding that soft feel and gaining a connection with your horse is basically all of what we want as riders. It’s everything we work around and it’s everything I teach to my adult riders. The tough part is teaching that to kids.
Especially in today’s environment of instant gratification, I can’t just jump into a speech with an 8 year old of putting in a lot of time and hard work to find a feel and connection between them and one of my lesson ponies. First I have to make it fun, then hide a little work in the middle, and then a lot of praise at the end of everything they accomplished with their pony that day (usually consisting of steering, stopping and maybe a little bit of bouncing up and down as we try our first jog). Based on two of my kids who started with me around this age, if they stick with one or two lessons a week, we will be in this phase for a year or two. Just trying to keep it fun, trying to keep them interested while still ‘sneaking’ some work in there. A month or two in and I do let them catch on that it is indeed work to ride a horse but they do seem to enjoy it by then! Now comes the hard part…
They have a good seat now, they’ve watched a lot of the older kids and they have a good image in their head of what a well collected horse looks like. They don’t have any idea of the feel that it takes to get there yet though. But they are ready for that discussion, they have a respect for their horse and they are ready to create that ultimate bond with them. So we start talking about it, we start figuring out how and when to use our reins to communicate, in as subtle way as possible. We are no longer pulling left, right or back, we are lifting with soft hands and feeling our horse’s mouth in our hands.
It still takes a few years for most of them to really even understand what we are getting. I think when I first discuss this new concept with them they just think I’m giving them more to do with their horse, rather than the basics for everything they will do with their horse from here on out. Then they start to see progress, and they see how much more they can do with their ponies. Usually in that process we come across a want to get too much from our ponies, they sacrifice feel for getting straight to the end result. But they realize that those results aren’t lasting and by the time they are about 14, 15 years old I see kids with a great feel in their hands on any horse I put them on. Something clicks right around that age, and that combined with the knowledge they’ve been learning through their youth seems to come together. It’s definitely a different process than with adults. We can’t force it or hammer it into our youth, we’ve got to encourage and teach it, but let it come naturally and make it fun along the way. It definitely pays off in the end, I know some extremely talented youth riders!