If we want our horses to become happy athletes, if we want our work to build them up over time instead of breaking them down, we need to ride on contact some of the time. Contact is not the only ingredient, or even the main ingredient, of the magic elixir we call dressage, but without it, it’s difficult to achieve true back to front connection, aka the recycling of energy over the horse’s back which, in turn, builds a strong top line. Without a correctly muscled top line, horses cannot move in the kind of balance that allows them to carry a rider’s weight comfortably. Correct contact helps our horses stay sound and enjoy their work. And yet, there are so many ways of doing contact wrong that many riders who want to do right by their horses shy away from the very idea. I can’t blame them, but I still believe teaching a horse the correct version of contact is one of the biggest favors we can do him in the long run.
Now for the big question:
Whenever I ride on contact, I ask myself these three questions:
Is it light enough? Contact should feel pleasant and alive, not heavy and static. Riding on correct contact does not require much upper-body strength. If holding the reins makes our biceps bulge, it’s not what we want.
2. Can I give it up? Contact is not a crutch. If the contact is correct, I can ride without it, on a loose rein, in any gait: for a for a few strides, for a lap around the arena, or for an entire trail ride - without the horse speeding up, running off, feeling confused, losing his balance, or losing his steering.
3. Will my horse stretch forward and down in all three gaits? Will he politely and gradually chew the reins out of my hands? Does he willingly come back into a working frame after he stretches? Contact is never static. Athletic development happens in the back and forth between stretching and strength building, between relaxation and concentration.
If the answer to these three questions is not a clear yes, we’ve got work to do. Contact is never fixed. Contact is never tense. It’s anything but a headset. It’s a state of mind as much as a physical posture. It’s a polite, mutually respectful conversation between a rider’s hands and a horse’s mouth, not a shouting match. This is true whether we compete (or don’t) in Western or traditional dressage, at any level. Correct contact is something the horse understands, seeks, and happily accepts as part of our partnership, not something we force him to tolerate.
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