Who Said Anything About Equitation?

Hobbling around today, I couldn't tell which hurt more-- my thigh muscles or my ego. Bolts of pain stabbed at my knees and calves, causing ordinary tasks to seem impossibly arduous. Getting out of my car hurt. Walking to the bathroom took forever. Tying my shoes almost made me cry. But the worst part wasn't just all this agony shooting throughout my lower body. It was the fact that I'd been made this sore by riding a horse, the same activity I do all day every day of the year. I'm a professional, for God's sake. Riding horses is the last thing that should debilitate me. Then why, you might ask, was I in such sad shape?



It's a simple explanation. You see, all of my daily riding is executed with strict adherence to classical equitation and good posture on horseback and all the instruction that has been drilled into me over the last three decades of riding. But that's not the type of riding I undertook on Saturday, which explains the crippled state I'm in right now. On Saturday, I spent 5 hours in what might best be described as a Survival Seat. This is a riding posture not described in instruction manuals or lessons. It's the shape and form that your body adopts when mounted atop a hot-headed snorting Arabian bombing down the trail at speeds that make you whimper. This style of riding is neither pretty nor classically correct. But it does generally keep you alive, so its existence has merit among equestrians.


In the world of endurance riding, every rider at some point finds herself in this seat. Some ride this way for only a few minutes while their horses act like skittish lunatics or when the trail terrain gets harrowing. Others find it necessary to use the Survival Seat the whole time they are on the horse. It depends on the steadiness of your mount, his spookiness, and whether he moves under you like a supple athlete or like a bone-rattling jackhammer.


Saturday, I found myself on the latter. "Gordy" is an off-the-racetrack Arabian whose primary gear is GO! He charges down the trail in a trot so fast and bumpy that the rider can no longer post or remain in sync with his gait. There's nothing to sync up to. Gordy is trying to go faster, faster, faster yanking at the reins. In order to keep from being pulled over, the rider-- who has given up on posting and is standing in the stirrups hovering above the saddle-- has to brace her back and clench her stomach muscles. Even a moderately fit person like myself soon fatigues in this posture. As Gordy streaked down the trail, simultaneously spooking at shadows and darting left to right, I dug my knees into the saddle flap in order to keep my butt in a hovering position over the saddle. In no time, I got a mid-back spasm. It felt like someone had jabbed a hot poker into my spine. To alleviate my ailing back, I squeezed harder with my thighs. This seemed to stabilize me decently enough for now. Gordy continued to bolt down the narrow trails like an equine rocket ship. Around tight corners, I folded over his neck to avoid getting face-slapped by manzanita branches. This maneuver required me to push harder into my stirrups, despite the balls of my feet already being numb.


By the time my right knee cricked, I was desperately starting to wonder when Gordy might ever tire out and want to slow down to a reasonable pace. Surely, he should start easing off the speed by the 18-mile mark and drop into a more rideable gait-- maybe even one that I could sit normally and quit gripping with my back and knees. But, interestingly, endurance horses don't seem to tire out when you want them to. Here I was falling apart but Gordy was fresh as a chilly morning. It occurred to me that fatigue was a long way from claiming my mount. The bone-rattling pace would continue until I lost the will to hold myself upright anymore.

Trying to ease my spinal discomfort, I now held the reins together in one hand while gripping my saddle pommel with the other. Leaning forward onto the pommel like this made my look like a hunchback, but I tried to ignore how unpolished I probably appeared. Soon enough, though, the sun peeked out overhead and threw shadowy reflections of us beside the trail. With sinking heart, I witnessed the lumpy hunched over image of me flopping atop my sleek and perky mount. In the last two hours, all traces of the elegant dressage position I had struggled for years to develop had disappeared. Gone was the honed posture, the educated seat. My reflection portrayed me as a flailing, unskilled, speed demon. A speed demon whose back muscles happened to be cramping badly in that moment.

My friend and colleague rode up beside me as the trail widened to a jeep road. He glanced over briefly. "Everything okay? You feeling alright?" he asked. I nodded in my best attempt at bluffing yes-everything-is-perfectly-fine. I didn't want him- or anyone- assuming that I, a potentially sissy dressage rider, couldn't handle the rigor of endurance riding. "Because I've never seen you look worse on a horse," he added, just in case I mistakenly thought I was acing English equitation in that moment.

Embarrassed, I made one last effort to push my heels down and sit up straight. My inflamed joints prohibited it. I remained stuck in my hunchback position. For the next five miles, I fixated on my dreary situation-- my screaming body and jackhammered spine, my wounded pride, the fact that this ride seemed like it might never end.

Then I recalled the real goal of riding and horsemanship which is to be in harmony with one's horse. Style aside, we equestrians aim to achieve a harmonious union with our steeds. My old trainers used to teach me that true perfection was when horse and rider moved as one, with each of their intentions and efforts aligned as one. Seen from that angle, therefore, Gordy and I were darn near perfect. With me hunched over his neck, grabbing his mane for stability, we were as close to being one as horse and rider could be. Together we formed a ragged portrait of less-than-stylish rider with less-than-controlled steed. And there was no question that our intentions aligned with each other's. From that point forward, we both wanted to get across the finish line as quickly as possible. Myself, I couldn't wait to get there so I could spill out of the saddle and vow never to do another endurance ride in my lifetime. Gordy, on the other hand, just wanted to run fast until the trail ran out.

It felt close enough to harmony for me. In fact, a warm spiral of pride filled me. Hunched over in the Survival Seat on my snorting Arabian, I had achieved perfect horsemanship I told myself. I rubbed my knuckles into Gordy's crest and urged him faster. Run, boy, run! I streaked past my colleague, flopping even worse than when he saw me before. We splattered mud up behind us and slid over wet rocks. We charged against the wind in our faces and pounded down hills until... there it was, the blessed finish line! I sat up the best I could and smiled like a kid at Christmas. I put both hands on the reins and thanked every deity that came to mind. The finish line! We made it! Now, how was that for equitation?