By Dr. Ritter: >> Self carriage, balance, and lightness are mutually interdependent concepts that overlap to a large extent. A horse who carries himself has found his balance under the rider. All four legs carry the same amount of weight, and the thrusting and carrying powers of the hind legs are balanced as well. A horse in self carriage is also relaxed and supple. All muscles contract and release exactly to the necessary degree, no more and no less. For the rider, self carriage becomes palpable when the horse does not lean on the bit any more.
Another indication is that the horse maintains the same rhythm and stride length with the precision of a metronome without any interference of the rider. If you want to modify the gait, all you have to do is change the muscle tone in your abdominal muscles and either swing a little more or less with your lumbar back, and the horse will extend or collect his gait. Throughness is called permeability (Durchlaessigkeit) in German. It means that the driving aids sweep all the way through the horse from the hind leg into the mouth, where the impulse can be felt by the rider's hand. By the same token, the half halts go all the way through to the hind leg, so that when the rider closes his fingers on the rein, the hind leg on the same side flexes its joints more. A horse in self carriage is like a perpetuum mobile. All friction has been removed, so that no energy is lost. That is what Michel referred to when he said that the horse almost aids himself, while the rider remains rather passive. The rider's job then is no longer to create and maintain activity, but to administrate the energy that is already there. The result is a very active motion of the hindquarters and a soft, swinging back. A horse in self carriage will always be comfortable to sit on, even if he is a big mover. A horse that is uncomfortable, is a horse that is stiff and unbalanced. The best test of self carriage is probably to relax hands and legs completely and watch what happens. If the horse continues as before (or goes even better), he is in self carriage. If the gait deteriorates by either speeding up or slowing down, etc., the horse was still "held together" by hands and legs, but self carriage has not been accomplished yet. << ___________________ Judy http://icehorses.net http://clickryder.com
