BY ARIEL ZARA UNIVER
When I was a young rider in the 90s, my saddle was flat as a pancake and hard as a board. They all were. No knee rolls, no padding, just an inch or two of leather between you and the horse. Close contact is an understatement. By today’s standards, they are ungodly uncomfortable. But back then, they were the best for everything we did! No stirrups, big grids, galloping in the fields, showing the hunters, we learned to ride while truly feeling the horse underneath us.
These days, saddles have become a high-end luxury that are padded more generously than a sofa cushion. Rolls, blocks, buttery soft grippy leather, a heavenly squishy seat… as an “old school” rider, I resisted these changes at first. I’m not trading my old Bevel for anything! But after numerous hip surgeries and eventually the birth of my son, I gave in and embraced the world of princess and the pea saddles with the best of them. Times change, bodies change, and sometimes you just have to wave a white flag and accept a new way of doing things.
However, as a trainer, I’ve struggled to change my training methods. After 22 years as a professional, I have felt very adamant that my systems of training work, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of continuing education. I take lessons with other professionals as much as I can—even outside my own discipline. As a hunter/jumper rider, I love diving into the teaching styles of dressage trainers, western trainers, and even (selectively) some natural horsemanship.
I love attending all sorts of clinics. As equestrians, I feel very steadfast that we never stop learning. As soon as we decide we know it all, that’s when we become obsolete. I take a little of this and a little of that back to my program and work those tools into the horses I train.
However, I always find myself stuck in the tunnel vision of “this is how this horse needs to go”. Leg to hand, ride the frame, lift the core, round and forward. Connected. And with that firm set of standards comprised of years of learning, I’ve had great luck bringing horses up with strong foundations and have developed a good track record of happy clients in the process. I specialize in sourcing and developing OTTBs in their second careers, and one after the other, they’ve thrived. Then… I met CJ.
CJ came off the track as a 3yo, and I first laid eyes on him at the local track dealer’s barn. When I say this horse wasn’t much to look at, I mean you had to look hard to see what I saw. Upon first glance, he was obviously swaybacked. Hairy. Thin. Basically shaped like the letter U, but coated in thick dusty red fur.
I was there to sit on everything the dealer had in search of a horse for a dear client and friend who had just lost her heart mare. She was on a budget and trusted my vision. But I’ll admit, I looked straight past CJ and at the muscular bays and pretty grays milling around the muddy paddock around him. One by one, I rode and rejected all of them for one reason or another. And finally, he was all that was left. I had my saddle with me and my chaps on, so why not? Up we go.
I was shocked. He was surprisingly quiet. Responsive. Balanced despite his confirmation and chopped-up feet. But above all, he was SMART. He had the brain most riders dream about. So I took some video, and I sent them to my client with the disclosure “hear me out, you’ll have to sit on this one”. And of course she did, and felt exactly what I felt. Later that week, he was hers.
Once he was in my program, I got straight to work. Lunging. Fitness. Basics. Groceries… all the groceries. I immediately started calling him baby Einstein, because he was a sponge for everything. In my usual pattern of training, I started asking him to round up. Frame. Collect. Self carry. Leg yield. But something wasn’t right. He didn’t fall in line like the others had and develop in the same way. He started getting Strong in the bridle. Quick. Anxious. And heavy. SO heavy.
His petite adult ammy mom was struggling to keep him from taking strides out in the lines. Bolting through the lead changes. Running around on the right lead and barreling into her hands. I tried simple changes. Straight line halts. Collection at the trot. Counter bending. Spirals. More halts. Every trick in my book to balance and lighten him up. Then I started dipping into methods I knew I didn’t like, like increasing the bit. He eventually learned to run through every bit in my collection. His owner and I were doing our best to trust the process, but more so than any other time in my career with a young horse, I felt stumped.
So we covered all the bases. His teeth were done. He had chiro. Massage. Vet work. Down time. And eventually, a custom saddle made specifically for his uniquely shaped back. I trusted my gut and went back to a softer bit. We eventually landed at a barn with tons of turnout, where he spent a good portion of the day with friends. And slowly, he started to balance himself. Soften. Relax. Pretty soon, we were hitting huge milestones. Full courses with no pulling, no running. Bigger jumps that were relaxed and out of perfect rhythm. His mom even started to ride bitless. It was an amazing experience watching him finally grow into himself and become the dream horse I saw under all that dust and hair in the muddy paddock.
But there was one problem. In his lessons, he started chipping. Adding strides. Breaking to the trot. He was… too slow! Right away, I dove into my “he has to get the strides! Put your leg on! This horse has no problem going forward!”. I saw his mom get nervous, asking him to go faster, having flashbacks of getting run off with so often. I assured her he’d be fine. But we were at an impasse. She didn’t want to add more leg, and he didn’t want to move up. So one week, when she told me she was going out of town, I said, “Let me do a few rides on him. I’ll get him out in front of the leg for you.”
So I tacked him up, talking to him as I went like usual, and swung a leg over with every intention of tuning him up. Something I’d done hundreds of times for clients experiencing “problems” in their horses. But once I picked up the canter and began to jump around, I felt like all of a sudden I was hit in the face with a brick of realization. He was so beautifully balanced to the base of the jumps. He carried a rhythm all on his own. He was quiet to the jumps and most importantly… he was happy. Any time I tried to leg him up, I felt his deep confusion with me. As if he was directly speaking into my ear, “Why? You spent so much time telling me to go slow. To be soft and take care of my rider. Why now do I have to go faster? That makes no sense. It makes me nervous and frustrated to have to go like I was going before when you told me (and I felt) it was wrong.”
And he was right. He was 100% right. The horse was right, and I was wrong.
So I let him chug around in the add, and he put together the courses perfectly. It was a lightbulb bigger than I’d ever felt. Sometimes you have to let the horse tell you what’s right.
Feeling inspired and reeling with gratitude for this animal, I wanted to try it on another I’d been having some trouble with. An older, large pony jumper type who was a phenomenal mover but HOT. Sometimes so hot that I felt I was riding her into a ball. She framed well and easily, so I used that to my advantage and stuck in my ways; I rode her around on a short rein.
But in the weeks I’d been getting to know her, she always felt compliant but edgy. Anxious. Connected but not truly accepting. So I got on and asked her, “How do you want to be ridden?” and she told me plain as day, because I was finally ready to listen.
“Let go of the rein. Flat on the buckle. DON’T touch my mouth.”
So I swallowed my pride, and I let her go around hollow. I convinced myself not to care if her head was up or down or anywhere in between. I rode with my leg, my seat, my voice, and I left her mouth completely alone. After a few rides, she started to stretch and reach for the bit all on her own.
The sigh of relief I felt from this mare, the absolute expulsion of nerves and flighty energy from her body was tangible. And she went around like a school horse. That same week, she allowed her 60-year-old owner to canter her, slow as molasses, for the first time in years. She helped her owner find joy in riding again when she was about ready to give up, having lost her senior horse a few months prior.
Since then, I’ve evolved my training methods completely. An old dog learning a new trick, as it were. I’ve started getting on each horse, and before asserting my agenda onto them, I ask them all the same question. “How do you want to be ridden? How do you want to go?”
Every single horse since this epiphany has taught me more about training than I’ve collectively taught myself or learned from any other pro in my entire career. The most valuable lesson of all.
Listen to your horse.
Ariel has been riding, teaching, and training in the horse industry for more than 22 years. Her passion for horses and continuing her pursuit to understand them has been a lifelong commitment.
