Tuning Your Horse

Book excerpt: 'Riding in tune' depends on the rider having a highly developed sense of rhythm. If riders did not have a fundamental sense of rhythm it would be impossible for them to distinguish a walk from a trot or a trot from a canter. But in the modern world, where our ears are constantly assailed by noise and synthetic sound, our sense of hearing suffers and our natural concept of rhythm becomes distorted. This makes it difficult to 'hear' the rhythm of the horse and to avoid perpetuating faults- faults that ultimately result in the multi-limbed lameness that is so increasingly common. Tuning Your Horse shows how using music in training can help to re-educate certain aspects of our hearing and restore the rider's inner sense of rhythm, which can have far-reaching beneficial effects - not just on the horse's performance in the dressage arena but on his overall well-being. Music calm, animates, regularizes and controls; it is a gadget-free way of encouraging horse and rider to go forwards while at the same time helping them to stay balanced. Riding to music is not in itself new, but in writing this book Sara Wyche provides a unique and entirely fresh perspective on the subject. AUTHOR: Sara Wyche is a qualified veterinary surgeon, a horse owner and an accomplished dressage rider. She is highly experienced practitioner of holistic medicine. She also teaches the violin. Renowned for their unique approach, her books have established her as one of the equestrian world's most respected authors. 30 b/w photos & 80 line drawings