Beth Baumert - When Two Spines Align: Dressage Dynamics: Attain Remarkable Riding Rapport with Your Horse

I m deeply grateful to trainers who share their knowledge with passion and generosity out of their pure love for horses. My appreciation began in earnest in the early 1970s, when I rode with George Morris. It didnt take long to figure out he was a genius. In addition to his scientific understanding of equitation, he really cared that his horses and his riders understood himdown to the finest detail. And he had a passion for passing on his knowledge.

In those days, Morris held a clinic specifically for teachers where I became fully aware that Science comes before art can begin. To Morris, there was no horse or rider detail that was irrelevant. The complex whole with its bazillion factors sifted smoothly through his analytical mind. This insight was life-changing for me: Technique comes before art. My fascination with the science of equitation began on that weekend.

Later, in the 1980s, Sally Swift further fed my curiosity about how horses work, how riders work, and how they can best work together. It was in the early days when she was exploring equitation herself, coming up with the images found in her famous book, Centered Riding, which was published by Trafalgar Square Books in 1985. I remember sitting around a table and reviewing, with fascination, the drawings that would later appear in that book. I think that Sally Swift, more than anyone else on the planet, has been responsible for improving the comfort of horses.

Because my fascination was now a full-blown obsession, I took the position of technical editor with Dressage Today when the magazine began in 1994. Through Dressage Today, I could legitimately call whatever rider I wanted in the whole world, and ask, How do you do that? It was great. Over the years I talked with Hubertus Schmidt, Henk van Bergen, Kyra Kyrklund, Steffen Peters, Isabell Werth, the late Dr. Reiner Klimke, his children Ingrid and Michael Klimke, Monica Theodorescu, George Williams, Guenter Seidel, Arthur Kottas, Bo Jena, Lilo Fore, and countless others. I talked to judgesAxel Steiner, Stephen Clarke, and others. I went to clinics, symposiums, and the Global Dressage Forums held at Joep, Tineke, and Imke Bartels stable in Hooge Mierde, the Netherlands. And I had the advantage of working with good horses and riders at my own stable in Connecticut.

This book is my interpretation of the path taken by the great riders and judges I spoke with through the years, who were so generous with their techniques and ideas. There were no national boundaries when it came to sharing knowledge. They all impressed me with their attention to detail. They were endlessly picky about their riding. As Hubertus Schmidt once said to me, Everyone knows how important it is to get the horse on the outside rein, but most riders are too easily satisfied with the quality of that detail. When Hubertus Schmidt pays extra attention to that detail on a 20-meter circle, maybe the rest of us should too!

During a weekend symposium in Arizona, Isabell Werth reminded us, inside leg to outside rein at least a thousand times. When I asked her about it, she replied, I said it as often as I think of it myself when Im riding.

Details, details. The greatest respect and gratitude goes to all those riders, trainers, and judges I met through Dressage Today who wanted their articles to be perfect. Like George Morris, they were generous in sharing their knowledge and cared that our reader-riders understood. They are all great horsemen with that passion for perfection, and lucky for us, an eagerness to pass their knowledge on.