Consistency Is Key!

Not long ago someone asked me what I thought was the biggest reason for why someone might not have success in dressage, I had to think about this question long and hard because there are so many factors that contribute to either being successful or unsuccessful in this sport but in the end I kept coming back to the same conclusion.....consistency!  I think as human beings our ability to be consistent is questionable at the best of times, people like variety, "keep things interesting" as they say, and we're not always the best at being consistent in how we approach or achieve things.  Horses, on the other hand, are the complete opposite, their lives revolve around consistency and we as riders need to keep things consistent for the sake of helping our horses to learn.  Consistency with horses is a multiple layered thing, it not only involves consistency with the care but also the training program.  With a proper stable management program we make sure our horses get the care they need on a consistent basis, this applies to the obvious day to day tasks such as feeding, cleaning and watering to the more complex care of the equine athlete including routine vet checkups (and whatever therapeutic treatments each individual horse may require) and farrier work. When it comes to the training side of things we need to be consistent not only with our regular training program but also how we train, what we ask of the horse and what response we expect to get from them.  I think a committed training program is so much undervalued in North America, there are so many riders who are wishy washy in how they train.  By a committed training program I am not in any way referring to drilling the horse or overworking them day in and day out, far from it, I think our daily routines should have variety for sure to keep the horse interested and fresh and their bodies working in different ways but what I am referring to is committing to a certain way of training and what we expect, as an example it's not okay to one day get after your horse for not being in front of the leg and then the next day let them ignore the leg and change the rules, riders often do this, when you put an aid on you have to expect the same response every single time otherwise you are training your horse that it is okay to ignore the aid and then it's not fair later on when you get after them for ignoring that aid-this conflict causes confusion and frustration in horses-when they are clear on what is expected of them and feel the reward for the correct response they are very willing to do as we ask but riders are very guilty of not being consistent in our expectations.  There are certainly times that it is okay to be inconsistent, for example we need to train our horses to be diverse in things like what time of day they are ridden, being taken to unfamiliar locations and adapting as well as different types of workouts to keep them using different muscle groups, that sort of variety is great but the ground rule basics of proper aids and proper responses has to be consistent day in and day out (that being said making sure you check out your aids and ensure that they are correct before making the correction to the horse goes without saying!).  Someone also asked me recently what I thought were the qualities that make up a "good rider/trainer", in my opinion a good rider and trainer is one who is diverse in their abilities yet consistent in their training, to better explain that I think a truly good rider is someone who can take any horse regardless of type, gender, breed, temperament, age or level and correctly train them through the levels to that horse's ability (I also think a good rider/trainer has the ability to realize each horse is different and some have greater limitations physically than others and has the compassion to not push a horse beyond it's physical limit), this sounds like a no brainer but it's remarkable the number of riders out there who can only ride a certain type, level or temperament of horse and while all riders will naturally have their preference of horse type I think a truly skilled rider can train a wide variety of horses successfully.  Anyhow that's my two cents for the night:)