Ridecamp: [RC] Right-Handed Riders/Diagonal and Is Posting Necessary

I have a funny story about diagonals.  I have a Paint that I have a friend 
riding to keep him in shape as I don't have the time to ride two horses.  
When I rode him regularly, I rode on both right and left diagonals and while 
not perfectly balanced, he didn't really favor one over the other, and since 
my left is weaker, I tend to ride more on it so it won't be so weak.

Well, since my friend has been riding this horse for almost a year now, and 
I have been training a new endurance horse, I haven't ridden this horse 
much.  But she went away on a trip, and he had been giving her a hard time 
recently, so I decided to ride him to see if he was just taking advantage of 
her (which he was).  So we are out riding, I start on the right diagonal 
trotting and he is so much stronger on the right that he is extending longer 
with the right leg than the left.  So I switch to the left and within two or 
three strides, he pops me back onto the right.

Now he forgets that I am not his normal rider, and that I was the lady who 
taught him that not every rider can be dumped on the ground easily.  It is a 
long story, but until I rode this horse, he was able to get out of working 
for 7 years by dumping every rider on the ground, usually by bucking or some 
other devious means.  But I discovered that my friend who has been riding 
him has no strength on her left side, none, zippo, nadda.  She is so weak on 
the left that he pulls all of his shenanigans to the left since she can't 
stop it.  Well,  he started pulling crap to the left and I put a stop to it. 
 I guess my left isn't so weak after all.  And the remainder of the day 
went fine as soon as he realized that he couldn't take advantage to the left 
any more, or at least that day.


But the point of all of this is that I believe that horses are just like 
people, they do favor one side over another.  But just like people, if you 
realize that you have a weakness to one side, you can overcome it by 
realizing the weakness.  When my friend returned I pointed out to her that 
she had no left and really needed to work on it.  I don't think that she 
really believed that her left could be so much weaker than her right, until 
her first ride where she focused on the left.  This person usually rides 
with me, anywhere from 2 - 4 hours each ride, and never gets muscle fatigue. 
 She rode 20 minutes working on the left and she was sore for 2 days.

On the posting, I do think that a good, quiet rider doesn't have to post on 
a horse that knows how to jog, but when you start getting into an extended 
or longer strided trot, that you have to post or you will sore their backs.

Carolyn Burgess





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