Ride the Ride you want

More recap from the Deb Rosen clinic. This may not be exactly how Deb put it but it is how my brain translated it. Ride the ride you want, not the ride you have. This is great advice for me as a few of the OTTBs like to take over if they think that I am not providing the appropriate level of leadership or clarity.

If I try to ride what is given to me by one of the many OTTBs, it results in too much hand or leg (often not enough leg), which makes for an ugly jump or cranky OTTB that resembles a deer more than a trained equine. Committing to ride the ride I want seems to immediately translate to the horse what the expectation is, how to prepare properly for the question being asked and ultimately, a successful ride whether it be going over a jump, cantering up a hill, landing on the downhill after a fence, leg yielding, turning and so on.