Ridden

It is commonly known that horses are prey animals, while humans evolved to become predators. The question should naturally arise then, do horses think of the rider on their back as a ‘supporting partner’ or a dangerous predator?

Author Ulrike Thiel faces this question head on, putting readers in the horse’s position and allowing them to experience the ‘process’ of being ridden both physically and psychologically. Thiel discusses classical schooling and modern competitive dressage from the horse’s perspective, offering precise advice for bettering the horse-rider relationship based on recent scientific findings in psychomotor education, horse training theory, horse and human biomechanics, and equine behaviour.