Learning to Ride

By Piero Santini

This classic text explains every phase of riding and jumping by a horseman of vast experience and international reputation. The text is enriched with numerous photographs, drawings, and diagrams. The material presented here ought to be mastered by every beginner, while the more experienced rider will find much in these pages to im

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xenophon Press LLC
• Release date: Apr 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781948717359

Piero Santini

Piero Santini was a devoted student and disciple of Federico Caprilli and was a well-respected author. Santini, a Major in the Italian Light Horse Cavalry, continued and advanced Caprilli's methods through the early to mid-20th century. With an Italian father and American mother, Santini spoke and wrote English as a second language. He authored 5 books, including Learning to Ride, The Forward Impulse, and Riding Reflections and translated and edited The Caprilli Papers.

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Editor’s Preface

Piero Santini was the first proponent of forward seat riding in North America. He learned this system first-hand from its Italian inventor, Federico Caprilli. During his lifetime, Piero Santini was widely regarded as the greatest riding teacher in the world. He was committed to the education of rider, instructor and horse. Xenophon Press has has chosen to re-edition this treasure trove of equestrian teaching to preserve Santini’s knowledge in an accessible format for contemporary riders. Many, many truths in horsemanship remain unchanged over time, thus warranting the careful preservation of the life’s work of great 20th century masters like Piero Santini.

In Learning to Ride, Santini explains, in detailed yet simple language, the fundamentals of forward seat riding according to the principles laid out by Caprilli. The material presented should be mastered by every beginner. The more experienced rider will find much in these pages to improve his/her riding. This book is also an incredible resource to riding instructors who, for the benefit of their pupils, wish to condense and simplify the basic concepts of outdoor equitation. Varying methods of instruction are fully explored in detail. Every phase of riding and jumping is explained clearly by a horseman of wide experience and international reputation. The text is enriched with numerous photographs, drawings and diagrams.

Xenophon Press hopes that riders of all disciplines will read and benefit from the rich knowledge contained in these pages.

Richard F. Williams

Publisher

Xenophon Press

PART ONE: LEARNING TO RIDE

1: FORWARD RIDING

Convinced as I am that forward riding, understood as a method and not as an attitude, has come to stay, and will eventually spread to all forms of outdoor equitation, I consider it imperative that the rising generations be clearly enlightened as to its true features. The main reason, therefore, that has induced me to write the present book, besides the desire synthetically to crystallize the principles more cursorily dealt with in preceding works (see Riding Reflections and The Forward Impulse ), is definitely to establish the minimum that, in my opinion, beginners should know on these lines before taking any active part in field or ring.

It is, I hope, superfluous to point out that I address myself exclusively to those who conceive riding primarily as an outdoor sport. By this I do not mean that I do not give a certain type and measure of school work due place and importance, but it does signify that I regard any training not directly and continuously aimed at open air activities of some kind not only useless but deleterious to both horse and rider.

The horse’s anatomy is divided into three sections, i.e. quarters (propulsion), forelegs and shoulders (support), head and neck (balance). The loins are a horse’s weakest part, because the lumbar vertebrae form a comparatively light bridge connecting the quarters with the rest of the skeleton, because the kidneys are directly under them, and because any weight there placed results in an unnecessary strain on the hocks, especially if head and neck are not left free in moments of particular stress and effort. Any system of horsemanship, therefore, which not only neglects these evident facts, but acts in direct opposition to them, is beyond our pale as contributing nothing useful to natural outdoor equitation.

I consider that the tyro for whose benefit the following pages are written will have left the chrysalis stage when he will have learned sufficient to venture abroad with reasonable safety and comfort to himself and his mount. The minimum a novice should know is:

(1)To mount and dismount correctly.

(2)To walk, trot and gallop correctly.

(3)To halt correctly.

(4)To back correctly.

(5)To circle, half-circle and change correctly.

(6)To jump varied obstacles of reasonable height, and/or breadth, correctly, to which may be added the ability to control pace and direction.

Correctly has been repeated deliberately to stress the necessity for continually striving to conserve the proper attitudes from head to heel under all circumstances.

I am aware that continuous attention to technical detail is supposed to induce, through mental tension, muscular rigidity, and that accurate technique may be obtained at the expense of dash.

These possibilities admitted, it should not be forgotten that stiffness of both mind and body will be but transitory and disappear the moment the pupil will have learned by continual practice to do the right thing spontaneously. In the specific case of the method I advocate, cause and effect are furthermore related with such mathematical precision as in practice easily to refute those who advance the theory that so long as the horse goes well it does not matter what the man on his back does or how he does it. Were this true, all technique, not only that of riding, could be relegated to oblivion. On the contrary, in horsemanship, as in every other art, detail assumes a stature far beyond its apparent importance; a horse really goes well only when accurately and quietly ridden.¹

While in America a few years ago, partly for my own amusement and partly with a view to offering eventually a challenge cup for boys and girls between their twelfth and seventeenth birthdays, I drew up a set of rules for a competition embodying what appeared to me more complete tests than any of the good hands seat and hands, equitation and horsemanship classes of which there was such a surfeit.

According to my plan, competitors, in batches of from four to eight, according to number of entries and size of ring, were to be examined on their ability to execute certain simple movements, at the command of one of the judges. These consisted of circles, half-circles, and changes at the walk, trot, slow gallop [canter] and fast gallop.² Those considered sufficiently proficient in these elementary evolutions—which included halting and backing—were to be passed on to a jumping test over six obstacles of reasonable dimensions.

Circumstances prevented my putting this plan into execution, but recently, on re-reading my Rules—which form the third and last part of the present book—I came to the conclusion that any beginner capable of meeting the requirements I had in mind would certainly have gone a fair way towards earning emancipation. I have, therefore, traced the following course of elementary instruction³ to meet the demands of this imagined competition. To its winners were destined silver cups of classic grace; they never materialized, but to those who will pay attention to the advice offered in this volume, a prize infinitely more valuable is within reach—the possibility of enjoying the greatest sport of all in the certainty that their mounts will enjoy it with them—which, when all is said and done, should be the ultimate aim of all good horsemen.

2: THE HORSE AND TACK

The horse being to a great extent what the rider and his implements make him, I find no need to say much about him beyond stating that the type of mount which will be found most useful is that of average size and reasonably good conformation and breeding, capable of jumping say three feet safely. The rest depends, so far as behavior is concerned, entirely on what sort of treatment he gets and how he is, and has been, ridden. A careful study therefore of accessories is more important for our immediate purposes than a detailed description of the ideal beginner’s horse, particularly as an animal defective in manners and temperament (or temper) will be bound to profit as much by the course hereinafter described as the person on his back, whereas if saddle and bit, girths, curb chain or martingale irritate, hamper, irk or chafe, the greatest horseman in the world cannot make his mount give of his best—a fact so evident it is surprising it is not more fully realized.

The Saddle. Man originally devised the saddle (stirrup-less until the Sixth Century) for purely selfish reasons. Neither weight nor construction was considered from the point of view of the horse’s well-being, beyond what was strictly necessary to avoid injury so grave as to render him useless.

Although conditions slowly improved, it is only in comparatively recent years that the intelligent evolution of equitation has produced a saddle which not only takes into account the comfort of both horse and man but also helps to keep the latter’s weight where it least affects the former’s natural equilibrium.

The rider must be placed in the deepest part of the saddle. To convey my meaning accurately, it must be explained that I refer to the Italian saddle or at any rate to faithful imitation of the Italian prototype. The reason for this differentiation, in describing position, between this variety and all others is that because of high pommel and flatter seat we find the deepest part in the old type near the cantle, whereas in the Italian model the rider’s pelvis bones come naturally to rest much closer to the saddle’s waist. This makes all the difference in the world to the influence the rider’s position has on the horse, and affects the latter’s behavior as much as the actual riding.

To return to the saddle itself, it must be understood that, to obtain the results aimed at in the present volume, the Italian type is the only one admissible as really fitted to the Italian position and what it stands for; on any other kind proper balance can only be preserved by continual effort. Apart from the fact that straight flaps⁴ do not afford the necessary purchase for the knees and consequently bring the calves incorrectly into play especially in galloping and jumping, the straight slanting seat forces the rider’s buttocks, and his center of gravity with them, in the direction of the tail instead of towards the withers.

I am aware that the inference that all saddles not of the variety recommended be discarded may appear somewhat drastic, especially to those who rightly value their beautiful mahogany colored pigskins so pleasantly associated perhaps with memories of field and ring. Forward riding, whatever its detractors may assert, not being a passing fad limited to the show-ring, but having come to stay and spread, naturally exacts implements of design and build radically different from those heretofore employed. Who, for example, still plays golf with wooden clubs? However harrowing (and expensive) it may have been to replace them with the steel variety the former are as extinct as the dodo where first class golf is concerned. The Italian saddle is to riding what the steel shaft represents in golf—a simile by no means far-fetched if we consider that springiness is a characteristic of both.

Incidentally the Italian, or Italian type, saddle appears now to be known as a jumping saddle, I protest against such a description, the shape of the proper Italian saddle being suitable for all purposes, including polo, dressage and racing. The Italian saddle is as well adapted to steeple-chasing as to hunting and much better for the former purpose than the monstrosities we are treated to in most weighing enclosures and on which it is difficult to imagine a secure seat.

A horse ideally saddled, bridled and bitted is shown in Plate 4a. With the exception of the outer knee rolls, for which the writer entertains an antipathy both on aesthetic and practical grounds⁵, no criticism either of type of saddlery or fit is possible. The fact that the picture was taken to portray the horse, and that the perfection of his accoutrements is incidental, makes the lesson this photograph conveys all the more striking.

In direct contrast to this picture we get Plate 4b, which shows the wrong type of saddle fitted moreover with round wide stirrup irons and one narrow two-buckle leather girth.

Girths. As only the girths and not the breast-plate should be relied upon to keep the saddle in place, the leather variety, which naturally gets slippery with sweat and therefore slides back, is certainly not to be recommended. Web girths, because of their porous nature, become on the contrary adhesive.

Of the latter type the Fitz-William is the best, its greater width bearing on a larger surface, the center girth further contributing to stability by acting somewhat like a surcingle. The opponents of the Fitz-William maintain that it causes girth-galls; the same can be said of any girth not properly cleaned and dried; furthermore, where the Fitz-William is concerned, the danger is always lessened by the pressure of the narrower central girth on the wider lower one, which causes the latter’s edges to curl outwards, thus avoiding the possibility of friction with the horse’s skin.

Fig. 1. The Fitz-William, best of the web girths.

Of course the leather variety is very much easier to clean; it naturally follows that web, whether cotton, wool or worsted—the last named is the best—needs efficient cleaning even if brown or gray. Leather, on the contrary, can with a lick and a promise be made presentable to the inexperienced eye, at least. But it will not thereby become the more supple.

The Stirrup. I have ever been as skeptical regarding the danger of being dragged by the stirrup when out of the saddle as I am of being hit in the mouth by the horse’s poll when in it. I have not merely been spared both painful experiences—only one case of the first has ever come to my direct notice. I ascribe this to the use, very general in my native land, of irons which, thanks to their weight, shape and dimensions, cannot possibly imprison even the largest foot in the heaviest boot. Furthermore, they hang true and do not wobble from side to side on leathers too narrow for their slots.

Fig. 2. Recommended. To be avoided.

The bell-shaped type recommended can be seen in Figure 2 in detail. Although its Prussian tread is of no practical significance, it enhances the elegance of what are indeed irons of remarkable smartness—a quality, among others, entirely lacking in the wide, round, light type sometimes used. When weight need not be a consideration, the heavier the iron, the easier it is to shake off. Light, thin stirrups, on the contrary, are inclined to follow the foot in the very moments roominess would be preferable to their close companionship. Weight and dimensions of the man’s size iron shown in Plate 4a are respectively 1 lb. and 6 3/8 x 5. For women and children they should be smaller, but in the same proportions.

Height is important in that it allows the foot freedom in case of a fall; the comparative narrowness of tread makes it easy for the sole to bear squarely upon the center, and not sideways.

It is sometimes objected that a large stirrup presents the danger of the foot going through it and of the rider being thereby caught by the ankle. Again, I have never known such a thing to happen, but admitting its possibility it goes without saying that riders will provide themselves, especially if they are women or children, with irons