ANSWER:
Self carriage, balance, and lightness are mutually interdependent concepts
that overlap to a large extent. A horse who carries himself has found his
balance under the rider. All four legs carry the same amount of weight, and
the thrusting and carrying powers of the hind legs are balanced as well. A
horse in self carriage is also relaxed and supple. All muscles contract and
release exactly to the necessary degree, no more and no less. For the rider,
self carriage becomes palpable when the horse does not lean on the bit any
more.
Another indication is that the horse maintains the same rhythm and stride
length with the precision of a metronome without any interference of the
rider. If you want to modify the gait, all you have to do is change the
muscle tone in your abdominal muscles and either swing a little more or less
with your lumbar back, and the horse will extend or collect his gait.
Throughness is called permeability (Durchlaessigkeit) in German. It means
that the driving aids sweep all the way through the horse from the hind leg
into the mouth, where the impulse can be felt by the rider's hand. By the
same token, the half halts go all the way through to the hind leg, so that
when the rider closes his fingers on the rein, the hind leg on the same side
flexes its joints more.
A horse in self carriage is like a perpetuum mobile. All friction has been
removed, so that no energy is lost. That is what Michel referred to when he
said that the horse almost aids himself, while the rider remains rather
passive. The rider's job then is no longer to create and maintain activity,
but to administrate the energy that is already there. The result is a very
active motion of the hindquarters and a soft, swinging back.
A horse in self carriage will always be comfortable to sit on, even if he is
a big mover. A horse that is uncomfortable, is a horse that is stiff and
unbalanced.
The best test of self carriage is probably to relax hands and legs
completely and watch what happens. If the horse continues as before (or goes
even better), he is in self carriage. If the gait deteriorates by either
speeding up or slowing down, etc., the horse was still "held together" by
hands and legs, but self carriage has not been accomplished yet.
- Thomas Ritter
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Last Update: January 13, 2007