Three Books That Changed How I Ride And Compete
I have always been drawn to books that make riding feel both more practical and more mysterious. Eventing asks for a strange combination of precision, courage, patience, fitness, and trust. A rider can spend weeks working on a transition, then discover at a horse trial that the real lesson involves breathing, decision-making, or accepting an imperfect round.
The three books that changed my approach to equestrian sport did not give me a magic formula for better dressage scores or faster cross-country times. Instead, they altered the way I notice tension, assess risk, communicate with my horse, and recover when a competition does not unfold as planned.
Their ideas continue to appear in ordinary schooling sessions and busy show days. They surface when I am preparing for a stadium course, trying to settle pre-competition nerves, or thinking through a partnership that feels less straightforward than it did the week before.
Learning To Ride From The Inside Out
Sally Swift’s Centered Riding was the first book that made me understand that effective riding begins with awareness rather than force. Before reading it, I thought of position as a collection of visible corrections: heels down, shoulders back, hands steady, eyes up. Those details matter, but Swift offered a different way to connect them.
Her four basics—centering, breathing, soft eyes, and building blocks—gave me a language for sensations I had previously dismissed as vague. A rider’s balance is not created by bracing every muscle into place. It comes from organizing the body so that the horse can feel a clear, consistent request.
The idea of soft eyes has been particularly useful in eventing. In dressage, it helps me look beyond one movement instead of staring anxiously at the letter or the horse’s neck. In show jumping, it allows me to keep the whole course in view. On cross-country, it supports a wider awareness of terrain, fence questions, pace, and the horse’s attention.
Breathing sounds simple until a rider is approaching a difficult combination with a tight chest and fixed elbows. Then it becomes a practical piece of communication. A breath can release the seat, soften the hands, and give the horse a better chance to remain relaxed. It does not erase nerves, but it stops nerves from becoming the loudest aid.
The Partnership Beneath The Performance
The Tao of Equus by Linda Kohanov changed the way I think about the emotional side of horse-and-rider partnership. It is not a conventional training manual, and some of its language reaches beyond the way I would describe a competition warm-up or a schooling exercise. Still, its central attention to awareness, boundaries, herd behavior, and emotional intelligence has stayed with me.
The book encouraged me to look at what I bring into the arena. A horse does not experience my internal monologue, but he can feel a change in breathing, muscle tone, focus, and timing. If I arrive expecting a mistake, I may become quick and restrictive. If I am trying too hard to prove that we are ready, I can create the very tension I hoped to prevent.
This does not mean treating every behavioral issue as a profound emotional message. Sometimes a horse is fresh, confused, sore, distracted, or simply having an ordinary bad day. Good horsemanship still requires observation, veterinary care when appropriate, sound training principles, and clear boundaries. The value of Kohanov’s work is that it asks me to include myself in the picture.
That shift has been especially helpful after disappointing rounds. A rail down or a missed distance can invite an immediate search for blame. I have learned to separate accountability from self-punishment. A useful review asks what the horse felt, what I communicated, what we practiced, and what the circumstances changed. My reflections on a bad show-jumping round grew from that habit of looking for information rather than simply judging the result.
Balance Is A Moving Skill
Susanne von Dietze’s The Rider’s Balance gave me a more detailed understanding of biomechanics. It helped me see balance as something active and responsive instead of a fixed posture that can be achieved once and maintained forever.
A horse’s movement is constantly changing. The rider’s body has to follow acceleration, deceleration, turns, elevation, landing, and uneven ground without becoming disconnected from the horse’s motion. In that context, balance is not about sitting heavily or holding the upper body perfectly still. It is about remaining centered while allowing the horse to move underneath.
This distinction matters across all three phases of eventing. In dressage, a stable but mobile seat makes transitions clearer and reduces the temptation to use the reins for balance. In show jumping, it supports a functional two-point and a controlled return to the saddle. On cross-country, it helps the rider stay with the horse over a fence while still being prepared for the next question.
The book also made me reconsider the word “straight.” I used to think straightness meant the horse’s body followed the exact line of travel. Now I think more about alignment through the shoulders, spine, pelvis, and hindquarters, as well as my own alignment in relation to the horse. A crooked rider can make a straight horse look difficult, while a centered rider can make a complicated movement feel more available.
| Book | Main idea I carried forward | Where I notice it most |
|---|---|---|
| Centered Riding by Sally Swift | Use breath, awareness, and a centered body to make aids clearer | Nerves, position, transitions, and course focus |
| The Tao of Equus by Linda Kohanov | Include emotional awareness and relationship in training | Trust, boundaries, confidence, and post-round reflection |
| The Rider’s Balance by Susanne von Dietze | Treat balance as a dynamic response to movement | Dressage alignment, jumping position, and cross-country terrain |
These books complement one another. Swift gives me tools for organizing my body, Kohanov reminds me to consider the relationship, and von Dietze explains how movement affects balance. Together, they make riding feel less like applying commands and more like participating in a conversation that requires timing from both sides.
What The Ideas Look Like At A Horse Trial
Reading can feel very tidy at home. Competition is not. At a horse trial, the schedule shifts, the warm-up becomes crowded, the footing may be unfamiliar, and the horse can react to an atmosphere that feels completely different from the home arena. The challenge is deciding which principles are useful when there is no time for a complete reset.
Before dressage, I return to the simplest ideas: breathe, soften my vision, and give one clear aid at a time. I do not need to perform every exercise from a training session. I need to create enough relaxation and organization for the horse to understand me. A quiet, accurate test is usually more valuable than an ambitious test ridden with tension.
Before show jumping, balance becomes connected to rhythm and decision-making. I think about the canter I want between the fences, the line I have walked, and the places where I need to stay especially present. The goal is not to produce a flawless image of control. It is to remain adjustable without interfering with the horse’s responsibility to jump.
Cross-country asks for another kind of attention. Soft eyes become essential because looking only at the next obstacle can narrow my awareness. I need to see the path, the terrain, the distance between questions, and the horse’s confidence. Centering helps me avoid rushing with my body, while dynamic balance allows me to follow the movement without becoming passive.
The books have also changed how I prepare mentally. I now regard nerves as energy that needs direction rather than evidence that I am unprepared. A few deliberate breaths, a clear first plan, and a willingness to adapt are more useful than demanding that I feel fearless. Confidence has become less about certainty and more about knowing I can pay attention.
Habits I Keep From These Books
The strongest lessons are the ones that become small, repeatable habits. I do not reread an entire book before every competition. Instead, I borrow a phrase, image, or physical reminder that helps me return to the kind of rider I want to be.
The following practices have found a permanent place in my training and competition routine:
- Take one full breath before changing an aid, especially when the horse feels tense.
- Use a wider visual focus so that the next movement or fence does not become an isolated crisis.
- Check whether my weight, hands, and shoulders are helping the horse balance or asking the horse to carry me.
- Review a mistake in terms of timing, preparation, communication, and circumstance rather than assigning blame.
- Separate the quality of the partnership from the score on the scoreboard.
These habits are modest, but equestrian progress is often built from modest things repeated consistently. A softer hand may improve one transition. A better-balanced turn may create a more confident jumping effort. A calmer post-round review may prevent one disappointing result from shaping the next several weeks of training.
I also appreciate that none of these books treats the rider as a machine. Fitness, technical skill, and correct schooling remain vital, but so do attention, emotion, curiosity, and humility. The horse notices the whole rider, not just the part that has memorized the training plan.
Bringing The Lessons Forward
The books that have influenced me most are not the ones that promised quick results. They changed the questions I ask while riding. Am I balanced enough to be clear? Am I listening to the horse as carefully as I expect the horse to listen to me? Am I responding to what is happening now, or reacting to the mistake I am afraid might happen next?
Those questions are useful far beyond competition. They apply during a frustrating lesson, a breakthrough schooling session, a tense warm-up, or a quiet ride when nothing dramatic happens. They have helped me see that improvement is not always visible in a score or a ribbon. Sometimes it is the horse staying with me after a mistake, the rider recovering sooner, or a difficult exercise becoming less emotionally charged.
Centered Riding, The Tao of Equus, and The Rider’s Balance each opened a different door into the sport. One helped me inhabit my body, one deepened my understanding of partnership, and one clarified the mechanics of movement. Together, they changed the way I prepare, compete, and make sense of the days when the plan falls apart.
Pick up one of these books, take a familiar idea into your next ride, and notice what changes in your breathing, balance, decisions, and connection with your horse. That kind of reading can become part of the training—not a substitute for time in the saddle, but a way of making that time more thoughtful.