Manolo
Mendez
On our farm, for many years we had sheep
and cattle. Many a time, I accompanied my
uncle on three and four day trips to the
village markets where we sold them. We slept
like cowboys, outside, our saddles for pillows,
wrapped in our serapes. We herded our
sheep and cows on horseback through brush,
Pinsapo Spanish Fir, Almond, Olive, Poplar
and Cork trees, and I learned to anticipate
their actions and keep them together, dashing
at full speed or slaloming between trees,
sometimes jumping small dry arroyos (creeks)
to bring back renegade sheep, calves or
independent cows back to the path.
Photo: Back then...Manolo on the white horse with Juan Cid in the seventies at an Acoso y Derribo
competition. They came second that day. Sadly Juan has passed away.
Balance is Confidence: Lessons Learned From Working Equitation
by Manolo Mendez with Caroline Larrouilh
Manolo Mendez was the first Head Rider, and one of
six founding members of the Royal Andalusian School
of Equestrian Art. Based in Jerez, Spain, the school is
one of the four classical schools which also include
the Cadre Noir in Saumur, the Spanish Riding School in
Vienna and the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art
in Lisbon. A master horseman with over forty years
of experience spanning classical dressage, doma
vaquera and jumping, Manolo is dedicated to a soft,
sympathetic and thorough training method which
prepares horses physically and psychologically for
each stage of training from training to Grand Prix
and Haute Ecole. For more information on Manolo
visit: www.manolomendezdressage.com.
“Learning
instinctively
how to
move fluidly
with my
horse“
The brown leather chaps I wear are over
seventy-five years old. The carefully oiled,
supple hide was cut, hand tooled and
stitched together for my uncle before
me and I have held them dear for fortyfive years now. I am the only one who
handles, cleans and folds them, they are
a modest but priceless treasure. They are
also a reminder of where I came from
over 30 years ago, and of a way of riding
and training horses, of understanding
horses, that I was born into, and use
every day, in one form or another.
Spain has a rich and long tradition of working
equitation: classical and country dressage used to
manage vast herds of sheep, cattle and bulls.
The first lesson I learned was about rider balance.
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Learning instinctively how to move fluidly
with my horse, to over take, spin around,
bring back or sometimes separate cattle
or sheep. Leaning forward into the speed,
leaning sideways to avoid branches, turning
back to situate myself, without even thinking
about it as a riding education, I learned to
stay “alive” in the saddle. I learned to place my
body where it helped my horse best, to stay
balanced in the saddle without pulling on the
reins, clamping my legs or pushing my seat
into the horse’s back whether I was sitting,
standing, leaning or turning my body half way
left or right. I rode to stay on, and help my
horse succeed in doing the work I asked of
him, as conservatively and effectively as he
possibly could.
We were poor, our horses were essential
to the working of our farm, it would have
been unacceptable in my family to bring back
a lame or exhausted horse to my mother, a
gifted horsewoman.
It has never made sense to me that a rider
should sit anchored into a horse, elbows
glued to the sides, hands and legs fixed.
Demanding that the horse comply to their
balance, when a rider is perhaps 15-20% of
a horse’s weight, and it is he, the horse, who
does the majority of the work.
Today, I still ride in independent balance
and I still adapt to the horse beneath me as
he learns to carry himself and a rider on his
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In-hand
MANOLOMENDEZ
dvd set
Are you a Baroque Magazine subscriber interested in in-hand work?
Take advantage of a special offer from
Manolo Mendez Dressage for our readers. Photo: Developing a strong, supple horse means he can carry himself and the rider is free to use his body and hands as he needs whether it is
to close a gate or volte underneath a garrocha pole.
back. As he learns to travel laterally or do changes, or pirouettes
and more, I still strive to help my horse by placing my weight,
sometimes in an exaggerated manner, where it helps him most.
As the horse understands better and better what is asked of
him and develops the strength to deliver the work confidently,
I return to a more traditional position though my seat is always
alive.
On a young horse, I learned to compromise, not too expect
too much. If I asked for a halt, I accepted it took a few steps until
my horse could stop its momentum and stay in balance. As he
became more balanced, he was able to stop sooner and sooner
until he could stop when I asked. It takes time for a young or
untrained horse to learn a new balance and the more we help
him, the sooner he will succeed.
On a working horse, the riding’s first priority is always to help
the horse, and so should it be on any horse, in any discipline.
At fourteen, I went to work for the Domecq family on their
property in Andalusia. There, I learned to ride Rejoneo but also
Doma a la Vaquera and Acoso y derribo alongside Álvaro Domecq
Romero. Soon enough, I was training his horses for Doma a la
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Vaquera and Rejoneo and had three or four horses to work with
every day.
This kind of work requires that a horse knows how to do
travers, shoulder-in, half pass, single and multiple pirouettes,
flying change, piaffe, passage and Spanish walk. While all these
movements are present in dressage, three things are different:
First, as we carry a pole, we have the reins in one hand not two.
Second, this work includes some speed not found in dressage,
and third the repetition of the movements and the configuration
of the figures we create are different.
For example, working with cattle or bulls, a rider and horse may
have to spin three or four times in a series of tight pirouettes and
move out at warp speed only to do a half-pass to the left, one
to the right, do a flying change and find themselves doing several
spins again only in the opposite direction.
By comparison, in dressage, the same movements feel as though
they are happening in slow motion.
This is the second and most important lesson I learned from this
work. The more balanced and able to carry himself at high speed
or in-place a working horse is, the more he knows the rider will
"In-Hand Lessons with Manolo Mendez, Volume I,"
is a six hour introduction to working in hand with
horses of all breeds and disciplines. Designed to be
practical and un-intimidating, Volume One follows
the first five lessons of equestrian and biomechanics
lecturer Jillian Kreinbring as she learns to shape,
influence and enhance horses' postures and gaits with
the help oof a cavesson and a bamboo. To read about in-hand work and Manolo's training philosophy, inquire and pre-order the DVD please visit
WWW.MANOLOMENDEZDRESSAGE.COM.
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us
A
lia
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To
The Original feed
balancer for horses
Photo: Carrying a heavy pole is not reason for a rider to not carry
himself and sit lightly on his horse, this allows the horse in turn to
rise up beneath the rider.
Before
Before
Photo: In working equitation, the horse sometimes has to move
at warp speed and make very sharp turns or spin multiple times.
The horse is responsible for his balance and the rider for his own.
The rider leans into the movement, lightening his seat to free his
horse’s back and help him collect and turn as much as possible.
not block him but assist him in his work, the more he will
trust his rider. Beyond developing fit, supple, athletic horses
this work taught me that there is an intimate relationship
between confidence and balance. It is a lesson that applies
to all horses, not just working equitation ones.
One of the most pleasurable things I found as young boy
and then man riding working horses was that it truly is
teamwork. In dressage, there is quite a bit of talk about
harmony and partnership but I rarely see a horse that has
any choice in the matter of how it is ridden.
Riding a working horse, failing to listen to him when you
are in the middle of separating a cow or taking a group of
bulls to a new pasture, may get you killed. A working horse
not only has to be in independent balance to react and
move as fast as lightning without being blocked or slowed
down by the rider (who will not process data as quickly as a
horse with his eyes on a cow), but it has to be trusted that
it knows how to do its job.
You train the horse, you make him fit and balanced, you
introduce him to his work gradually and safely and when
he is ready and he is reporting to duty, when he has
experience under his belt, then you have to say: “ I trust you.
I will guide you but I will also listen to you, and sometimes,
we will do it your way”. Because you are a pro. Because you
carry me. Because you are doing the brunt of the work and
you know how the earth feel beneath your feet, and how
this cow feels to you today. You say, “I am your rider but
sometimes, you know better” and that is true of all horses,
not just working horses.
A good horseman should know the difference between
his horse’s working instinct and disobedience wether he is
riding dressage, garrocha, jumping, etc...
Like many a working horseman before me, I learned that
while we ask for our horses trust, we should not forget to
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After
Photo: And sometimes, it is about just having fun and letting your horse have a say.
Dinamico loves nothing more then to charge, and in this session, Manolo indulged him.
give them ours - and as they have
to deserve ours, so do we have to
deserve theirs.
In truth, riding can be boiled down
to this: If a rider and a horse are both
independently balanced, they will have
confidence in their ability to move
together. If the rider makes helping
his horse his first priority, his horse
will give him his trust and have even
greater confidence in him.
As the horse’s balance and
confidence increase so will the quality
of his work and so can the rider’s
trust in his horse grow. When these
conditions are in place, there are very
few limits to what can be taught and
experienced.
These are lessons that come
naturally when we learn to ride in the
fields and we have a job to do. When
our horse is our only companion
sometimes for entire days, and from
his soundness, confidence and well
being depends our livelihood and
sometimes survival, we learn to really
value his generosity. That is the best
lesson of all, knowing how giving a
horse is, if we give him the chance to
be. a
“I trust
you. I will
guide
you but I
will also
listen to
you,“
After
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