Festina Lente

The winsome Welsh Pony and Cob! We are celebrating these ponies as our September Breed of the Month on YourDressage!

Did you know that dressage riders who choose a Welsh Pony or Cob as their dressage mount are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program, as the Welsh Pony & Cob Society of America, Inc. is a participating organization?

Here, a professional from region 9 shares the wisdom imparted on her by an anxious Welsh Cob mare, and how they’ve ‘made haste slowly’ to transform themselves.

By Alex Johnson

Calie and I are an unexpected pair, to say the least. Both of us are transplants who happened to cross paths at a farm in Terry, Mississippi, after being uprooted—Calie from Bend, Oregon, and myself from Orange County, California.

Calie arrived at the barn really closed off, tense, and uncertain. I arrived at the barn in culture shock, trying to figure out how I was going to continue my study of dressage while my young family and I navigated an unexpected move to a new hometown. Because, at my core, I am a complete dressage nerd, I figured the best way to tell our story was to combine the narrative of our last two years together with the lessons Calie and I have learned from practicing dressage. 

“Incorrect training is as if you buttoned a sweater wrong. In order to fix it you must unbutton it and start all over again.”

– Dr. Reiner Klimke

During Calie’s first months at the barn, she would break out of the crossties, bolt while being led, and display anxious behaviors while being handled. When mounted, she would come out behind the leg and the bit, and she was very asymmetrical in her body. It was clear that we needed to go back to the beginning and build a solid foundation. And so we began, working the four natural aids on the ground and then translating them to under saddle work.

For me, it was a lesson in how we, as riders/trainers, teach the horse the language of equitation, first from the ground and then undersaddle. I think that sometimes, it’s easy to assume the horse understands when, in fact, we have to first explain to them what the voice, weight, leg, and hand mean by training the aids individually and in order. 

Throughout the restarting process, Calie taught me the importance of sticking to the principles of riding and the value of taking the training one step at a time. It takes a lot of patience and steadfastness to do this, which is not always an easy task in today’s immediate gratification and performance-driven horse culture.

“The rider/trainer has achieved his aim and fully trained his horse when both forces of the hindquarters –the propulsive force and the carrying power – bound by elasticity, are fully developed and when the trainer can use and balance the effects of these forces exactly.”

– Gymnasium of the Horse, Gustav Steinbrecht pg. 72

We spent a lot of time mobilizing the uppermost joints of the hind quarters to teach Calie to really load and carry forward. At first, she did not know where her hind legs were. But with gentle, short sessions of work in-hand, we began isolating and quickening each hind leg until she became very aware and confident in using them. We also worked on developing her response to the seat/weight aid so that she grew confident in understanding that a loose, aligned seat meant that she should go forward and straight. 

We also took time teaching her to follow her bit and stretch instead of being compressed behind the vertical. On top of relearning her way of going, conformationally, she had to work twice as hard as the type-bred Warmbloods to engage and move correctly. To me, this speaks to the incredible athleticism and mind of the Welsh Cob breed, and the precious trust that this particular pony gave me in the process. 

“These simple exercises cannot be too correctly executed.”

– Col. Alois Podhajsky

When looking back over the last two years, a combination of little learning moments form a connected trajectory of this pony’s development, as well as my own growth as a rider/trainer. However, when in the moment, the day-in/day-out of sticking to the simple correct principles of riding, it can be hard to see that those little individual moments truly are the work. But they are—they truly are! I’ve come to learn that it’s the discipline to train the basics correctly every day that separates the great riders from the rest. I want all of us to aim to be great riders!

As Calie gained awareness of her body and the aids, she gained confidence. She became more curious and “awake.” In addition to weekly cavaletti work and hacking, we began exploring intro and starter-level eventing, and she took to it really well. It helped her become more forward and responsive to the aids. Plus, we found a love of going cross country together!

“Festina Lente… ‘Hurry slowly!’”

– Major Anders Lindgren’s Teaching Exercises: A Manual for Instructors and Riders, pg. 1

Calie was my introduction to the Welsh Cob breed and a master course in training the principles of riding. This past year, we qualified for the Great American Insurance Group/USDF Regional Dressage Championships and National Dressage Pony Cup finals. I didn’t think it was the right timing yet (“Festina Lente”), but I plan to try to qualify for both again and compete this upcoming year. 

Calie now stands steadily to be groomed and tacked, leads with and without a halter and lead, and displays bright confidence in the ring and outside while mounted. She seems to own her job and has become the kind of horse that you can heat up or cool down depending on what you are working on. As we both acclimate to the southern half of the United States and steadily train the principles of riding, we’ve transformed: me in my riding and Calie in her way of going. 

Although we both still have a long way to go in our development, she has become a rising star in my small program, and I think someday she will make an amazing schoolmaster. 

This past month, I rebranded my small business to Festina Lente Sport Horses, an homage to the Latin adage that encourages us to “make haste slowly” in a step-by-step approach to training. Calie has helped solidify this wisdom for me and has really shown me that correct basics create a lasting foundation for any discipline, level, and horse/rider partnership.