Putting it simply, the horse has two sides to his back and you have two sides to your rear end. Put two and two together, in sync, and you make one. When you move together as one unit, riding becomes effortless. If you are being taught to use so much effort on a horse that you are the colour of beetroot when you get off, then you are working much too hard! Every extra movement that you make also means extra work for your horse. To have to carry the rider’s weight is not natural to him, and every time the rider loses balance, the horse has to readjust his own balance.

Many very experienced riders come to East Leigh for remedial work on their position, ability to absorb the horse’s movement, or frequently both. Very often the explanations that they learn here are an absolute revelation- the phrase ‘But why have I never been told this before’ has to be one that we hear during every workshop!

THE ‘ENLIGHTENED’ APPROACH – SIMPLIFYING RIDING

This method of teaching using simulators is unique to Heather Moffett, who pioneered their use in the teaching of riding. Heather analysed and devised methods to teach riders the precise way in which to adhere to the horse’s movement, when only a teenager. Watching cowboy films, Heather realised they seemed to be much more effortlessly glued to the saddle than many riders she observed. Also, having seen the great Portuguese Maestro Nuno Oliveira, at the 1966 Horse of the Year Show, sitting so apparently still, Heather experimented on her own horses, and in this way, evaluated exactly what it was that enabled good riders to sit easily to the movement of the horse. Friends then asked her who she had been to for lessons, as her riding had improved so much! Heather replied that she hadn’t been to anyone, but had worked it out for herself. So, the friends asked, could she show them what she was doing? Using a saddle horse and her own hands to guide the lower back and pelvic movement, Heather found that she could teach the precise synchronisation of the rider’s seat with the back of the horse in a very short time.

Realising that if only the saddle horse could replicate the movement of the horse without actually moving away from her, Heather reasoned that the riders could learn to ride in a fraction of the time, and set about trying to get a simulator made. She tried engineering departments of various universities, engineering firms, all to no avail until 25 years later, a friend, Jonathan Broughton-Heyes, finally made a prototype machine.

Heather has now been teaching with the Equisimulator for seven years and it has surpassed even her expectations. It is possible to teach not only absorption of the movement, and a correct, balanced rising trot even to a beginner in less than an hour on average, it is also easy to teach riders from day one, to learn ‘feel’, that mystical quality that so many of us are told, only certain riders are born with. Rubbish!! Everyone has nerve endings in their rear ends, and so if told precisely how, can learn to feel with ease, which hindleg is coming under, striking off the ground, when the shoulder is coming back and when it is going forward, and therefore to feel the diagonals in rising trot without having to look down, and also to feel the right moment for the canter strike off.

Heather has been invited to lecture and teach clinics with the Equisimulator all over the world. She has also lectured with the machine, at the invitation of Cambridge Veterinary School to illustrate rather graphically to equine veterinary students, how poor riding affects the horse’s ability to perform, and how riding related injuries to the horse occur. Heather was guest speaker at the National Conference of Mounted Police Instructors 2000, and also works with the Metropolitan Mounted Police as a consultant riding trainer. Della Orchard was Heather’s working student four years ago, and is a truly excellent teacher. Della is also a fully qualified Bowen Therapist, both Equine and Human.

                                                     Simulator Seminar Schedule