Using Your Seat to Communicate with Your Horse

Riding is all about communication, and anything that helps you communicate with your horse is an aid. There are two types of aids, natural and artificial, but in this article, we’ll focus on natural aids in the hope that if you’re good at using your natural aids, you won’t need artificial aids. Traditionally speaking, the natural aids are the seat, legs, hands and voice. The seat is by far the most important aid, but unfortunately, it is the least likely to be used. That’s because we were all taught the same way. The first time you got on a horse, you were probably told to pull back on the reins to make him stop and kick to make him go. The seat had nothing to do with it. And many riders actually get into fairly high level riding with little to no understanding of how to use the seat aid, but it’s something that can really help refine your riding.