Ernst Hoyos, Master trainer from the Spanish Riding School tells us:

“You simplify it for the young horse – go forward, come back. It is not with the leg, it is not with the spur, but with the angle of the body – the balance –  more than anything else. I use my body to communicate with the horses and to show them with the weight. When they get older it gets finer, they learn the balance, and I will use just a little bit of weight that you can’t see, but the horse will react, that is the refinement of riding. Our goal should always be in dressage that one does not see what is happening, that should always stay our rule.”

Pic is Ernst working with the Rubinstein stallion, Royal Diamond at Gestüet Vorwork