Throughness, how to get it, how it feels, with Princess Nathalie

Princess Nathalie zu Wittgenstein, has proven herself as one of the world’s top dressage competitors, but she is also an exceptional trainer of riders, and that is why she is currently the coach of  Cathrine Dufour and Daniel Bachmann. In this article she unravels one of the most confusing concepts in the world of dressage – Throughness

Danish winning team members, and individual medal winners, Cathrine Dufour in the warm up at Aachen

As Christopher Hector discovered, Nathalie believes it is all a matter of balance:

“The left hand balances the left shoulder, the right hand balances the right shoulder, the horse is not allowed to balance himself on your hands, you’re only allowed to have the shoulders on your hands.”

‘You tell the horse to stay in the middle of his shoulders and to keep your lower leg on the girth, not behind, so as to keep him ‘straight underneath you.”

“If he gets heavy on the outside rein, little half halt with inside rein, but keep him straight, and then halt. He has to wait for you.

Keep both shoulders in your hands, making a tunnel through your hands, and you want to keep his shoulders in that tunnel.”

Cathrine and Cassidy demonstrate

“Put his hind legs under your seat. Once he stays there you can ride him bigger.”

“The horse needs to have his weight on his hindquarters, so that you can move his shoulders anywhere you want to, if his weight is on his shoulders you cannot move them.”

“Let him go slightly longer – he’s not allowed to hang down there – just so that he arches through your hand. You don’t want him to shorten and quicken, you want him slightly longer in the neck as it is easier for him to push off.”

It is the same in canter, “don’t let him go short in the neck and hollow his back – longer – go back to trot without shortening the neck, he can’t lose that long neck.”

Cathrine demonstrates weight on seatbones…

“Really try to get your weight on your seatbones. If you’re half leaning on your thighs, you’re stopping the horse’s movement. You need to feel how to swing with the movement. Leg not so far back. You can’t get the hind legs under if you can’t get the front legs to move away.”

 



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