Thanks.

http://gilmorehorsemanship.com/blog/?p=622

While Caprilli’s system of forward riding is the basis of modern forward riding (as in hunters, jumpers and cross-country riding) it varies in certain aspects from the ‘forward seat’ or ‘balanced’ seat as it is generally thought of today. The main difference is that it is more efficient in terms of conservation of the horse and rider’s energy and endurance. The other difference is that many of Caprilli’s principles as per cross country riding and jumping have been ‘forgotten’ by a good number of modern riders. For instance, Caprilli treated jumping as a tool rather than an end unto itself. He essentially said that if you can jump a horse over an obstacle without interfering with the horse’s natural balance or locomotion then you are able to not interfere with the horse under normal riding.

Also, another theory is that collection is something you ask for, not impose and that imposing artificial frame, balance or collection on a horse is inefficient (collection while riding cross country is inefficient because the horse and rider waste too much energy in terms of vertical motion instead of forward motion). Hence, you tend to rate a horse by lateral flexions rather than collection. The main idea is to teach the horse to carry itself and once a horse does that, the horse will collect and extend itself as needed with little or no imposition on the part of the rider.

I translated Caprilli’s original article “Per L’Equitazione Di Campagna” (“For Riding in the field” or more colloquially, “Principles of Cross Country Equitation”) from the original Italian in it’s entirety: http://www.gilmorehorsemanship.com/caprillinaturalsystem.html.

This is the basics of The Natural System of Forward Riding in Caprilli’s own words and in its proper context. Caprilli’s literary skills weren’t very good, but he does get his ideas across at the basic level of his system. The system does get quite sophisticated with more advanced riding but it is quite simple and most of his principles and observations should be very familiar to most forward seat riders today.

Yet he still looks totally relaxed, especially in the first bit.

4.) The rider should be up out of the saddle on the approach to the jump as well when passing over the jump”

One has to remember that in Caprilli’s day, jumping was largely conducted with the rider’s arse sitting weightily in the saddle. In fact, ‘in the saddle’ largely meant ‘on the saddle’ if you know what I mean.

‘Well up out of the saddle’ meant about two to four inches in such a fashion that if one is in time with the horse (neither ahead of nor behind) and balanced properly one should not catch the cantel nor the pommel and not disturb the balance or natural locomotion of the horse. One has to look at it in terms of classical riding of the day as it was used in military equitation. The idea of not sitting weightily (for lack of a better term) in the saddle in 1900 was an alien concept. The idea was to take a ‘light’ seat the lightness of which was determined by the interplay of the conformation and natural movement of the horse and the conformation of the rider.

Unfortunately, ‘well up out of the saddle’ today has morphed into laying on the horse’s neck over a jump and standing in the stirrups with daylight between the rider’s legs and the panel of the saddles. ‘Forward Seat’ has wandered a lot from Caprilli’s original concepts especially in the show rings today where style, or should I say, ‘fashion’ is the norm rather than efficient riding.