Exploring the many facets of the practice of riding horses, this guide focuses on the physical, financial, and emotional goals that a person must aspire to in order to excel at the sport. Personal drive, life circumstances, support networks, knowledge, physical skill, character traits, and the horse are some of the factors that can contribute to a rider’s success—this guide examines these elements and offers insights on improving those skills that can be honed and accept those that cannot. Featuring personal anecdotes and interviews with 25 top competitive riders in the United States, this examination of what it takes to be a great rider gives readers concrete ideas and plans for achieving personal riding goals.
This book is exactly what you need to become a better rider. It’s a smart, honest, on-target kick-in-the-pants, guaranteed to rev your engines as you see how a few changes in your life, a few smart choices and strategic moves, can transform you from a run-of-the-mill rider into a GOOD one.
How does Denny Emerson know what makes a good rider? For one thing, he IS one—he is the only rider in the world to have won both a gold medal in international eventing and a Tevis Cup buckle in endurance. Plus, he’s been around great riders, and taught those on their way to becoming great, for over 40 years.
How will what Denny knows help YOU become a good rider? It’s simple, really. He’s boiled the whole thing down into seven broad “Areas of Choice” that collectively determine whether you are a “gonnabe”—you’re going to get it done—or whether you’ll be stuck in the ”wannabe” category for decades.
You’ll examine how your choice of riding sport may or may not be the best for who you are and where you live, and how those frustrating hurdles known as “life circumstances” don’t necessarily hold you back like you think they do. Plus, find out how to build a strong support team by winning people to your cause and choosing the right teachers and mentors.
Analyze your physical self (your body, how it is formed and how you care for it) and your intellectual self (your “horse smarts” and how you are adding to them…or not) and apply the results to your “gonnabe-good” equation. Learn to take a good hard look at your partner—your horse—and think critically about his ability to help you attain your riding goals. In addition, discover the nine key character traits of successful riders and how you can learn to call each one of them your own.
Along the way you’ll read the stories of 23 of the world’s top riders from different disciplines and sports—including dressage, reining, driving, show jumping, endurance, hunter/jumper, and eventing—and how they “got good“ despite the same kinds of challenges and setbacks you face in your own day-to-day riding. You’ll get an inside look at their path to success, as well as their very best tips for how to “make it” in the horse industry.
Denny Emerson is an eventer, a trainer, a coach, and an activist who has achieved the United States Eventing Association’s Wofford Cup for lifetime service to eventing. A former member of the United States Equestrian Team, he is also a regular contributor to the Chronicle of the Horse, an equestrian magazine. He lives in Strafford, Vermont and Southern Pines, North Carolina. Sandra Cooke is an equestrian journalist who has served in various editorial roles at Practical Horseman. She lives in Winterport, Maine.
