29/03/2026
This โค๏ธ
A Horse Wonโt Look Collected Until They Are Actually Collected
This is something that genuinely makes me nuts sometimes, and Iโll do my best to explain why.
When you bake a cake, it doesnโt look like a cake until it is a cake. Before that, itโs a mix of ingredients that donโt resemble the final product at all. It can look messy, even contradictory. But if the process is right, and enough time is given, the cake comes together.
Collection is the same.
But I donโt see enough respect for that process. Respect for the horse in the process, or respect for the actual technique of the process. I see only shallow respect for the outcome.
What I often see instead is people holding horses in a frame that resembles the finished result, before the horse has actually developed the capacity for it.
False roundness.
Constant correction.
Holding them up.
Driving them into the hand.
As if the process of developing collection should look like collection itself.
It rarely does.
The process does not look like the result.
In fact, the process to train almost anything, often looks very different from the outcome we are aiming for.
Teaching relaxation can look a bit chaotic.
Teaching energy can look quiet.
Teaching collection often doesnโt look collected at all.
Rehabilitating a horse can sometimes look like revisiting the problem.
If our understanding of training begins and ends with visual markers, we risk trying to impose the result from the very beginning. We hold the horse in a shape, repeat it, and hope that somehow the horse will grow into it.
But thatโs not how it works. Its not technique.
Yesterday I was speaking with a friend of mine, a very refined dressage rider in the High School tradition (French / Portuguese), no they do not have a social media account (lucky them). We were discussing a video of my dressage rehab Sureรฑo, cantering.
He said, โYouโre letting him find his back, rather than constantly putting him there.โ
โYes,โ I replied, โbecause heโs not ready to come up over the outside shoulder in this context yet.โ
And he said something that stuck with me.
โI almost never see that. People usually just force them there before theyโre ready. Sure, heโs not totally round yet, but heโs on the way to real roundness. Thereโs no held frame here. Heโs actually finding it.โ
And thatโs the point.
To someone watching my horse without that context, they might just see a horse that isnโt โsuccessfulโ yet. And the instinct is to step in and make it look right.
But the process doesnโt look like the result.
Good training requires something more difficult than control.
It requires patience.
It requires observation.
And often, it requires faith.
Faith that what youโre doing right now is just one ingredient in a larger process. That even if the result isnโt visible yet, the work is still valid.
You may not get immediate feedback.
You may not feel confirmed that youโre on the right track.
But you show up.
You continue.
You stay consistent.
And then one day, the horse is ready.
And itโs there.
