Yes it can happen. Even an experienced rider who is of sound mind and perfectly conscious can fall off a standing horse. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Oh no it was not I who took the fall but I was the one hurt when I was bent over with convulsing abdominals, my arms crossed holding my sides for fear they might split, my mouth wide open unable to make a sound, my eyes shut with tears running down my face, just bent over in agony I had to laugh so hard. They say timing is everything and this incident certainly proves it. Just as this rider bent down to tighten the girth this Arabian mare shook herself so hard that the rider just kept on going down and down until her head was where normally the feet are and the feet had taken the position of her head. She then kept turning while the horse, without ever moving a leg, kept shaking until her rider had completed a full turn and now sat by the horse’s front legs facing forward. It might not have been so funny had it not happened in what appeared to be slow motion and there was never the fear of injury. I was teaching a lesson in the adjacent arena, not more than 30 meters away and had a ringside seat.

    Well, nice story you say, but what has that got to do with the independent seat? Much! The independent seat is based on balance, and this rider, in order to be able to bend down far enough to tighten the girth, had braced herself with her right hand against the mare’s neck to prevent a loss of balance and falling off. Have you ever watched a horse shake itself after it rolled? It drops its head very low and then shakes. That is what this horse did and thus removed the rider’s support on her neck and by the time the lady realized her predicament, gravity had taken over and she went down.

    The independent seat can best be described as the seat that is totally based on balance and thus is independent of hands and legs to keep the rider in the saddle no matter whether the horse is standing or moving. In the case of the standing horse it is called static balance, and the center of gravity must be perpendicular over the base of support. Your center of gravity is just in front of your spine and a bit above your navel. Your two seat bones should feel the same amount of weight and sit in the deepest part of the saddle. With your spine in its natural curvature and your head perpendicular over your seat you should be in balance. The minute the horse begins to move the whole dynamic changes, and I guess that is why it is called the dynamic balance. In riding this is where the problems begin because it is not only us but also our base of support that begins to move.

    As I started to think about this topic it dawned on me that one could write a book the size of Webster’s Dictionary and not cover it completely. We all want to acquire the correct seat but there is no such thing. Since we all are built differently, we will look different sitting on a horse. Over the last four or five years the seat we have in mind as the ideal would belong to a rider by the name of Ulla or maybe Lisa. My name is Paul, and if I tried to sit like either one of them I would be so stiff and ineffective that my horse would rightfully refuse to work, and the picture I present would still not be anything near the way they look. While it is alright for the picture to be different, the one quality the seat must have is the rider’s independence of reins and legs for balance. That is why this article is called the Independent Seat.