Schooling and Riding by Paul D. Cronin
Item#: CroninBk
Price/ea.: $30.00
From the University of Virginia Press
Schooling and Riding The Sport = Horse: A Modern American Hunter/Jumper System
288 pages • 6 x 9 • Cloth
ISBN 0-8139-2287-9
20 color and 63 b&w illus. • 7 tables
by Paul D. Cronin
Foreward by Joe Fargis
“Written with convincing clarity. Schooling and Riding the Sport Horse, published by the University of Virginia Press, is applicable to the amateur or to the professional horseman in a wide variety of venues in today’s equestrian population. Paul Cronin’s book demystifies the concepts behind the modern forward seat and offers a legitimate system to the American horse show world to improve the quality of hunters and jumpers.”
– Patte Zumbrun, Equestrian Director, Goucher College
“If the horses we ride could talk, they would say, ‘Read this book; this is how to ride me’.
-from the Foreword by Joe Fargis
A protégé of the legendary Vladimir S. Littauer and for over thirty years director of the riding program at Sweet Briar College, Paul D. Cronin is a well known and highly respected trainer and riding instructor. Schooling and Riding the Sport Horse is Cronin’s clear and practical guide to getting the most out of your horse in a humane and sensitive way.
Beginning with a concise history of educated horsemanship from the earliest published riding masters of the sixteenth century, Cronin clarifies the differences between forward riding and dressage, and how at times the two have become inappropriately mixed. He then gives an in-depth presentation of the American forward riding system, which is the basis of hunter/jumper riding, describing how a rider’s position and controls are essential to the training of the horse.
Cronin explains the three basic pillars of the system: position, controls and schooling. In clear language, he walks the reader from beginning stages of training through advanced jumping and cross-country work. He sets out proper methods of early schooling of the young, green, or reclaiming horse, based on freedom of movement under the weight of the rider at the walk, trot, canter and jump, gaining the horse’s trust and cooperation, and establishing agility and calmness in all gaits and over fences. Schooling and Riding the Sport Horse is a refreshing book on horsemanship for riding instructors, trainers and amateur riders alike.