The Vertical Stirrup Leather

I think many experienced riders are puzzled when I give them their first riding lesson and I bring up the principle of the Vertical Stirrup Leather. They have ridden for years and never heard of the principle. The cocky riders sometimes question the validity of the principle simply based on the fact that they have taken years of lessons and since they have never heard of it, it cannot be that important. Well, it is.

At that point in a lesson I have to explain the obvious reasons the Vertical Stirrup Leather has been lost from the curriculum of basic riding. As in all things degenerative regarding American riding, I have to begin with, "Have you ever heard of George Morris?" Morris was a very successful international equestrian competitor trained by Gordon Wright a US Cavalry rider.
Morris took his fame and success and parleyed it into a whole new status as the first BNT (Big Name Trainer) in America. In the 70's and 80's when clinicians might get $85 for a one day clinic, Morris sometimes got $500. He sold books and he was revered by post WW2 families with no background in riding and who's children he taught his new Hunter Seat Equitation method, which to me is nothing more than a dumbed down Fort Riley Seat, minus dressage techniques and plus a lot of short cuts i.e. the crest release.

Morris took what he new, limited it to a fenced arena (most of my pre-Morris riding lessons were "follow me" rides cross country, or "in the field" as it was called) and increased lesson group sizes. The net effect of his teaching more students in a small area with simple short cuts changed the lesson barn from a marginal business to a very profitable one. His next innovation was to expand the traditional four horse shows a year schedule, spring, summer, fall & winter, to a show every week if possible that we see now. The lesson barn became the way to make money in the horse business, and no one made more money than George. This is not to say he was not a great rider, he was. The point is that he, like the Parelli types who would follow him, mixed new marketing insights with a devotion to the bottom line, and the result was the ruination of American riding. By the way, he is a very nice man.

So, if you always ride in a flat arena the vertical stirrup leather principle means only that you keep your feet at the girth. Therefore, it makes sense that he and his followers literally only taught that your feet needed to be at the girth, not mentioning the context of the flat terrain, which it was assumed in his method would always be the terrain. Fast forward to the early 2000's when the Hunter/Jumper scene lost some of its trendy popularity to eventing, and the problem of not teaching the context of terrain became a problem for experienced riders who only had ridden in flat arenas. Their feet were not under their body mass as they encountered slopes, and the result was that they were unstable in cross country riding. I have spent the last 15 or so years dealing with this problem as more and more riders wanted to go beyond Hunter/Jumpers and try eventing and foxhunting.

Now we are to square one. We must have our feet under our body mass at all times in order to support and balance as we ride. This is called the vertical stirrup leather principle. So if you teach in a flat arena, by all means continue to tell students to keep their feet at the girth, but please explain why. It's where the feet should be on the flat, but on a slope, that place for their feet will change. This alone wil make you a better teacher than George Morris.