Simulating an equine ride

Langenselbold / DPA

Black Beauty is a dream horse; he’s obedient, his stable never needs cleaning out, and he never needs food, a vet or a blacksmith. He never bucks or bolts, and his rider never needs to worry about falling out of the saddle. “When I ride him I can just concentrate on myself,” enthuses German dressage rider Simone Reich.
The black plastic horse with sensors on its back, stomach and mouth is the equivalent of a flight simulator for riders, though rather than learning to fly, they are perfecting an art that humans have already been practising for thousands of years.
Owner Anja Schade, who gave her riding simulator the Black Beauty nickname, has kept it in an office in the town of Langenselbold, western Germany for the past year and rents it out. “They [riders] can practise sitting in the correct position and giving the right aids,” she explains. Aids are “horse-logical” pressures from the hands, seat and legs that riders use to communicate with horses.
At around 15 hands, or 1.5 metres, Black Beauty is on the small side. But he can simulate a perfectly trained dressage horse, reacting with smooth movements to correctly applied aids. Reich starts off with a walk, then tightens the reins slightly, shifts her weight slightly to the left, moves her right calf slightly back and presses with her left leg – Black Beauty understands and sets off at a canter.
But the plastic animal also responds to mistakes. When the rider applies too much pressure with her calves during a trot, he goes faster and faster. When she holds the reins too tightly, he
begins to gnash his teeth and then refuses to budge.
Nevertheless, riding him is significantly easier than riding a real horse. His movements are much more even, there are no surprises and nothing
to distract the rider, who doesn’t have the extra task of getting used to an individual animal.
The horse also only ever moves straight ahead, so there are no centrifugal forces affecting the rider. There are only a few riding simulators in Germany at the moment. “Up till now you only really see them at fairs and exhibitions, because the demand to make [buying] them worthwhile obviously isn’t there,” says Thies Kaspareit, training manager at the German Riding Association (FN) in the town of Warendorf. Black Beauty, made by a British company, cost more than 60,000 euros (66,000 dollars). According to Schade, the only other place with a similar model in Germany is in Munich, 350 kilometres south-east.
“In bigger riding schools it would make sense,” says Kaspareit. Even if the stiff plastic body can’t really simulate the movements realistically, it could be helpful as an additional training method, he says.
“The advantage is that with this training exercise, the focus is on the rider and not on the horse as is usual,” adds Schade. The rider is filmed by a camera and able to watch themselves on a screen, allowing them to see exactly where they’re going wrong.
The sensors also give feedback – are they balanced? How’s the pressure on the horse’s mouth? Are their legs in the right place? Are they slouching? A ride on Black Beauty doesn’t come cheap however. Thirty minutes cost 59 euros. With a riding instructor present it costs 75 euros. But Reich thinks the money is worth it, using the simulator to
practise the moves she has trouble with – like moving from a walk to a canter. The sessions have already improved her time with her real horse, she says. “But riding a real horse is a lot nicer,” she adds.