Are you a passenger on your horse or a partner? What is the connection between your fitness level and your horse’s physical and mental performance? I started thinking about these questions after I took a fall earlier this year when my horse spooked in a field. I wasn’t hurt; just shaken up. I wondered if there might have been a different ending if my core had been stronger, or my balance a bit better. Would I have been able to recover during those seconds that determine hanging on or falling off?

It is obvious that competitive riders on the show circuit are in great shape. They are lean, erect, and strong. But casual riders like me (or you?) don’t feel the daily pressure to be their physical best. It doesn’t take much strength to hop on for an easy trail ride. What does that mean for our riding experience?

Horseback riding is a sport, and just like any other, you improve through repetition and cross training. What sets our sport apart is that our teammate is an animal that responds non-verbally to our performance. I asked some of my equestrian friends for their thoughts on this topic and the response was strong! Kimberly Chabot of Newtown distilled it down to a few words: “Safety, stamina, confidence, and emotional connection.”

Riding is dangerous and safety is so important. You are in charge of an animal that weighs maybe seven times as much as you. Danger lurks, but you can minimize it by being strong, flexible, and fit. Andrea Brosnan, a Newtown rider, chatted with me about how being able to mount from the ground without a mounting block (or rock on the trail) reduces risk because if you can hop off and on again, you can easily check your horse, fix a hoof boot, tighten a girth, help a fellow rider, move a branch, or pick up a fallen crop or phone. It takes flexibility to get your foot in the stirrup, and leg and core strength to push up and swing your leg over your horse’s back. Lisa Peterson, another Newtown rider, told me that she got into her best riding shape after the age of 50. Being fit dovetails with safety: If she rides her best, even on the trails, her fitness increases naturally and helps her stay in the saddle of her big Percheron mare, Bea, if she spooks. Lisa says she can easily duck under low-hanging branches, even at a canter, because of her flexibility. Strong, elastic, well-conditioned muscles are less prone to injury and protect your body from back pain, strains, and sprains.

Strength, stamina, and flexibility all work together to make for a great riding experience. Your horse responds with better performance to a dynamic, balanced rider. For example, it is almost impossible to trot a horse in a smooth circle without a balanced seat, and it takes leg and core muscles to move your weight to direct the horse. A strong forward seat and excellent balance are imperative to jumping. Stephanie Lennon, who keeps two horses at her home stable, told me that when she is alert, toned, and energetic, her horses respond with more energy and willingness.

Getting to a fit and flexible state is not easy. I asked my horse riding friends what they do to get and stay fit. Stephanie Lennon practices yoga to improve posture and flexibility. As a board member of the Newtown Bridle Lands Association, she also often takes long hikes in the woods to check miles of riding trails, moving heavy branches and pruning. Everyone I contacted who keeps their horses at home spoke enthusiastically about the daily practice of mucking, lifting hay bales and feed bags, sweeping the aisle, and pushing manure-laden wheelbarrows as an embedded way to maintain fitness. One person pointed out that it’s an exercise class you can’t skip just because you don’t feel like it! Lisa Peterson, who owns that big Percheron, mentioned that a daily 30-minute grooming increases arm strength and flexibility. She also swims at the Newtown Community Center and walks at Fairfield Hills.

Some riders pointed out how their changing physical fitness impacted their ability to ride, and that sparked the desire to improve. Karen Adamshack has a small stable in Newtown. She suffered from joint issues when she was younger due rheumatoid arthritis. Karen has a stoic personality but it was because she could not ride without severe pain that she sought out hip surgeries. She was riding again within eight weeks and found that the position of her hips in the socket as she rode actually helped with the healing. With exercise and time, she now rides pain free. Another rider noted that her increasing weight and lethargy has made it more difficult to balance easily in the saddle and she is now motivated to lose weight.

My weekly yoga practice, now limited to a computer app, brought my attention to posture and balance. The mountain pose is exactly the same posture you should have when astride: head straight, chin tucked, shoulders down and relaxed, hips balanced and straight. Once I brought that realization to my riding, my posture improved. By having relaxed shoulders, I was able to align my whole body into a more balanced and responsive state. As local rider Janet Harner pointed out, leg strength allows you to communicate direction to the horse without steering by bit and rein only. Andrea Brosnan agrees, also noting that weight, stability, and ab strength translate into slowing down or speeding up your horse without unnecessary reliance on bit or crop.

Strength and flexibility bring confidence and emotional health to both the rider and horse. Horses always want to know who is in charge in your partnership, and if you don’t step up and lead, they will! By communicating confidence to your horse with your strong seat and energy, it in turn will have the confidence to move forward with trust and willingness. Anxiety on both sides of the saddle decreases. Your confidence opens doorways to higher levels of equestrian challenges, be it barrel racing, jumping, dressage, a bareback ride, or just taking that steep trail out in the woods you’ve been avoiding. Your happiness will expand. You might even sleep and eat better, creating an endless mobius strip of fitness leading to contentment leading to an even healthier lifestyle.

In my next column, I am going to introduce you to Kirsten Gray, owner and head trainer at Sonnenhof Equestrian Center in Easton. A personal health challenge in 2006 changed her life and sparked the beginning of a very special exercise program for riders.

Tracy Van Buskirk is a 35-year resident of Newtown and a board member of the Newtown Bridle Lands Association, www.nblact.com, a nonprofit volunteer organization formed in 1978 to foster an interest in horseback riding as well as preserving, protecting, and maintaining riding and hiking trails in the community. Horses have always been a part of her life. She owns a small bay quarter horse named Little Bear.