Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Horse Riding Vs. Dragon Riding


Yesterday, I just finished the third book if the Inheritance trilogy of Eragon. Honestly, this is one of my favorite book. One of the most interesting part is the bond between the rider and the dragon, how they actually love each other even maybe more than the love of man and woman. How they feel each other as if the other being is part of themselves. It's truly an amazing kind of bond.

Before I started to read the last 2 chapters of Brisingr, I just finished my horse riding session. Then a thought come to me... It's actually not much different with the bonding between a horse and its rider. Well, in some ways at least.

I already thought of a horse as some kind of a dragon before, when a stallion, a big one suddenly held his head out of his room and blocking my way in the corridor, it surprised me. I know that horses could be big, their shoulder is taller than me, and when I say big, it really is means big!! Well, though some could be as small as a dog, such tiny little dwarf horses!!


Well, when only the head and the neck suddenly came up and blocked my way, I really thought and felt as if a dragon's head and neck blocking my way. It really is felt that way.

Then again, in the book it is described that when the dragon and its rider is flying, even though their minds are not connected, they still could feel what the other being is doing. A horse and its rider could do the same. I'm serious, it might seems that I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. A horse is very sensitive and they could feel if their rider is afraid or not, even little body movements of the rider could affect the horse. A horse rider could also feel the horse, when it's moving, even when it just wants to start moving, when the horse is comfortable or afraid.

I have some horse lovers as my friends and I've seen them loving their horses like their own child. They can talk about their horses literally the whole day... (which make people that's not so fond of horses suffers of boring and striving to continue the conversation a lot.. lol) I think it is the same case with the dragon and the riders too :D

Well some people think that horse riding is easy, that the horse is just an animal that you control without depending on the animal's will. Hm... it's totally wrong. Yes, horse rider do control the horse, but the horses also has their own will. When the horse is not cooperating, it is very very difficult to ride them if it's not impossible.
Horse riding is a sport that's not only the human is responsible of winning or losing. If you see the sport, they always announce the name of the horses too, it's always considered that they are partners, not a master and his animal. They often stay with the same partner, very rare that they'll change, usually if the rider change partner it is because of some injuries that will make the partner impossible to be rided.

The same as the rider and the dragon, horse rider and the horse will need a great trust of each other in order to be a great partner. You can see show jumping for example, that trust of their partner has to be very high. Of course, since if you fail during high jumping, it really is could cost the horse rider live and permanent injury for the horse.

For me, horse riding really is like dragon riding in the real world. :D

No comments: