Description

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A revised edition of the inspiring bestseller, now in paperback with new good rider profiles

This book is exactly what you need to become a better rider. It's a smart, honest, on-target kick-in-the-pants, guaranteed to rev your engines as you see how a few changes in your life, a few smart choices and strategic moves, can transform you from a run-of-the-mill rider into a good one.

How does Denny Emerson know what makes a good rider? For one thing, he is one--he is the only rider in the world to have won both a gold medal in international eventing and a Tevis Cup buckle in endurance. Plus, he's been around great riders, and taught those on their way to becoming great, for over 40 years.

How will what Denny knows help you become a good rider?

• He's boiled the whole thing down into seven broad Areas of Choice that determine whether you are a gonnabe or whether you'll be stuck in the wannabe category for decades.
• Examine how your choice of riding sport may or may not be the best for who you are and where you live.
• Find out how those frustrating hurdles known as life circumstances don't necessarily hold you back like you think they do.
• Learn how to build a strong support team by winning people to your cause and choosing the right teachers and mentors.
• Analyze your physical self (your body, how it is formed and how you care for it) and your intellectual self (your horse smarts and how you are adding to them or not) and apply the results to your gonna-be-good equation.
• Take a good hard look at your partner--your horse--and think critically about his ability to help you attain your riding goals.
• Discover the nine key character traits of successful riders and how you can learn to call each one of them your own.

Along the way you'll read the stories of 23 of the world's top riders from different disciplines and sports--including dressage, reining, driving, show jumping, endurance, hunter/jumper, and eventing--and how they got good despite the same kinds of challenges and setbacks you face in your own day-to-day riding. You'll get an inside look at their path to success, as well as their very best tips for how to make it in the horse industry.

About the Author

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Denny Emerson has ridden thousands of horses over many thousands of miles in all kinds of horse sports. He has been president of the US Eventing Association (USEA) and the Green Mountain Horse Association (GMHA), and a vice-president of the US Equestrian Team (USET). He has been inducted into three Halls of Fame: the USEA Hall of Fame, the Vermont Academy Athletic Hall of Fame, and the Dartmouth College Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was named "One of the 50 Most Influential Horsemen of the 20th Century" by The Chronicle of the Horse. He is also the author of Know Better to Do Better. Emerson splits his time between Strafford, Vermont, and Southern Pines, North Carolina.