PREFACE
What follows is based on my own experiences with Ólafur Flosason in Iceland: 65 days of riding in ten consecutive summers in all kinds of terrain and sitting on close to 100 horses. I have made almost all the mistakes that I describe and the rest I have witnessed. 
     After reading about all possible mishaps you may feel that riding must be hazardous to health and very difficult. Not so. Basic riding is easy and simple, and if you know where it can go wrong, you don’t need to learn from your own mistakes. Riding can never be made absolutely safe, but with proper precautions the risks are worth taking.
     The only piece of book knowledge in this manual is the following caption from The Compleat Horseman, published in 1717: ”When you are in the saddle - - keep your shoulders a little back and - - plant your feet heavily upon the stirrups, your heels a little lower than your toes. - - You must look a little gay and pleasant, but not laughing, and look directly between your horse’s ears when he goeth forward. I do not mean that you should be stiff as a stake or like a statue on horseback, but much other-wise, that is free and with all the liberty in the world.  - - The very manner of sitting being almost beyond all other helps, therefore do not despice it, for I dare boldly say that he who is not a handsome and graceful horseman, shall never be a good horseman.”
     I wrote the first version of this guide in 1993 for the benefit of my friends after only three trips, but the later trips and additional experience have produced only slight changes to the text and one major addition, the chapter about light touch. Óli's horses are nowadays much better – better tölters and easier to handle – than in the early years. The text still reflects the more modest quality of horses. 

In Lapua, Finland, on August 1st, 2000