Riding in Denial

I see many riders who don’t see, don’t acknowledge, don’t realise or don’t believe that their schooling problems are their own fault.  From the nagger whose busy legs desensitise and switch off their so-called “lazy” horse, to the grabby, nervous show jumper whose horse rushes around the course from “keenness” (actually fear) -  I wonder how deluded these riders really are?  Is it easier to blame their horse than to look inwards?

HOWEVER, we also need to be able to look the other way.  I teach many adult riders, particularly if they have come late to riding, who blame themselves entirely.  Who are convinced (usually by their coaches!) that if they sat ‘correctly’ and used their aids ‘correctly’ that their horse would perform ‘correctly.’  I think this is nearly as damaging and nearly as great a folly as the other extreme.  Expecting perfection is unrealistic and expecting our horses to respond to perfection when we have trained them to ignore us is folly! 

Last week I was teaching a very nice woman who has finally, at the age of 36, bought herself a schoolmaster.  Her story is surprisingly typical.  She’s had greenies and breakers and OTTBs and done reasonably well with them but in order to “learn more” she’s bought a horse with a good standard of education, working medium/advanced dressage and with good scores on the board at elementary.  The problem?  After two weeks of trying, she could barely ride him.  At the start of the lesson on the green grass of a local showground, he was excited to be in a new environment and she couldn't make him walk.  His trot work was passable, but once he started cantering she couldn't make him stop.  Round and round and round they went while I pondered how to break it to her: applying correct aids to a correctly-trained horse doesn’t mean the horse will respond correctly every time.  Put simply, the horse was absolutely taking the mickey. 

Of course he – a beautifully trained dressage horse – “understood” her aid to perform the downwards transition from canter to trot.  He just didn't feel like complying with it.  And she’d spent two weeks teaching him that he could ignore her aids if he wanted to.  Her own insecurity about how to ride a trained horse (trained by someone that wasn't her) had caused the whole relationship to start off on the wrong foot.  Happily, after a stern talking-to (to the rider) and some short sharp downwards transitions (to the horse), they are back on track.  But it is worth considering in your riding relationships: who is ignoring whom?

Why the horse you have is a great horse for you

In general, if your current horse is not actually unsound or dangerous, improving that horse will teach you more about riding and schooling than going down the slippery slope of trying to find another, 'more suitable' horse.

When I hear that coaches (particularly visiting coaches from interstate) have advised people to 'get rid' it sets off a couple of alarm bells.  Firstly, I cynically wonder if the coach has a has a suitable horse for sale or on commission from another student.  I also wonder if the coach is lacking in the skills and imagination (or powers of persuasion) to tell the student that they need to go back to basics and re-school the horse.  It's not a popular piece of advice, usually, that the so-called 'Elementary' level horse needs to re-learn go and stop and that until the basics are correctly established, progress will be limited.

Correct basics are so often un-taught, badly taught or gradually forgotten that revisiting them can often bring about remarkable progress in students.  I'm teaching a lady whose 11 year old mare has had several breaks in her training from injuries and to have a few foals.  The rider is quite competitive and wants the horse in winning form as quickly as possible, but after a couple of lessons, it's obvious to me that there's a big gap in the horse's education.

Being a naturally lazy horse, her downwards transitions have always been easy to achieve.  Stop riding, stop actively telling the horse to go, and it wants to stop.  However, since the horse has not had the schooling a more forward-thinking horse would need to perform the same sort of transitions, she also hasn't learned to engage her hind legs and perform a balanced down transition.  This mare's idea of a downwards transition is to flop onto the forehand, bore on the rider's hand, open her mouth, tilt her head and sprawl to a stop.  True, she does do it quite quickly!  But the quality of the transition is poor and usually ends with the rider shaking the horse off the contact before releasing the rein under the mistaken impression that this will, in time, teach the horse to be lighter in the transition.  She has never learned to bring her hind legs under her in response to the rein pressure.  The 3-2-1 exercise is having a remarkable effect!


Lazy horses need the same depth of training as fast ones, and improving the downwards transitions also paves the way to improving the upwards transitions.

A quick note on lazy horses:  I very often see horses labelled as "lazy" when they simply have a naturally slow rhythm to their paces.  In an effort to make them feel 'in front of the leg' they are hurried out of their tempo and subsequently out of balance.  This, often coupled with downhill conformation, makes riders feel they need to chase the horse, leading to the horse switching off from the aids and becoming dull.  Then the rider puts on some spurs...  Educating the rider about the horse's natural tempo is easy (it can be effective to lunge the horse so the rider can see the balance at a slower pace) and often makes a radical difference to how the combination communicates.

Getting a lazy horse 'in front of the leg' is incredibly easy, and takes only one change from the rider.  The rider has to commit to using less leg.  Yes, LESS leg!  The rider needs to give the horse the responsibility of maintaining the forward activity and be utterly consistent in their follow-through.  Each time the leg goes on, lightly, the rider must have an expectation of what the response SHOULD be, and be prepared to increase the aid (either by using a stronger leg aid, ie, a hard kick) or a sharp tap with a whip until the horse gives the expected response.   It can be helpful to use a 1-10 scale of pressure to help judge the 'right' level of leg pressure and the 'right' response from the horse.  I'll talk more about this in another post in future!

More Thoughts on Canter and a Remedial Canter Aid

A useful tip for improving horses that have poor strike-offs is to separate the steps of the canter aid and work on them individually.

1) Increase the contact.  Work on being able to shorten the reins and take a firm but gentle hold on the horse's mouth and for the horse accept the pressure and soften to the hand.  If you are consistent with your release and soft feel, the horse will soon start to soften as soon as you take up the reins.

2) Be able to sit on the trot and practice doing it!  Some (many?) riders only ever do sitting trot before they canter.  Many horses anticipate the canter when the rider starts to sit, which creates tension which makes it harder for the rider to sit quietly and so the catch-22 situation grows!  Sitting trot is incredibly useful of itself so it is definitely worth persevering with this one.  Cross your stirrups, keep the tempo slow and bounce gently like you're on a trampoline.  Experiment.

3) Put your outside leg back. Then do nothing.  Many hot horses are triggered to do a big overreaction when the outside leg goes back in preparation for canter.  Get the horse used to your outside leg sliding back (but not tightening) and staying there.  Trot numerous circles with the outside leg back.  Don't push or training travers might become harder later on.

4) Add a voice aid.  Take a look back through my posts and learn to do click-click-wallop!  A voice aid is so helpful in clarifying the moment you want the horse to switch from trot to canter.

5) Shape the strike off with your seat.  You want the first step of the canter to be short, uphill and calm. If the horse is in the habit of flinging its head in the air and leaping or lurching or throwing its forehand down, you need to gently but firmly block this action with your 'sit strong' (locked elbows and strong abs, basically) and your self-correcting contact, where you hands lighten but your reins remain the same length.

6) Ride other horses.  So many adult amateurs don't have access to schoolmasters but they can swap horses with their friends.  Feeling the different canter strike offs of other horses can help you have a different ideal for what the canter strike off can or should feel like.   A horse with a tidy pop into canter can be very encouraging to ride, and you can try to recreate the feel of that on your own horse.

7) Turn your shoulders inwards.  So many riders turn their shoulders outwards when their outside leg goes back. Make an effort to turn them inwards - I always picture sitting on an office chair and swivelling from the waist. Don't lean or tilt.  This simple correction can go a really long way to improving horses (and riders) that habitually take the wrong leads.

8) Finally, add the inside leg.  The ideal canter strike off goes: feel the mouth (horse softens), sitting trot (horse maintains tempo), outside leg back (horse does not react), rider turns shoulders inwards and cues with the inside leg and a lifting but level seat (horse steps quietly into canter with a soft mouth and a relatively short stride.)

Habits of Highly-Effective Horse Trainers

Good trainers:

Insist the horse follows their line.  "Placing" the horse, insisting they follow tiny directional cues, is a very, very powerful tool.  If the rider corrects the horse when he's 10cm off your intended line, the horse never learns he can run away.  It also places the rider in a powerful position of authority.  Controlling where and how the horse goes is the strongest way a rider can demonstrate leadership to their horse.  Maintaining an effective literal - and metaphorical - boundary with the outside rein can have a really startling effect on green or spoiled horses.  Controlling the shoulders with opening reins requires no more schooling or education than following a lead rope so the greenest of greenies can be corrected in this way.

This kind of schooling requires the rider to be able to 'multi-task' - to keep the ongoing placement of the horse as an intrinsic and vital part of every other schooling exercise they are doing.  It also requires planning and commitment.   One student claims to 'see' the intended track of each movement as a shiny blue path which she insists the horse follows.  Allowing the horse to 'decide' where he's going can open the door to him thinking he's allowed to make other decisions too!

Insist the horse maintains the pace.  There's nothing more dis-spiriting that a 'kickalong' horse that shambles to a stop unless it's actively ridden every stride.  It's a schooling problem that's ridiculously easy to fix, though, requiring only a commitment from the rider to not ride like that anymore, and fewer but more effective aids, backed up with a strong leg or a whip.  The horse has to know there's a consequence for failing to maintain the pace.

Shapes the gaits.  Trot and canter, and to a lesser extent, walk, can be influenced SO much by the way the rider sits on them.  An animated seat can elevate the trot and canter, regulate the tempo, show the horse how to collect and engage the hindquarters and create terrifically-balanced transitions.  Riding like a passenger and passively receiving what the horse offers, in terms of stride length, suspension and energy, is tiring and is such a limited way to ride once you know the difference.

Trains the downwards transition thoroughly.  It takes three steps of any pace for the horse to perform a balanced halt transition.  Promising the horse that you will ALWAYS
a) give him three steps to prepare, and
b) insist that he WILL stop in your timing, every time,
trains a very, very good downwards transition.  This translates to a very good half halt, which is instrumental in improving how the horse goes.  Lazy horses can especially benefit from this training, as their usually quick but unbalanced downwards transitions don't prepare them well for accepting the hand, engaging the quarters and all the other requirements for a good half halt and correct weight distribution for collection.

Maintains the horse's attention.  Signs of inattention can include pricking both ears, turning the head and neck towards objects of interest, neighing or reacting to other horses nearby, napping, grazing, etc.  Simply by recognising these signs of inattention and quickly correcting them by flexing the poll inwards, chirping, saying the horse's name, asking for a transition within the pace or a lateral step, the rider establishes that they are the most important thing for the horse to focus on.  Many schooling problems disappear once the horse's focus is developed and maintained.  A horse who is nosy and looking about himself is telling his rider that their leadership is weak.

Hot Horse Rules

Riders/trainers of hot horses need to learn:

• To be very definite about how the horse is 'allowed' to use his energy.  A horse who habitually runs away when he's excited learns so many bad habits - he learns the rider can be braced upon, that the length and speed of the steps is his decision, that falling onto the forehand and stiffening is permissible.  All of these are very difficult habits to break.  Instead, hot horses should be taught to go "up" instead of "out" - to make their steps higher and more energetic rather than running, rushing, lengthening or quickening.  

As part of this, riders also need:

• To be very proactive about the length and speed of the trot steps, and later the canter steps.  Riding proactively is another phrase for 'shaping' the gaits.  The rider's seat is a powerful tool for this, whether rising or sitting trot is used.  Sitting trot can be very useful at early stages of the horse's education (often the rider does it better without stirrups, too) rather than exclusively using sitting trot on a trained horse, ie, for lateral work or the beginnings of collection.
• Often as riders we are taught to follow, follow, follow, accepting what the horse offers in terms of steps, cadence, impulsion, swing.  All of these elements can be positively influenced by how the rider sits on the horse, which is why schoolmaster horses are so valuable.  By showing riders how a truly engaged back feels, they can attempt to recreate the same feelings on their greener horses.  Alas, not everyone has access to such a tool!  Instead of following, a person training a hot horse needs to learn to lead.  A great example of this is a horse being ridden under tempo and slowing the trot to the point it almost drops to walk.  The rider can motivate the horse to keep trotting by activating their own seat - doing a trampoline bounce and creating the rhythmical momentum that the horse should (and instinctively does) match. 
• Hot horses should be schooled at trot 'below tempo' that is, slower than the speed of his natural rhythm.  After several weeks or even months of consistent work this tempo the horse learns to relax and then gradually to lengthen the steps without quickening, creating a good working trot.  This can be performed in gradually more stimulating environments, teaching the horse to channel its natural impulsion in a positive way.
• Finding the natural tempo of the horse is very interesting.  Often horses with a slow natural tempo, coupled with a forward-going nature, are very tense.  Riding these horses at or below their natural tempo often has a dramatic relaxing effect. (A horse with a slow natural tempo and a LAZY mind is even more difficult!  They need to be ridden in front of the leg but never chased out of balance.  I think I will devote a whole post to this skill one day soon!)
• To only use two reins to make a downwards transition.  My 3-2-1 Halt exercise, also known as "Off the Cliff" is a terrific start for a forward going horse, provided the rider is fully committed to it. Done correctly, the halt transitions create compliance, submission (the same thing?? ask the FEI!) engagement and a great connection between the rein aid and the hind leg.  If the rider's attempt to shape the trot or canter is going pear-shaped they should make a full halt transition, give the rein completely and start again with a soft contact.  Horse and rider can very quickly fall into the trap of holding too firmly on the rein and it takes two to pull!
• Hot horses have often been 'hung onto' to maintain the tempo and this can result in conflict rein behaviours such as reefing the reins out of the rider's hands or diving.  These horses get very good at schooling their riders!  Riders of hot horses need to ensure the horse never moves the rider.  Ninja-like reflexes need to be used to block these attempts to snatch rein or pull the rider forward.   Teaching the horse to confidently take the rein forward and down, on the rider's terms only, can be challenging but often really helps this kind of horse to have a 'safe place' to stretch to.

More to come on this topic...

Training Assumptions

Many (most?) instructors, (especially those who do not ride their students’ horses), start their coaching from a flawed basis based on a broad assumption.  They assume a (mature) horse fully comprehends the basic aids. This begins a dangerous cycle- if something goes wrong in a ride, the reason a horse hasn't responded to an aid correctly is that the aid wasn't applied correctly, the rider wasn't positioned correctly and/or was doing something to prevent a correct response, or that old favourite of horse-blamers everywhere, that the horse was just being being stubborn!

A more useful point for coaching to begin is, “Does this horse know how to stop on a light pressure from the reins? Does it know how to go on a light leg pressure? Does it know how to turn on a light rein pressure?” Most horses, even highly trained ones, do not clearly understand or respond to those three light aids. They have had so much done to them, so many conflicting aids of varying strengths applied in different places, with or without release, that they do not know how to consistently stop on a light aid and go on a light aid. They are confused. And when they don't respond the way the rider expects, on that particular day, they are often given a "correction." This undermines their confidence and can lead to conflict behaviours like bucking.

By retraining the correct basic responses until the horse is consistently responding to light aids, the horse and rider can begin to form the harmony required for higher level work.

It's my opinion that adult amateur riders LOVE to blame themselves when things go wrong.  On one hand, this is admirable and we should all be striving to be better riders.  On the other hand, this can lead to riders denying and never addressing the gaps in their horse's training.  It's very, very difficult to sit well and apply correct aids on a poorly-trained horse.  Ideally, the horse and rider improve together and by addressing the training of the horse FIRST rather than fiddling around with position corrections, as the harmony improves and the horse GOES better, the rider will automatically SIT better.

Thoughts on the Canter

It seems that the early canter lessons that beginners receive - "move with the horse, follow the horse, push with your seat..." can be really damaging.  These lessons,  laid down as gospel, set a muscle memory of 'what canter feels like' which is very hard for riders to break away from.  I recently watched my toddler daughter on a rocking horse and wondered if that's where it all starts?! I suppose the horses that beginners learn to ride on are usually not so forward-thinking too, so you feel like by pumping with your seat you are keeping them going (or they have inadvertently been trained to need that kind of riding to maintain the pace.)

I remember learning, realising the feeling of being able to shorten and lengthen the canter on a little Thoroughbred I was lucky enough to own as a 13-year-old crap rider with plenty of aspirations and book learning but no natural talent or ability or even access to regular lessons.  (Seriously, I look SO AWFUL in the old photos.)  But even then, I remember playing with my horse's schooling.  I remember experimenting, fiddling, riding friends' horses whenever I could and just trying stuff.  Nobody taught me to collect the canter, to shape it, with my seat.  I just figured it out.  Which is one of the reasons I'm pretty surprised more people don't figure it out.  Riders spend years, lifetimes!, getting it really wrong.  And sitting too actively in the canter just makes the horse drop its back away, lengthen its stride, go on the forehand and eventually break to trot.


But the nice part of this is, it's an easy skill to teach because it's easy to feel, easy to explain, easy to do.  Just resist the forward and upward forces from the horse's cantering hindquarter by pushing back and down against it.  That's it.  Most times the horse will think you are asking for trot but if you are quick with your voice and/or inside leg you can soon find a balance between go and woah.  And then the canter stride is YOURS.  Seriously, it makes such a difference being able to control the length of your horse's stride.  Often, green or lazy horses get out of cantering by lengthening their stride to the point where they feel too fast, then when the rider tries to slow them down with the reins, falling out into a trot.  (A truly horrible feeling, the flat canter lolloping downhill into a scrambling unbalanced trot...)

Having this 'collecting seat' tool in your toolbox makes the canter MUCH easier to ride, it makes corners easier to negotiate, it gives you a whole new set of gears and it works on even very green horses.  They instinctively follow a pushing seat and lengthen stride so it makes sense that they will also follow a lifting seat and shorten up.

A note: DO teach your horse to maintain the canter himself until told to trot.  This is also a surprisingly easy skill to train, you just sit still with totally passive legs until they drop out - or threaten to - and then you give them some welly and shout in their ear.  After a couple of repetitions they work out to stay in canter until they're told otherwise!  I wouldn't suggest a wallop with the stick, though, that's uncalled for and unnecessary and might result in a buck!

Riders tend to insist on this 'cruise control' very well at walk and trot but consistently fail to follow it through to the canter.  After all, if your horse was trotting along and dropped to walk without being asked, you'd certainly do something about it, right!?

I wonder - and impatiently await - what other lightbulb moments horses have to teach me!