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!
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