horse training.....a quote

sorry for dumping *quotes* here regularly whistle

but there are occasions when i come across 'pearls' of wisdom & want to share with others! also feedback & discussion help me to work things thru as well wink

. and EE is a great place for discussion. another reason i posted this is because i've recently read a lot of posts about working young/green horses. i hope that this may help wink

Straightness needs to be addressed in one way or another in every work session, from day one. The green horse already has to learn to move on a round circle and in a steady tempo. That's the first lesson he learns at the longe line. In order to make a round circle, the horse has to be relatively straight. I.e. by perfecting the roundness of the circle, the rider straightens his horse. The same thing applies to straight lines.

As soon as the horse is under saddle, riding accurate ringfigures will straighten the horse. Figure 8s and serpentines teach the horse to bend evenly and equally easily in both directions, which also improves straightness. And finally, the lateral movements perfect the lateral flexibility, and they teach the horse to move his hips and shoulders equally easily in either direction, which then allows the rider to align the horse's hips and shoulders with greater and greater precision on the line of travel. These exercises are traditionally subsumed under "bending in motion", because developing the lateral flexibility will lead to straightness.

Straightness is an integral part of balance. When the horse is functionally straight, i.e. aligned correctly with his hips and shoulders on the line of travel and his spine is forming a part of the line, then both sides of the body carry the same amount of weight. As soon as the horse becomes crooked, he will lean onto the shoulder of the stiffer side, which will have a tendency to fall out and leave the line of travel. This loss of balance leads to bracing on the stiffer side and to a heavier or less elastic rein contact on the stiffer side. Many horses invert when they get crooked. Consequently, you can say that straightness, as a part of balance, is a prerequisite for Losgelassenheit and rein contact.

Without straightness, the rein contact will always be uneven.
That shows the absurdity of the training pyramid, which has become so popular in recent years. While the elements of the training pyramid are certainly important concepts, there is no simple, direct linear sequence that leads from one to the next. They are all mutually interdependent. If you make an improvement in one area, you will see improvements in the other areas as well. If the horse deteriorates in one area, you will see a deterioration in all the other areas as well. It would be better to arrange the concepts of the training pyramid in a circle and to draw connecting lines from each one to all the others, because they are all related to each other in a much more intricate fashion than the simplistic training scale suggests.

The other aspect of balance is the regularity of the tempo. When the horse speeds up on his own, he falls onto the forehand, which also leads to stiffness, bracing, and a stiff and/or heavy rein contact. When you apply a driving aid, most untrained or badly trained horses will simply speed up. That's a natural reaction. So you often have to rebalance the horse after a driving aid by applying a half halt to hold the hind legs down on the ground a little longer, so that the tempo stays the same. Conversely, when you ask the horse to keep his legs on the ground longer, i.e. to slow the tempo down, many horses will lose impulsion. In that case, you have to activate the hind legs after the half halt. Over time, the horse learns to understand that a driving aid doesn't mean "go faster". It means "put more effort into your work". Half halting does not mean "go to sleep". It means "sit down, transfer the weight more to the haunches". The separation between tempo and impulsion is not an intuitive concept for most horses, but it has to be explained to the horse.

Riding the horse in a steady tempo and on precise arena patterns leads to balance. Balance then allows the rider to connect the hind legs to the shoulders and the bit, so that he is able to feel precisely which muscle groups are stiff, which muscles are weak, which joints are not working with the full range of motion, etc. When the horse has learned to move in a steady tempo on correct arena patterns, the rider can start to supple specific muscle groups through custom tailored exercises.

The whip brings the horse to the leg. The leg brings the horse to the seat. The seat brings the horse to the bit, and the rein aids can then recycle the energy back to the hind legs and flex and unlock and half halt, or whatever else needs to be done. The rein is always supported in these actions by the seat, weight, and leg.
Sometimes a horse is sucked back and ignores the whip and leg aids because the poll/throat latch area is locked up and blocks the energy of the hind legs. In these cases, the rider has to unlock the poll first through flexions. When the poll has become mobile, the driving aids will go through better, the haunches will move more freely, and the back can swing better.

Thomas Ritter
Ritter Dressage
www.classicaldressage.com