My horse was on loan to a fantastic, semi-pro rider with a strong leg who schooled and started competing her in dressage. They did quite well. The rider got better rides on her books (my horse is very temperamental and inconsistent) and chose to end the loan. No harm no foul.
I’ve been schooling and prepping my horse now she is home and I’d like to do a few fun low level shows like intro and prelim here in the UK. The problem I’m finding is she’s very dead to my leg. Her loan rider always rode in spurs, schooling hacking and competing, and I never do. My horse seems to pretty much need a pony club kick to really respond and I’m much too old to keep that up. Not to mention it isn’t nice for either of us.
Can I get her to respect my leg without spurs again? Do I need to wear them myself, much as I’m reluctant to? Can I fix this? Thank you for any thoughts!
Horses don’t really stop feeling aids. But when a horse is ridden on a tight rein constantly they need to be spurred forward and can definitely get “behind the leg” and sour.
I think you need to do a gentle “restart.” Do a lot of riding on a loose rein, do a lot of trail riding, even toss on a jump saddle and do a lot of two point and posting trot like a hunter rider.
Also get a full body checkup and a body worker out. Your horse likely has pain somewhere. Watch how she moves in turnout. Will she free longer w t c and what are her hind legs doing in particular? Is she stepping up at the trot? Is she bunny hopping at the canter?
I know “lending a horse to a trainer” makes it sound like she should come home better schooled, but it sounds like you lent her to someone that used her up, fried her brain and fried her body too possibly.
So back right off and reestablish a relationship where she knows she can go forward without pain or restraint.
The rider was not nearly so fantastic a semi pro if she made your mare worse at the end.
Edited to add: I have seen this happen a lot with low level pros and ambitious ammies both. The super heavy hands combined with Spurs are a short cut to getting the horse “round” or “in a frame” which is rewarded in dressage competition. But it also makes the horse sour and can create hock and SI damage. Good training makes a horse more forward and more responsive, not less.
Doing lots of transitions can help!
What @Scribbler said. Get out and hack, it really does fix a lot. And make sure she isn’t sore somewhere, that her saddle fits, etc. She may not look lame, but sneaky things like bi-lateral foot pain or a pinching saddle can present as stickiness.
From there, you need to “re-educate” her to your leg and teach her to respond to leg pressure by itself. A spur or a whip can be used for this, as well as voice commands installed from the ground. Ask with the lightest aid you want her to respond to, then a stronger aid, then the spur/stick as needed to get a response. When using voice commands, I like to start with the voice command AND the light aid at the same time - eventually the voice is removed from the equation and you have the leg aid alone.
If you don’t have the educated leg to apply spurs correctly or you really don’t want to use them, then use a whip. However, IME horses that are inherently lazy will know when you aren’t carrying one, which is a whole thing. YMMV.
Walk to hand gallop transitions.
Spurs really are not for forward. The horse should be super sensitive to the leg for forward, the spurs are a refining aid. That said, reinstalling forward to the leg requires lots of diligence and consistency. I start on the ground, hand work and lunging. The horse has to react to my aids promptly and must be forward on the lunge. THen I start in walk under saddle, a light squeeze and if the horse responds HUGE PRAISE, rinse repeat. I need that respect for the leg in walk before I can trot. The horse needs HUGE PRAISE. Then in trot, then in canter. I also start all over in walk to lateral aids, then trot, then canter. LOTS OF PRAISE for forward desire. To get them hotter as you move up, quick transitions, go over poles (sometimes throw random poles around the arena, so you can go over a pole when you need to), change direction often, make sure to bend and supple. Relaxation is essential–a tense horse is not going to be responsive enought to you. Whenever you get stuck, start all over again. If the horse is naturally lazy, I need to do this lesson every day. If the horse is dominant, I need even more praise to get him motivated to be submissive to the aid. Make sure your release and your praise is as quick as you want your horse.
After getting her checked out Physio/chiro etc the method I learned from Jane Savoie goes like this.
Ask, no response, check yourself, re-ask, if the response is nil or half-hearted (this is for when you know they understand as in this case) re ask but this time in addition to your normal leg cue add a touch with a crop. Got some response? At this point it doesn’t matter if its pretty, was it a better response? yes? good, now come back to the previous gait, get your rhythm back and ask again normally. this is the crucial part, after the spank be careful not to catch them in the mouth, let them go forward, cause that’s what you asked for. Bring them back, get your rhythm again and ask again normally. You should get a better response, it may not be perfect but an improvement. Go along for a bit before you come back and ask again.
It is important that you are consistent and fairly precise in what you are asking to eliminate confusion., The bringing back and asking again is very important because you want them to go at the normal aid.
You can work on polishing the transition after you get a consistent response, which you will then be able to refine to a whisper. a:)
Don’t let that “trainer” ride her again either.
Hands without legs…legs without hands…
Work on walk-whoa-walk transitions. You don’t need spurs to get a horse forward.
Absolutely! So glad to see this early in the comments.
I used to ride a Fjord who was a lesson pony. Lesson ponies are very slow off the mark, and should be since often their young riders don’t really want what they’re asking for. But I got tired of the “pony club kick”, too.
But he was not dummy. I began at the start of my ride on a loose rein, asking quietly for forward and if I didn’t get with the ask, he got two stout whacks with the dressage whip. It only ever required that at the start, and for the rest of the ride, he’d respond nicely. It was like his reset button.
I worried if I got him too light off the leg, he’d become less useful as a schoolie. Silly me. Horse was not dumb. He’d start dull with everybody (his preferred setting, which is why he was such a good fellow for the program to have), but those two smacks would reset him and he’d pay attention.
I would drop the whip sometimes after those smacks, just to make sure he wasn’t going to become the fellow who dulled immediately with no stick in my hand.
Also - LET GO during this retraining. The contact and throughness comes AFTER forward. Don’t worry about the contact right now and for goodness sake do not punish a forward movement, even if it’s a little more forward then you planned.
Also–observe the way the horse responds to your on the ground, in the washrack, loading on a trailer, walking to the stall. If it balks there, the respect for you has not been installed. You need to install the quick response on the ground and it’s a lot of work to be vigilent. No beating. Do not pull a horse that stops, better yet, make it back up, do a turn on the forehand, a turn on the haunch, make it move its legs and let it understand that when it doesn’t go forward, it will work harder. You can also use a flag to help, but you must make sure to praise the forward response so that the horse associates going forward with the praise and not the evil flag so that eventually the horse is motivated and the flag is not needed.
Transitions. Lots of transitions. Lots of praise. And a loose rein. I like my horses to respond to my seat and the transitions get them listening. I wear (small) spurs most rides but not for speed.
I do three things.
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Start my ride doing walk serpentines with whisper aids. The shape, position and size of loops are irrelevant and vary from loop to loop. As the horse goes along they tune in to the light aids and become more responsive.
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I do a leg yield for two side steps, and put the outside leg on to go forward. The trick to this is to not stop leg yielding before going forward. Let that outside leg close the side door at the same time as it sends the horse forward. The leg yield needs to actually be crossed legs yield steps. I got it from 101 Dressage Exercises.
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Periodically I do responsive ride sessions. This is where quality of response is ignored in favour of speed of response. I stick to basics and this is not an exercise for green horses. I’m skipping the stronger aid and going straight to “Now!” after asking politely. If the head pops up, fine. If I get canter instead of trot, or halt instead of walk, that’s fine. Praise and continue. This exercise morphs into improving transitions as the response gets sharp.
Okay, four things.
- Forward and back on a stride count. Best to start this in trot to get the understanding of the exercise for both horse and rider. Working trot a pattern that has the horse travel equally on each rein (I find Needlepoint from 101 Dressage Exercises good, serpentines work too). Ask your horse to take a slightly longer stride every time you post, for 4-6 strides. You’re asking for each of those strides to be longer than the previous one. Then ask each stride to be a little shorter than the previous one for 4-6 posts (same number as you asked forward). In the beginning have an ask nothing post/stride between the forward and back sets - go forward, 2, 3, 4, ask nothing, shorter, 2, 3, 4, ask nothing, repeat.
The horse will probably give little response to either forward or back, possibly both at first, but if you keep going with light aids you’ll start to get a response. Lazy horses often shorten happily at first, and try to ignore the forward, while horses running unbalanced tend to speed up at the forward ask, and ignore the shorten. The trick to this exercise is not to micromanage each step or use stronger aids. Allow the repetitive nature to get through to the horse, and lighten your aids more as they become more responsive.
If you find the horse has figured out that if they ignore your aids for the number of steps, they’ll get to do the one they want (forward or back) you can keep asking for the one they ignore, and get a response before changing your ask. I do find forward horses are more likely to ignore the shorten than slow horses are to ignore the forward.
Once you have a consistent forward back response going, you can ask for bigger changes from stride to stride, or try doing the exercise with fewer steps. I find threes is about the minimum strides for this exercise to be helpful. It’s a good exercise in canter as well, and can be helpful at walk if care is taken to keep the march in the walk.
