That is very true, but very few dressage trainers, especially the old masters, will say that one then should do absolutely nothing with the front of the horse.
The way to ride a dressage horse involves creating an endless cycle of creating energy, with a great deal of delicacy receiving it, and recycling it, all the while keeping all the major muscle groups swinging and loose and supple. One cannot do dressage with just the reins just as much as one can’t do it with just the seat or just the legs. The rider needs all those, both to create something correct and to fix things.
As the saying goes, ride all the horse with all the aids all the time.
One doesn’t get there by being forceful with the reins, but one also doesn’t get there by doing nothing with the reins. Especially with this problem.
What we have to do is so much more difficult than doing nothing, which is doing just enough.
something DOES have to be done with the front of the horse. The question is just what to do that doesn’t cause other problems, maintains a connection, keeps the horse pushing (and later carrying) with the hind quarters, trusting and reaching for the bit rather than dropping it and going along with shortened neck behind the bit (and the hind quarters and shoulders ALSO ‘shortened’), and becoming thereby what many people perceive as an ‘easy ride’, instead what one has to do keeps him relaxed and loose in his neck while still balanced.
Without something that forces the horse to comply, it’s up to the rider using very simple tools that frankly don’t give him much advantage, and require him to have quite a bit of skill, to get the horse not to ‘drop the bit’ and go with a shortened neck, but constantly maintain a living breathing connection.
If I have a horse that is holding his neck in and going along not really reaching for the bit, I have a much, much harder job than if I have a horse that is pulling like a freight train. It may SEEM a lot more pleasant and comfortable to pat around with the horse not swinging and reaching for the bit, and the gaits may be VERY comfortable and easy to ride.
But the one holding the neck in cannot really ‘deliver’, the circle of the aids is broken.
He can’t really have impulsion - swinging ghis hind legs and back, if his neck is not ‘through’ (muscles loose and swinging and connected with the bit). He can’t be really bending through his body, he can ‘crank’ his neck this and that way but it isn’t coming from a neck that is supple and loose and connected, the neck is held in. It prevents bending and it prevents the horse from really reaching with his shoulders and hind legs and swinging his back.
The solution I don’t think is so complicated, though that doesn’t make it easy. The rider is always making forward, receiving the energy, recycling it, and constantly creating that circle of the aids.
When the horse is going correctly the energy doesn’t just make the hind legs move, it flows from the back end of the horse to the front end, is received, recycled and that makes the connection work.
