I have been working on teaching my sensitive thoroughbred mare how to stretch down and out under saddle better, and to seek the connection. Relaxation has never been her strong suit, and she is chronically tight in the back.
I am struggling with rein length - I’m gently “playing and giving” while pushing her towards it, she starts to reach, I slowly am letting her take the reins from me, and then something (likely that I did without realizing) will cause her to lift her head/neck and I’m riding with my hands in my crotch trying to maintain contact. I can often get her thinking out and down again in just a few strides, but it feels so bad to ride like that even for a short while - like I’m riding backwards, if you will.
My question is - should I crotch ride for a few strides, or is it better to shorten the reins and start all over?
Don’t play with the reins. You are causing a disruption in your contact and while you might think your horse is reaching out, it’s not really. You mare will lower its head but, as you are experiencing, the contact is not there, more likely behind it, and so it is easy and predictably to go above the bit, away from the contact and invert.
It’s leg cues, forward into contact.
Not leg cues, fiddle into inconsistant contact. You only « play » with the reins when the horse gets too heavy or stuck on the bit, and even then, you need to use your legs first.
and I’m riding with my hands in my crotch trying to maintain contact. I can often get her thinking out and down again in just a few strides, but it feels so bad to ride like that even for a short while - like I’m riding backwards, if you will.
My question is - should I crotch ride for a few strides, or is it better to shorten the reins and start all over?
Thanks in advance!
Reins at the crotch is never ok.
Widen your hands, stretch them out to the side to pick up the slack without bringing them toward you. As soon as the contact is reestablished, bring your hands back together.
This has to be in a smooth quiet motion.
Use more leg cues to regain the forward motion into contact.
She’s actually pretty consistent in the contact, for the most part. Maybe a little heavy sometimes, but nothing outrageous. I “play” for the reason you describe - to get her a little less heavy. Perhaps I am describing it wrong, but it’s the verbatim way my (admittedly infrequent) instructor described it to me.
I didn’t even think of widening my hands - that typically pisses her off in a huge way, but it’s smoother than trying to keep the contact with crotch hand riding. I’ll give it a try, thanks!
Below are shots from last night’s ride. I have no excuses for my posture or broken wrist angle - that’s why I video, so I can pick on myself to improve! Both of us have a long way to go.
It’s natural and normal for a horse that isn’t used to going stretched to eventually pop up their head again. It takes focus and new muscles to really enjoy stretching into the bit.
Circles are your friend. Here I see you are doing it just straight. You can do a lot with counter-bend/true bend circles. If you are trying to get your horse to stretch on a circle, ask for an inside bend with hand more up and out, and give on the outside rein as the horse takes the bit, and then a bit of leg to go forward. This is how you create the “stretchy circle” in a dressage test.
Anyhow, I would say if she falls out of the exercise, put her on a circle and create it again. Lots in training looks ugly, or at least not how you want to ride in front of a judge.
When she pops up and loses contact, your hands can go wide, and they can go up, to maintain contact and get the stretch happening sooner.
Anyhow, you could also work on just doing stretch for as long as she can hold it, even if that’s just 5 strides, then coming up again, then asking for stretch again. She may just not have the muscle to hold it all the way around the arena. Plus, if something happens that requires her to look, she is going to want to raise her head to see better!
It doesn’t look like it, but I am on a circle, albeit a really big one. I do try to use circles, but feel like she starts backing off the contact a bit if I use them too much. I haven’t asked her to stretch in a counter bend though! good idea.
I didn’t think about up, either. That does seem to get her lightened and moving into the contact again. I don’t know why, but wide hands reeeeeeally irk this horse off.
I like your idea of only doing it for as long as she can be successful, then moving onto another exercise on my own accord.
Thanks everyone for the replies. Sometimes I can’t see the forest for the trees.
I agree with bringing the hands up and a little wider to maintain the contact. Ask for the hind leg to keep reaching under, and then see if she will stretch again.
At the walk, you can try “combing the reins” upwards, and training the response to dropping the head when the bit is more up in the corners of the mouth. That can help the horse get the idea of stretching FDO in the trot when the rein is brought up a bit.
Also, make sure not to break at the wrist. Mostly your hands look good, but that bit of a break in the wrist of the left hand gives a backwards feeling that will block the stretching. Think of her neck like water flowing out and forward between your hands. Cocking a hand inward will disrupt the flow and the water will splash out in all directions.
Totally agreed with all. I have a wrist brace somewhere that I bought for this purpose, because I’ll unfold my hand and the second I get distracted I fold it again. I’m left handed and write with a hook, so that is that hand’s default position. I’ll keep working on it - believe it or not, it’s better than it was. :eek:
You can also try turning the fingernails on the hand upwards a bit. That makes it impossible to have piano hands, harder to have hooked wrists, and much harder to pull back. It makes the natural action of the hand be upwards and downwards but forward, which paradoxically is useful for getting the horse to stretch down. Going backwards is the enemy of contact and stretch, and the hooked wrist is inherently a backwards motion, and so is having your hands in your crotch.
Interestingly, my mare got so used to me having wide forward higher hands for stretch down that when I first started moving my hands back to a normal neutral place, she would pop back up. She took forever to want to stretch and find it comfortable: high headed, short backed, needed to be watching everything all the time too. Of course I was learning all this too at the time (green on green = bouncy bouncy) and probably if I started out with another horse I would get it happening quicker.
When you are doing flexions, inside bend, also make your rein direction be forward and out at this stage, not back and into your crotch.
A huge part of stretching down is the Forward. The ideal time to work on it is at the end of a work session, when they are all too happy to stretch their neck and their back. The rider’s hands needn’t, and really shouldn’t spread or get lowered in producing a stretch. The contact feel remains the same whether at the end of a long or short rein.
The first part of the problem is to develop a soft constant contact. The position of the elbows (bent but flexible,brushing your sides), the position of your hands, thumbs up, wrist lightly rounded, thumb and forefinger anchoring, fingers softly curled, not gripping, are all critical to developing correct feel. Any tension along the way elbows, forearms , wrists, fingers will be destructive.
Then its your job to establish and maintain a light and constantly changing feel.
Love your mare, OP! One other little niggling comment – look forward! Even the position of your head can affect a horse’s balance and make stretching FDO harder.
Mares with tight backs benefit from canter work. It seems to help them relax the back. Seems to me that helping your mare get softer in the back will help her stretchy work. It will take time, though, like everything in dressage!
When I first start training the stretch, I pretend that my hands are sewn to the reins, and I don’t allow the horse to chew the reins longer at all
Instead, I will push my elbows and even lean forward to follow the horses head down
This way, when they pop back up all I have to do is pop up as well, and our contact is maintained
I would do this for a week or until the horse stays down
Then, slowly start allow the reins to lengthen and not follow as much, inch by inch with your goal being to do whatever you have to do to keep that rein contact the same
Focused on: fingernails up, hands close and steady, elbows in front, and “belt buckle most forward part of body” (taken from another thread), and more forward.
Really great results! She was much more consistent in the stretch, particularly tracking right. Left she has a tendency to twist, and when I put my leg on to push her over in my outside rein she can get a little upset/tense. Even with that, I would have a circle or two of really nice work here and there. Probably a good 3-4" deeper than she’s gone in the past.
To capture the rein length when she would come up, I would raise my hands. Widening would make her insta-pissed, as I expected. If we went more than a few strides, I began shortening my reins to start all over again. She got the picture pretty quick.
And! A nice stretch, even with the young doe meandering around right on the edge of the arena. Good distraction practice!
