I went to a western dressage clinic last weekend, and learned a ton. The clinician had me working on the baby beginnings of true collection with my mare. The clinician had me working on really engaging my horse’s back end and getting her to use her hocks. One thing that she kept saying to me was that I needed to “slow down Sydney’s front end.” In the clinic I thought that made sense…but now that I am schooling at home I am not really sure what this means. Any insight? And how do I do this without feeling like I am hanging on my horse’s mouth?
Just a guess, but I think it probably is more about engaging the back end. If your horse is on the forehand she’s probably scrambling a bit in front. If she’s rocked back over her hocks, then the forehand can come up and there’s more time, relatively speaking, for her front legs to move forward.
Good Luck.
Makes more sense to me to “speed up” the rear end. So I agree with atlatl’s guess.
Nope, slow the shoulder, not speed up anything. Its about engagement not speed.
This is why you need to be able to ride off your seat.
Too fast? half halt the seat. No fiddling with reins, no pumping with seat or leg. Just pause and rebalance. Even a 4 yo can do this.
this way way before any thought of collection, but it’s on that same road. Just step 1 of 600 
If you speed up the hind end and can’t control the shoulder/speed you just create more tension and the horse looses its’ balance over the sternum.
Balance will create the “come from behind” feeling and the rider is able to HANDLE and manage that.
I used to drive more, go go go until it prevented collection.
Excellent points, Sendenhorse. I’ve been “quickening” my horse’s hind legs for better collection – but a lot had to happen before that…
With some horses, especially thoroughbred types, I found when I tried to speed up the hind without first slowing down the front, I ended up just pushing more quickness onto the forehand. I’ve had a few that had infinite ability to speed up the front end to always stay quicker than the hind which always resulted with more horse on the forehand. A great instructor helped me learn to control the forehand first, then start to insist the hindend quicken. It’s a very subtle difference but I found it especially helpful with a horse that is prone to run on the forehand
Every time I’ve ever heard this phrase use the person saying it actually meant to gain control of the shoulder and thus the balance on the outside.
That said, I don’t know the first thing about western dressage.
It’s neither a case of slowing the front end, or speeding up the back end, but of rebalancing the whole horse. That comes from the rider’s seat, and may find her having to teach the horse to listen to the seat, assuming the rider already knows how to use it. 
[QUOTE=ThreeFigs;8908860]
Makes more sense to me to “speed up” the rear end. So I agree with atlatl’s guess.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the kind mention, however I didn’t suggest speeding up the rear but rather engaging the rear which would rebalance the horse by moving her off the forehand. SendenHorse and Merrygoround explained it better than I did.
Welllll, it’s hard to tell without a video.
My gelding really needs to speed up his hind end and we work regularly with this. It’s easier for him to not step under and go out behind, so we are working on getting him to step quicker behind. He naturally has a perfect hunter canter but he needs to carry himself more for dressage, and I have to show him how to move in the schooling sessions. IMO, some horses can scramble with the front end. The key is to get these horses to reach out in the stride AND match the hind end. This isn’t something you’re going to fix overnight, but it’s a way of going that you can teach your horse to adopt. I think great trainers do this every day. It’s also not something unusual. Many MANY athletic horses have to learn to focus on matching the front and hind ends when they are developing.
