SORRY I POSTED WITHOUT REALIZING THERE IS ANOTHER THREAD. You’ve probably seen the latest “abuse” video. Horse learning piaffe and won’t go forward out of it. Rider hacks him twice (gets a buck in between) but then he goes forward a few steps and because the video stops.
What would you have done?
Asking for a friend.
Haven’t seen the video and I’m at my emotional capacity of intentionally seeking out content of people mistreating horses.
What would I have done as the rider? Well, I don’t have the skill set to train a piaffe and can barely ride one competently. I’d hope that by the time I got there I’d have the tools to set my horse up to not get stuck. If my horse got stuck I’d hope I would be able to reward the try and have creative ideas on how to break the stuck that didn’t become punitive.
Haven’t seen that video but when my horse got stuck planting his front feet or going backwards, not related to piaffe but in general, I eventually figured out the following:
Sit upright (just make sure you’re not signalling for reverse on accident) and squeeze legs/spurs until horse goes forward a step then release and reward. After months of struggling this fixed the problem for good in 5 minutes. Also make sure horse doesn’t have a physical problem of course. I’ve seen a video from JJ Tate, she calls it “the long squeeze”.
Unstick the legs by using patterns and lateral work, turns on forehand, etc. Make sure this work is harder than actually going forward. When horse goes forward pat and reward but DON"T STOP until you are ready. Do it again. And again. For months for a year for however long it takes. Never whip hard (although you can annoy them with tiny taps that won’t end until they go forward). Never use a spur. You don’t want to train a buck or rear.
That’s what I tried and it just made my horse angry, my theory is that he didn’t understand what I wanted so all the extra stuff going sideways etc just made him more confused and frustrated and actually led more to the rear/kick/buck response. Squeezing with legs until he moved then reward and being very very clear was the solution.
That’s what hs worked for my guy. Pole on the ground and scattered cones. When he decides he is finished, we start turning around cones and over the pole in unpredictable ways. He hs to listen to me to not trip over the cone or tangle his feet. When he softens I halt and reward.
It took about four lessons for him to give up an issue I’d been battling for a year. Now if I feel a resistance, a quick turn to remind him to Listen to me is all it takes.
We are transitioning to a simple half halt as a reminder.
All I know is… if you ain’t got “forward”, you ain’t got nuthin’ yet.
Interesting topic ….
Horses do get stuck more often than you would think… IMO it’s a sign of being overwhelmed with something…. Mopsie was an example for it…
If a horse is overwhelmed, I am not sure whether hitting it hard is the solution…
I am also not sure whether medicating it is the solution…(I know that many people suggest to have a blocking horse checked by a vet…)
I really believe it’s the responsibility of the rider to evaluate the situation and to find out what lead to the reaction of the horse and to do it better next time…
And to clarify my opinion another of my personal experiences…
in the moment I am riding a young mare and yes she gets stuck sometimes too. So far I found three reasons for it….
The first is very easy to fix but probably tricky to understand. my mare is extremly sensitive (I assume the mare in the video is sensitive too) I found out when I taught her new things ( like leg yield) she understood it very easy and had fun doing it. But I really needed to be extremly careful with my aids. if the aids were too intense she blocked, probably because she wasn’t able to keep her balance…. So my fix for this is to make my aids softer and less intense…. we completely got rid of this type of blocking….
and it’s fun to ride her with very soft aids.
The second type of blocking is caused by me as well and a bit embarrassing for me…. I believe my mare and me have a very good relationship…. She trusts me a lot… so if I am confident, she is confident as well…. But unfortunately I am an older person and tend to overthink things. So sometimes I am not confident…and I found out that my mare is very good in reading me… As soon as I loose my confidence, she stops… I assume she thinks that it might be dangerous and that she waits for me to solve the problem…. The solution is easy, I do need to stay confident about everything…. After I found out how she thinks, I really try hard to be a confident and strong partner for her…
The third one is easy too, she sometimes tries to block when we are on a circle. and it always happens if I pull on the inner rein… So if I don’t pull, she doesn’t block…
I would assume the horse in the video was overwhelmed with the riders aids…. And I am sure hitting her hard was not solving the issue. It will only cause her to start to dislike the whole thing….
I would stop, pat the horse on the neck and let it breathe for a moment and start over again…. but of course, I am not an Olympic rider and have no idea what it takes 
.
And to illustrate what I just wrote…. This is my mare and me tackling a jump… both of us are focused and willing to do it
I think reasons for “behind the leg” vary a lot depending on circumstances. I have a horse that would drop behind the leg when confused as he was learning collection. For him, turning and squeezing and “opening the door” helped until he understood more completely.
In the video of piaffe/passage, it appears the horse is tightly held. If she was trying to get a more forward passage, she never gave the reins forward to remind him of what she wanted. Instead she held and hit. Even when he cantered forward, she stopped him after a few strides and flexed him roughly. I found it confusing and cant imagine the poor horse learned from it.
Riders make it hard for horses to obey the driving leg when their hands are telling the horse to STOP.
Lighten up with the death grips on the reins. Then the horses should listen to your legs better, once they realize that they can move forward more comfortably.
Or their seat is saying whoa while the legs says go…and of course hitting to a hard rein.
Bucket of grain or treats to reward motivation. Literally have a ground person hold a bucket for jackpot- not forever just for training.
Ezium or red cell
Play with different types of spurs and bits. Drop your curb.
I love it!!! Fixed a gate sour horse this week with a bucket of grain on the other side of the arena!
My horse needs to be going really forward on a loose rein in warm up. Once he is supple and warm, he is very reliably, (and happily), forward. Thank Mette Rosencranz for that one, especially the term ‘walk coma’.
I would have done transitions transitions transition. Walk trot walk trot walk to begin with.
Then I add counts. This makes the rider think. Plus as the exercise goes on and adjusts to the exercise the cue time will change. The lightness of the cue changes and THATS where the good training happens.
When the rider can handle them I’d add in them feeling when the back hinds are moving forward because timing of the aids is a thing, too.
Once that is going transition within the gait of trot so you can go shorter or longer with the gait. The eventual shortening morphs into piaffe.
This takes months/years.
A lot of great posts but I am not sure whether they are useful for training the Piaffe… I love the visualization of the bucket with grain…
My horses usually do the Piaffe really well even if they are not GP horses… it is fun to teach it and then ride it…. And my experience is that it is essential that the rider does not overwhelm the horse (any horse).
most problems arise when the rider is pushing the horse too much because then it looses the rhythm and gets tight… and I would imagine that at that situation they will block the forward motion as well…. The problem nowadays is that a rhythmic correct piaffe is not enough any more. So riders demand more from the horse. And if the horse resists because it can’t help it then the rider tries to break the resistance…
so IMO the answer to the question for this thread is…. Don’t beat your horse… go a step back and start over again after you try to get your horse to relax….
Of course not a popular opinion because it will take longer if ever to get ribbons….
And because I love to include my personal experiences …
I rode in a Scott Hassler clinic one time (I thought he was pretty amazing:heart:
)
My goal was really to improve my flying changes with my mare. He said it’s all about the canter so the first day we worked a lot on the canter. The second day he told me to ride a flying change. It was amazing how the flying change felt (he was right, it was about the canter)
Then he said we are not going to do more changes because that one was great.
So what do you want to practice now?
Well I was a small poor AA third level rider and I said, I want to work on the Piaffe….
He looked a little funny at me but said “ok whatever you want…… “
so we did some very good piaffe work (I admit I knew my horse knew what to do but I believed some expert advice wouldn’t harm it ) it was really fun and he gave me some great tips how to improve it even more . And no he did not tell me to hit my horse….
Then we were done and to my surprise he turned to the audience (mostly riders like me) and told them… Don’t even try to do this at home, you cannot do it and it will not do any good to your horse and you….
I felt pretty good on that day
So funny. So - this is a total aside, but I’ve had this horse in who has been a total balker. Been through 4 trainers before I got him. Wicked smart. Been through the ringamarole of veterinary tests, maybe it’s pain, whatever. I think it’s between the ears. He goes forward on the longe although he isn’t real high energy.
We try again today and he is adamant that he is not going forward with a rider on his back. Not doing anything dangerous, just will not go. Stands like a statue. Leg elicits nada. Turning is useless. Stick, nope. He is going nowhere.
I was on the ground and I had shown my trainer the old illustration this morning. We said what the heck, why not try it, get out my bucket of treats and at least make it a game. Omg. This horse volunteered walk and trot and by the end of it I couldn’t run fast enough to get ahead of him - she had to hold him back so he didn’t mow me down (also I was wearing terrible shoes for this exercise, lesson learned).
This horse had been on the euthanasia train, and now we might be able to unlock something. I don’t think it will be the final solution but for him to volunteer a trot with a rider on his back is game-changing.
I’ve trained some tricks with treats - mounting, liberty work, and I frequently will reward from the saddle for a rehab, but it’s got me thinking about equine motivation a little differently.
Also about how fast I am not 
I will add to the stories on the effects of food as a reward.
I studied with a trainer who did her training at Egon von Niendorff’s school in Germany. I guess this was in the 1950’s. Her parents had sent her there, she knew little/no German.
She tells the story that one day there is a buzz of energy and she figured something was up. Turns out the students were going to take the horses thru a jumping grid. Seems the horses had done this before and knew what was coming. She gets on her horse and the beast takes off perfectly jumping the grid. At the end of the jump chute was a bucket of oats.
Yay I’m so glad it helped!!! Seriously you have to find their “love language”. It might be food, the release reward might be to go do the happy exercise that is easy for them too. If you train with carrot + stick they will understand the boundaries of when it’s correct and incorrect. What if charlotte had used a bucket of grain too…
My horse can be a little girthy rbf only at shows. So I bought her sugar, and she spit it out. German molasses muffin cookies only for that queen. Sometimes you have to play with the type of food too.
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