I recently purchased a haflinger x that just trail rode with gaited horses and is ignorant about any type of arena work, for a english pleasure mount. She is 15. She is very forward and has good hind end movement. I had her for one week, and she rode western before, and I have her walking around with fairly good head set, and walking slower than she did, lots of ground work, at the walk, and turning good with english direct rein and bending here and there… When I trot her, it feels like I am carrying a wheelbarrow, as she trots very fast and is like racing to keep up with her head, and she is also tends to raise her head frequently, as she is not used to the contact. I have been doing a lot of trot to walk to halt gentle transitions. I have never used a training aid in my life before. Has anyone used a good training rein? Draw reins are out, they are not recommended… She has an extremely huge stride for a 14.1 hand horse. Any help or pointers or training aids under saddle would be helpful to learn about and consider. I know about releasing the reins when the head is lowered… and softening… she is also not steady at the trot, so I have my work cut out for me. I have a pair of side reins and lunged her once with those set loose, and those worked good on the lunge. The mare is very gentle and never spooked yet and has a good temperment.
Do you have any trainer on board?
I would suggest starting over from scratch. You want the horse to learn to reach to the bit. She is going to need to start from scratch on arena work like she is 4 years old. She is going to need to learn to bend and carry herself on a circle. Flexion and counterbending and starting shoulder fore, leg yield, shoulder in. In hand and then under saddle.
There is no training aid that will do the work of slow gymnastics. A good dressage trainer will be very helpful.
what i have learned with my green horses is that you have to crawl before you can walk. And you have to walk before you can trot. I don’t trot for quite a while and teach my leg and bit quietly on a walk. Bit contact is verrrrry elastic and not even close to being tight. With a full cheek snaffle. Like for weeks i’m talking. It’s about building a foundation.
- I strongly recommend a good trainer
- Just ride her. Forget about her head or the reins. Pick up a soft and elastic feeling on the reins. Your job is to be a steady and consistent feel while you let her figure out her balance.
I’ve never seen someone successfully develop a horse when headset or the head/neck are the focus. Just establish a steady contact and ride big (big big) bending shapes like figure eights and serpentine. Transitions from walk to trot and back to walk help them start to shift their balance and eventually you can start adding in changes within the gaits. As their balance improves, the front end naturally becomes softer and more malleable. Right now, they need that inverted head and neck to cope with 15 years of poor balance and unevenness.
Think about this in terms of months not days and have regular quality eyes on the ground. Side reins aren’t a bad option but if the balance is really rough, it can teach them to duck behind the bit and set their head and neck. For an older green horse I’d focus on the core pieces of rhythm and relaxation. When you can get a metronome trot on the line and easy transitions up and down, then I’d integrate light work with side reins.
It all starts with rhythm;
If you’ve only had her for a week, she needs much more time to readjust and learn to balance. Her head coming up is from loss of balance, not necessarily that she is not used to the contact.
You mention doing some bending, but what do you mean by that really? Asking because it’s easy to focus on neck bend and not access true bend through the body, which is what you really need.
Right now I’m starting a coming 5 yo, and she is making me rethink and do things quite differently than with other horses I’ve started over the years. Although to me she feels quite balanced for such a greenie, I eventually realized that she didn’t feel balanced and would stop dead and refuse to go. I think your girl is likely similar, but going towards rushing instead of stopping to compensate for lack of balance. So my girl is learning all the lateral work in the walk, and learning how to step out onto the circle, bend through her ribs, and control her shoulders. I have to revisit this every ride, and then maybe we can do some trot work, but I have to be very careful to be there for her with my balancing leg and rein aids so that she can trust that she won’t lose her balance.
I’m also not sure what you’ve been doing for ground work, but I think my approach to this horse would be to teach her in-hand work so that she starts to become more aware of her individual feet and balance. She should learn turn on the forehand, rein-back, turn on the haunches, leg yield and shoulder in from the ground, and learn to give small flexions. Use these exercises before every ride to get her connected to her feet. Then teach her all of these movements riding in walk, as well as haunches in ( you can teach HI from the ground, but it’s harder, IME). Now you have control of the feet and bend, and your horse can start to do short bits of trot without getting out of balance. Work on maintaining the circle bend through your up and down transitions, and work on spiraling her out on the circle in trot over time so she learns to support with her outside legs so that she doesn’t have to fall in and rush to keep her balance.
All of this will take several months, but it is well worth it to have a more balanced horse. The small postural muscles learn and develop best doing this type of slow work. These muscles will take time to relearn their job so she can carry herself in better balance and learn to use her hind legs. If you “muscle through” the problem with faster work, training gadgets and overbending, you’ll end up with a horse that has a lot of muscle tension and incorrect movement from the large locomotive muscles doing the work the postural muscles should be doing.
100% agree with @outerbanks & @GraceLikeRain in their evaluations and recommendations. She lacks balance and strength and (therefore) self-carriage. The neck thing and rushy trot are hallmarks of an unbalanced horse and have nothing to do with the contact. She’s been run off her feet. If you mess around with trying to control her hind end by using rein devices you will develop a jigger. Be patient, you can bring her around in time.
Do you know why they want to?
What do you mean?
In my dressage program we want the horses to willingly stretch to the bit, open poll, bascule the neck, accept steady contact, lift the withers and track up with the hind legs as a starting point. Some horses are naturally comfortable in this position but others need a lot of gymnastic exercise to get there. If the horse is head high, choppy, and on the forehand like the OP describes, the horse will need to develop the muscles to lift the withers, use the hind end, bascule the neck. It will take time, like an unathletic person starting yoga and changing how they move.
Once the upside down horse learns to move correctly they will look different even in turnout.
Thanks. What i meant is why would a horse want to connect through bit/arms?
When i rest my horse on a loose rein she will go down with her head until she can feel me again. It’s like…that’s what she wants and i do not know why she does. It’s nice. It makes me happy, but i do not understand what it is she likes about it. Do you know?
They can learn that gentle contact is the foundation of active communication with the rider. It’s the foundation of good English riding.
Thank you for your advice. I will take it to heart about the head position… I do have a trainer but not at the high level of dressage that i am used to in my current area, and also she is out of commission and can’t ride right now…
I am doing various ground work, with the horsemanship halter, and training stick for learning to back, yield haunches, and yielding forequarters will take more time. i have also done 'in hand ‘’ work ala ‘arttoride’ on youtube which went well. Then I lunge her with loose side reins as i never ever want her head behind the vertical or even vertical. i am also trying to get her to stretch her neck to the bit in hand, and i tried it once under saddle at the walk. She is doing remarkably well at the walk for only one week. we are going over poles on the ground, walking over a line a poles, serpentines and figure eights. It is a light feel on the mouth at the walk. Trotting it kinds of falls apart, but i have not careened around and around the ring, and trot like down 1/2 to 3/4 of the indoor and then walk and halt The last time I rode Princess, was that I experimented with my back and made it very loosey goosey and then stopped the movement, and she slowed her walk way down when i stopped moving my back (to see what she would do0 I naturally have a light hand, and having the reins heavy in my hand is something i am not used to and uncomfortable with… To answer everyone’s questions, i am being supervised but not by a hard core dressage instructor, but she is clearly capable but unable to ride. There are very very few dressage people in Missouri and any type of high quality hard core training, like in the likes of Dutchess County NY where I grew up is not available
I agree with the recommendations for finding a good dressage trainer. They can introduce long lining which is super helpful but should be done under supervision as it’s confusing when learning to do it! Also when riding, try to do transitions especially within the gait so bigger trot and then smaller trot etc same with canter and walk. The trainer can also help with teaching lateral movements later on, they can actually be taught on the ground. My trainer and I taught up through half pass and pirouette in a halter during groundwork! It makes it easier so then they pick it up quickly under saddle.
I agree that long lining is super helpful for this situation.
My horse was very similar with his trot work in the beginning, no rhythm, head and neck all over the place, super inconsistent. It will take months, but it will start to come together. For me it was a brief moment at a time, then starting to piece those moments together.
Finding the right bit was a big step for us too. If she is not comfortable in her mouth (dental work too), it will be much harder for her to find the contact and want to keep it.
Try not to focus on head placement. Getting a horse to go in a frame doesn’t have all that much to do with what you do to their head. Use your seat to influence her way of going as much as you can. It sounds like you are doing a bit of that already. You can do it at the trot too, by sitting back and posting slightly slower than the natural rhythm.
It also sounds like she lacks fitness and balance, given the fact that she is rushing and unsteady. Patience is key. Once she develops those she will come along much faster.
Keep looking for a trainer. A good one is priceless.
In the walk make sure you follow her head. This means your hands are not held still, they should move back and forth so the rein does not go loose and firm.
Stretching down with the long rein is a reward for them and gives them a stretch.
You are doing great, but a real trainer is the best asset you can have.
I take exception with this comment, “…around with fairly good head set…” A “head set” is an entirely Western term and something to be avoided at all costs in dressage. I have retrained many a Western horse for dressage and since they have all been taught to “back off the bit” getting them to accept contact is a long, slow process that most certainly doesn’t start with “training aids.” For someone who claims to be used to “the high level of dressage,” you sound like you are fairly new at it. You most definitely need to work with someone who knows what they are doing.
I’m not familiar with Will Faber’s in hand work, but not a fan of his under saddle work, so I would probably look elsewhere for that.
The think with the NH stuff, is it is more about yielding to pressure, whereas in-hand work for dressage is slower and focused more on fine motor skills, developing bend and balancing over the four legs. So for example, NH might teach a horse to yield or disengage the haunches, but in-hand work is teaching a turn around the forehand where the hind legs step under and over very purposefully. The the turn around the haunches introduces bend and controlled steps forward and around with the hind legs, while side-stepping will help with lateral suppleness and further teaching of dynamic balance over the legs without any rushing. Kind of like you might run quickly across a balance beam and make it to the other end before you fall out of balance, or you could slowly go step by step and train yourself to balance better within each phase of each step. Both ways will get you across the balance beam, but if the next thing you want to do is to stand in the middle of the beam and gracefully lift one leg in the air, and then the other, which method do you think will best prepare you to do that?
