Menu

Stay in Touch
Sign up for ENews
Subscribe Now

Unlimited access >

Menu

Young horse, behind the vertical, Help!

Dressage
#1

Here’s a little background. The horse is my 4yo home bred gelding Presto. I consider myself a fairly experienced rider and have ridden a good number of green beans and started a few horses under saddle. I have an instructor and try to take lessons fairly consistently. I have done all of Presto’s training myself, other than taking lessons. This is my first time teaching a young horse to do more than walk trot in a straight line.

With Presto I established straight and forward before ever worrying about moving into contact. I lounged him in side reins and gradually worked on having him reach into contact under saddle. At first he did very well, then he stopped reaching into the contact and started resisting it. I would take up the contact, put my leg on and he would not give or reach at all. He doesn’t throw his head way up and go around like a giraffe, he just will not reach or give, and his neck is tensed. Several times I have gone back and established straight and forward, but when I start to ask him to move into the contact again I get the same resistance.

This time I just rode through the resistance, keeping my contact the same and riding him forward through it. After a few weeks of this, all of sudden, he started giving and reaching, but way too much! Now the second I get on and pick up the reins his head goes either too low or BTV. The shorter my reins the more BTV he goes, and if I let them out longer his head gets lower (but not reaching, he is still avoiding contact, although not as much as he does when he goes BTV). If I ride on the buckle he will trot around with his nose to the ground! I am pretty stumped about what to do now. I try to stay the same with my hands and push him forward. I have never focused on pulling him into a frame, or putting his neck into a position. I focus on riding him forward into the contact and ‘pushing his ears away’. My instructor is in and out of town the next few weeks so it is going to be awhile before I get a lesson, so I’d thought i’d post this here and get some ideas to play around with in the meantime.

#2

young horses try a lot of things to avoid contact…they just test the waters. (as long as they don’t figure out to go backwards you are still ok)

what I do with the ones who experiment in the way yours is, is to follow them with my contact wherever they put their mouth…so if he tucks it to his chest, you still keep your same consistant rein contact there and keep riding him forward to that contact.

the thing you don’t want to do is throw your reins at him and run him towards the bit as he will end up way on the forehand with no connection and no education about the consticancy of your contact.

your contact goes wherever he goes, there is no place he can put his mouth that you can’t stay with him. just keep riding your transitions and everything the same…

#3

I totally agree with Gucci Cowgirl. Follow wherever he goes with a consistant elastic contact, really going for a rubber band like connection. And it often helps to widen your hands a little, as you send him forward into the bit. Which can help a horse to be more consistantly trusting of the rider’s contact.

When I have a horse dropping too low or BTV, I often do a downward transition (correctly ridden from behind) to help him come up a bit. When he’s ready basic lateral work like turn on the forehand (thinking slightly forward) will also help him reach into and connect with the outside rein and correct his tendency to be BTV.

It is usually a strength issue, and you will often find that the problem goes away gradually as the horse gains strength in his topline.

#4

Quoted from BarnBrat:

The shorter my reins the more BTV he goes, and if I let them out longer his head gets lower (but not reaching, he is still avoiding contact, although not as much as he does when he goes BTV)

Your horse is showing you which choice he prefers, and it is the better of the two options. Encourage more of this. BTV is the worst habit and you don’t want to be dealing with that too much.

I definately agree with Gucci Cowgirl and lstevenson on following the mouth with an elastic contact, BUT you must have a good independent seat to be able to do this well. Your hands need to be lighly feeling the horse’s mouth at all times and they must keep the light contact whether in front of the vertical, or all of a sudden BTV … You need to have a very elastic shoulder (!) that allows your elbows to have a soft rearward pull to keep this type of contact. It is the bit-hand-elbow connection and must remain independent of your seat. No bumping of the mouth. Needs to be very soft following or you will encourage bad habits of resistance and tension.

One exercise that can keep things in perspective is to drop your reins and then pick them up again without any reaction from your horse. This ensures that you are keeping things light and aware of the mouth.

#5

Also, fwiw, experiment with different bits. My mare also would rather drop behind the bit, I thought riding her in a loose ring KK ultra was fine and it was ALL me and the riding. A trainer finally told me to try some different bits as well, she goes MUCH MUCH better in a happy mouth mullen mouth or a happy mouth plain single jointed dee. She is much less willing to take the bit in a metal or a double jointed French link mouthpeice. The change was immediate.

#6

same here. my horse ended up in a gumby rubber dog bone.

just like others said, biggest thing is to keep the bit on one spot. Chances are the horse also searches. If your hands are consitantly moving or shifting the bit moves too. Keep those hands steady and in one spot, no matter where you horse trys to talk you into putting them.
and yup, the independant seat is needed muchos for this.

#7

I second trying a different bit.

Also consider trying:
– ask for bend. More lateral suppleness.
– ask for more obedience to your legs and seat.
– ask for quick transitions when she starts to curl
– tap her shoulder with whip when she curl
– bump her sides when she curls
– “scramble the egg” on the inside reins
– lift your hands

Don’t correct above vertical ever.
Don’t use side reins.
Light contact, and forward forward forward.

#8

I would change bits, to a mullen mouth or something solid in the mouth AND the cheekpiece. You didn’t say what bit the horse is in but I personally don’t move any horse out of a bit w/cheekpieces (my fave is a fulmer, then to a loose ring) until they are reaching onto the end of the rein consistently. I know a lot of people start in a loose ring; I just don’t, too old I guess… I remember before KK was a household name. Anyway, my personal horse WILL NOT take contact in anything but a myler mullen mouth. I should have tried it a long time before I did.

Lastly, you may want to consider your concept of contact… the horse makes/takes contact, not you. It may be that you have met a horse who is unwilling to play along with the idea that the contact belongs to you instead of him. They are educational and everyone should meet one :lol: Try riding his back up and his hind end under, stop worrying about his front end and see what happens.

#9

One recommendation we had from a German Trainer to deal with this is to just tap the heels of your fists on either side of the whithers. Horses will normally put their nose forward when you do this and just open your fingers slightly to let them put their nose forward but don’t change the contact and keep the rhythm forward off the leg.

#10

I think the problem is that you are chasing the contact. The ideal is to take a light contact and send him forward into your hands. When he starts offering to touch your hand, do not take, keep sending, keep waiting. Do bending and turns and transitions, without changing your contact. He should in time come to you. It takes patience and feel.

Changing bits seldom solves the problem.

#11

Barn brat, sorry to say, and this is said with the utmost respect, but I think your approach lacks consistency and an overall logic, from the horse’s point of view, and thereby creates inconsistent results, inconsistent contact, and the horse doesn’t understand when to lengthen his neck and when not to. I think you need to change your paradigm of training. A skilled instructor can help guide you.

#12

Thanks

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, please keep them coming.

Gucci, lstevenson, & BaroquePony - For several rides I tried to keep the same light, even contact with his mouth and follow him wherever he goes. I think I did a farily good job following him and keeping the contact steady without bumping him. I didn’t want him to learn ‘Oh, all I have to do is put my head way down here and she leaves my mouth alone’ This only seemed to make the problem worse, it was almost like he felt ‘chased’. He began to move his head around a lot more, and go even lower and more BTV. Now, I’m pretty good at having independent following hands, but when he goes from chin on his chest one stride to nose on the ground the next I’m not so confident in my ability keep the contact soft and following. And so…

This is how I have approached coming onto the contact with him from the beginning and it is how I “rode through the resistance, keeping my contact the same and riding him forward through it” (quote from my first post, ‘it’ being the resistance). He went from tensing and not giving, to giving way too much and going BTV. The past two rides I have gone back to keeping my contact in the same place. I do not take hold and set my hands, but I do take a soft contact and stay there, asking with my leg for him to meet me there. I am saying ‘this is where i am going to be, no matter what you do with your head i’m going to stay right here’. I think he is doing better, as he does not go as drastically BTV. I am using bending, turns and transitions to bring his hind end under him and at the same time encourage him to reach for the contact, and it is helping. I guess I am having a hard time because when he is BTV, there is no contact to send him into. His hind end is in the back 40, and putting my leg on just makes it worse. This is where I am really not sure what to do.

Everyone, thanks for the bit suggestions. I’ll ask my instructor if she thinks a different bit might help. Up until this spring he was in a loose ring snaffle, now he goes in an eggbutt snaffle. I did not notice any change when I changed bits.

SLC - I can see how my post may have come across as me being inconsistent. Let me clarify. I have always ridden Presto with a light contact. The events in my post span across about six months. In the fall I began the process of going from riding with light contact, to asking him to reach into and follow that contact. It went very well for a few weeks and then he started to resist. He was very young and green, so instead of pushing him and insisting I went back to the basics and reestablished straight and forward. I only rode him occasionally over the winter, and this spring we started back up again with the basics and light contact. Then I very gradually began to ask him to reach into the contact again, and he very gradually began to resist again. This time I didn’t back off, but kept asking. I have always asked in the same way (see above). A few weeks ago when he started to suddenly go BTV I did experiment a little, by lengthening and shortening my reins, and trying to follow him with my contact so he would not learn to avoid it. Now I have gone back to ‘staying the same’ (again, see above).

#13

perhaps a video would help so we can see what you are doing when riding

#14

BB- we are in the same boat- your horse must be quite intelligent. I have finally accepted the fact that the topline has to get stronger- I lunge in a chambon twice a week and I gallop a lot more- I found that a reasonably paced hand gallop gives the young horse a lot more fitness and ability to balance- and this has helped me quite a bit. I think you are on the right track- although I did find the bit suggestions quite interesting and will investigate those for my own coming 4 yr old (in 2 weeks…:wink:
I have gone through the same phase of BTV and still encounter that as I am moving through all the possible evasions one could think of. I have found that after a long 10 -15 minute free walk on a long rein- I will briefly trot and then canter (galopp) quite freely- but after the initial explosion pretty nicely on the bit- and get the willies out of my horse- I do this in both directions and as long as I reasonably feel he can handle- then I walk again- pat him and start my trot work after that…he is mostly quite happy then and willing to oblige(nowhere perfect but a lot better than if I don’t do the canter work…)

good luck and enjoy! it’s a puzzle- every horse is different and there are no recipes that work for every horse…so rest easy.!

#15

of course the horse got a little worse when you didn’t let him escape the contact!

that’s a young horse. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you have to have a LOT of patience, perserverence, and commitment in order to fix this problem.

A lot of the time, things get worse before they start to improve. Don’t always change the game plan - your horse thinks it won the round every time you give up.

#16

What is the mouthpiece of the bit(s)?

I think it would really help you to try to understand what a passive hand is. A passive hand neither gives nor takes. When the horse roots, you stay there, passively. It takes a fair amount of core strength and balance. When the horse inverts, you hopefully have a good enough seat to stay out of the pit his back is making and continue to maintain a passive hand. Dressage horses are not supposed to give to the bit. We want them to chase the bit out. Picture a carrot in your hand under his mouth and you are backing up and he is chasing it forward.

Ideally you always have the feeing that your hand is slightly pushing forward, as if the reins were sticks. At the same time, your focus needs to be on encouraging the back to come up and the hind end to step under because here’s the thing - unless BOTH of those things happen, the horse CANNOT reach out and chase the bit. If he comes to the bit and “gives” with a hollow back and unengaged hind end, you are doing saddleseat :wink: or simply bad dressage.

I don’t think the horse is going around thinking about how to evade you. I don’t think he is spending his time trying to figure out how to “evade contact”. He’s a horse, he has never read a dressage book, he has no concept of what you “want” him to do and no concept of what contact is. Contact is a human idea. He is neither smart for not figuring it out nor stupid. You have to be a good enough rider to encourage him to explore what the end of the rein is and see that it feels good to bring his body into that posture. It is a biomechanical process and it is your job to bring his body into the seeking posture that results in the horse being “on the bit”. As you are finding out, no amount of more leg and more hand will make him seek the bit.

A LOT of horses will, and do, tolerate being pushed at a hand that is pulling back, and consequently give to the bit. Why do horses do this? Because they are trying to move away from pain. Some of them simply hang on the bit and on the rein, those are the ones who move into/push at pain. There is a long explanation of why some horses do that, it has to do with being a prey animal. You may simply have a horse who is not willing to play either one of those games to save himself. Since we cannot see him, we don’t know. We also really cannot learn much from watching people who ride their horses onto the end of the rein because when it is done well, they look like they are doing nothing at all.

The first time I encountered a horse like this I decided I was either going to learn something or die trying :lol: I took my horse to a true FEI level trainer (someone who has shown/trained internationally at the FEI levels and has trained many, many horse thru GP and whose students are very successful) and said HELP ME! I DON’T GET THIS! WHAT IS THIS HORSE DOING?!!! It has been (hindsight is always 20/20) one of the best things that ever happened to me. A lot of things that I had been taught in the past came together for me; a lot of concepts meshed, I learned how to ride a difficult horse forward and onto the end of the rein. If I had not cried UNCLE I would have probably sold that very talented horse and still, to this day, think that horses get on the bit by me taking contact rather than them making contact.

Or… maybe you are doing everything perfectly and your horse just really does not find his bit comfortable.

As a byside, if you focus on the horses back and hindend it is hard to go wrong. A young horse who is lacking in strength in the back will often go BTV, he finds it easier to balance there. IMO and IME IF his topline is weak, and in the moments that he is BTV his back is still up and swinging you have nothing to worry about. As he gets stronger he will come up and chase the bit out. He will not “learn to evade contact”, again, he doesn’t know what contact is. And if we all agree that contact should feel good to the horse, and he should want to seek it, then we agree that he will be happy to get there as soon as he can, when he can.

And just a random thought - why would a horse “evade contact” unless we were making it something uncomfortable? I find that horses evade engaging their hind ends, particularly if their backs are not up and swinging, because it is hard work. But contact is a side effect of the back up and the hind end under, so when you have those things working, it is easy for the horse to reach out onto the rein and they do it comfortably.

So… what is your horses back doing? What does he do when you put your leg on him? What have you done to teach him that the leg means go forward with engagement? What are his withers doing? Maybe these are the questions we should be asking when a horse appears to be “evading” contact.

Sorry for the book.

#17

BarnBrat

I do not take hold and set my hands, but I do take a soft contact and stay there, asking with my leg for him to meet me there. I am saying ‘this is where i am going to be, no matter what you do with your head i’m going to stay right here’.

Taking the contact and asking the horse to meet you there is what is causing the problem. It’s the horse that initiates the contact, not the rider. The horse offers the contact and the rider receives it. To me, contact feels like about a half a pound of soft, NEUTRAL, elastic, continuous presence WITH the horse.

The reaching gesture is a natural response to improved balance and the unimpeded flow of energy through the horse’s body to the poll. Once the horse is reaching, the rider can pick up a FOLLOWING, neutral contact. The transition to contact should in no way disturb the horse.

Practicing transitions from ‘walk on the buckle’ to a soft, elastic, FOLLOWING, neutral contact often greatly improves the overall quality of the contact.

#18

Every horse may be different but to me it sound like we have the same horse!

Along with my bit change to a happy mouth, I started doing lots of trail riding (long rides with BIG hills), and lots of hand galloping as well. I just recently stopped lungeing with side reins (which never helped at all no matter how adjusted) and changed to lungeing once a week in the chambon. What a difference on the lunge line!

#19

Ha, tell me about it! :slight_smile: I know things often get worse before they get better. But I am inexperienced in dealing with this problem. I haven’t been able to have a lesson since this problem started, and I wasn’t confident in my ability keep the contact soft with his head moving around that much, or even if it was the right thing to be doing. So I backed off because I don’t want to do the wrong thing and it make it worse. Why oh why does my instructor have to be out of town now of all times! lol

Tonja & Eqtrainer - I think I am not doing a very good job of describing how I am approaching ‘contact’. Again, Merrygoround described it best:

[quote=merrygoround;3301406]I think the problem is that you are chasing the contact. The ideal is to take a light contact and send him forward into your hands. When he starts offering to touch your hand, do not take, keep sending, keep waiting. Do bending and turns and transitions, without changing your contact. He should in time come to you. It takes patience and feel.
[/quote]

Eqtrainer, excellent post. I have never tried to make him ‘give’ to the bit. I have always ridden him with a soft contact. In other words, while I was teaching him to go straight and move off my leg I did not have loose floopy reins, I kept a light feel of his mouth. Now I am trying to teach him to reach into, and follow that contact. I guess it is really a different kind of contact. Anyway, I have always focused on riding his hind end and keeping him between my hand and leg, which he did very well. Now I am trying to get him to bring his back up and really step under himself, and I think this is what he is really trying to avoid.

I guess what I am really struggling with is how to ride a horse who is BTV. What do I actually do? There is no contact to ride him into, and his hind end is way out behind him. Because there is no contact to send him into adding more leg only makes it worse. I feel like I have nothing to ride.

As for his bit, the mouthpiece is a single joint typical snaffle. The more I think about it changing his bit might be worth trying. He used to grind his teeth some when he was younger. Now he ‘chomps’ his bit when I first put the bridle on, but he stops after a few minutes. Hmm…

Edited to add: His very first bit was a happymouth, loose ring snaffle with a single joint mouthpiece. He thought it was a chew toy and it only took a few rides for him to chew it to pieces.

#20

I ride a horse that loves to go behind the vertical when he thinks he’s working too hard. And he can go forward full blast with his nose on his chest or even between his knees, so pushing him forward doesn’t work with him either.

When the “here’s the bit and please put yourself on it” isn’t working, I sit back and lift my hands slightly (and sometimes more than slightly) and continue sending him forward. As soon as his head/neck comes up, I resume “here’s the bit and please put yourself on it.” At first, it was not pretty. He’d bring his head up, but he’d waggle his head and neck back and forth (all the time continuing to go forward – what a talented multi-tasker he is :lol:). But if I didn’t play into the game, and said “you can ping-pong all day long between my hands” he’d eventually settle down and we’d have some semblance of steady contact.

As his back and hindquarters have gotten stronger and more supple, the problem has gradually abated to where he doesn’t do it very often any more (we started riding dressage about 2 years ago, when he was six). And I was learning right along with him, so that probably retarded progress. But it’s gotten much better.

Get your Digital Subscription here - only $29.99 / year

Subscribe here
See gift options

Sign up to our monthly newsletter!

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.

Copyright © 2023 The Chronicle of the Horse