Please share your favorite magical suppling exercises to help a hover (slow-legged, suspended) trot to become more free and fluid?
Caveletti with canter transitions has been most helpful for me in retraining horses who are confirmed at hovering.
First school your horse so they understand caveletti, if they are not already part of your training. Little sets of three poles in various places around the ring or excellent ways to remind your horse to get in front of your leg and cover ground in the trot. Slightly raised, even if only on alternating sides are most effective.
The exercise:
Set up three trot caveletti to start with, off the rail in the middle of the short side, set as spokes on a “Wagon wheel” spaced at an easy distance for the horse. Even if that means accepting a little bit of “hovering”. The idea is to keep this in their comfort zone at first. Make sure they can confidently navigate them well on a 20 m circle before progressing further.
Then, move the Cavaletti 5 inches further apart. Make sure the horse understands the change, and is confident with the additional length of stride before progressing.
Then, approach with the intention of executing a canter depart As the last hind leg clears the last Pole. This should help give you a good, thrusty, uphill depart. Canter on the circle 1/2 to 3/4 of circle, keeping your eye on the poles.
Transition to Trot as close to the poles as you feel you can do a good transition. At first it may be a quarter circle before the Cavaletti. Work on getting it closer, with the goal of the horse staying in front of your leg for the transition. Eventually, because the horse is aware of the Cavaletti coming, they will want to stay in front of your leg more, you can start to move the transition closer to the Cavaletti. The horse also knows after practice that these are for trot, and not Canter, so they will be more inclined to take your suggestion.
Be alert to the potential for moving the poles further apart as the stride opens up. Make small changes in 4 inch or so increments.
Ultimately, aim for being able to do transitions to Canter right after the poles, and transitions to trot just a few strides before the poles. This is a dynamic exercise, you will need to do many consecutive repetitions to get incremental improvements, but not so many that you drill. I find that doing sets of about five, followed by going off and doing transitions within the trot to be very effective.
If you have not done Cavaletti before, getting from step one to the eventual execution of the exercise could take a week or more. Anytime the horse gets tense, back up to the step where they are confident. In order to execute this exercise well, the horse absolutely has to be in front of your leg, and there will be no hovering.
Have fun! There are lots more exercises in the Ingrid Klimke Cavaletti book.
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Canter-trot transitions on a circle pushing the haunches out to create crossing behind. Maintain the crossing behind in the trot until you feel the horse push forward without the fake fancy. Trot straight on the circle, and go back to canter.
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The caveletti work will be excellent, but if you’re like me and wayyyyy too lazy to drag poles around, simple forward-and-back should the trick.
- get your horse hot off your leg.
- ask for a lengthening/medium trot for a few steps.
- ask to come back to a regular working gait.
- rinse and repeat ad nauseam forever (or as needed).
Best to put these on 20 meter circles at first to reduce the likely hood of the horse just dumping onto the forehand.
Importantly, this exercise (and most, for that matter) are most useful if the responses are QUICK. The horse needs to react immediately to your driving aids and your half-halts. Honestly, one of the greatest faults I see in dressage is the horses are allowed to be lazy behind. The hind legs need to be snappy! And that means a hot hot hot reaction to your driving aids and legs. This exercise, when executed correctly, is a great wake-up/warm-up for lots of other work. (i.e., prior to a leg yield, or a half-pass, or a pirouette, or whatever.)
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I like this. Similar to the above exercise: nose-to-wall leg yield in the trot. Make sure that hind leg has to cross under the mid-line of the horse. Allow back straight for several strides and transition back to nose-to-wall LY if the hover resurfaces.
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Thank you for the great ideas and suggestions. I have been playing with some similar exercises already, but it’s nice to hear what works and how you do it.
Arlomine I played with your cavaletti exercise today and it was wonderful. I longed my horse so it would be easier to adjust the spacing. He enjoyed the challenge and he was definitely moving with more scope and reach by the end. 
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I love arlomine’s cavaletti exercises!
What level is your horse schooling? My horse can get hovery when the collected work happens and my last mare was very passagey in the trot. I have found that keeping a horse round and moving over the back helps because the hovering can let them get away with working not over their back. And some horses overthink things and hover to give themselves time to think.
I love lateral work and then forward. Leg yield to the rail on the long side and then MEDIUM or Lengthened or wherever your horse is at. Shoulder-in and then straightened into a medium or lengthened across the ring. Turn up on the quarterline or centerline and then lengthen at walk or trot. then, at any point, make a half-circle and then lengthen or medium at walk or trot in the other direction. If your horse is confident, he’ll learn to listen to you and wait. If he’s insecure, so much change may not be helpful and may keep his backed off as he guesses. Kind of play it by ear.
I also like the exercise of trotting, then walk to halt, back-up and then TROT forward. This will get them over the back and forward. If you have hesitation in this, have a friend on the ground with a dressage whip. Ride past them on the rail, back up to them, and have your friend tap your horse on the butt a second after you apply aids to enforce the forward.
I love poles on the ground. It takes two seconds to pull out 4 PVC pipes. I sometimes put them like this:
You can ride straight down a line over poles, diagonal over poles, half circle over poles, leg-yield to poles or around poles, etc. I think for many smart horses, a visual clue helps them know where they are going and gain confidence and be forward. Cones are also great. I have colored dog-training cones and there are so many things you can do with them. You can also try things like this:
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You could circles or serpentines through these poles and lengthen or medium through the poles. You’re horse would learn that going through the poles means step out. You can then arrange two poles to go through in other places - the poles will teach your horse to be forward. Then, your horse can associate your aids with the exercises when you’re tired of pulling out the poles. Good luck!
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YAY!!! Glad to hear it! I’m not sure why, but caveletti are not used by dressage people as much as they used to be. The best thing about them is that the horse learns through the exercise, rather than being manipulated by the rider. The posture change sticks better because of that, I think…
