you do to get him moving again, once he is where you want him to be, release the pressure. Keep going until he is truly listening to your slightest leg and voice cues and reward him with some rest.
THINKING SIDEWAYS Another problem is a horse that will not move away from the leg laterally. As we are talking about finished horses here I am assuming that your horse will know his lateral work. By that I mean side passing and leg yielding, and how to move his shoulders and hip.
Lateral exercises are quite hard work for some horses, especially if they haven’t done them for a while or are out of shape. Combine that with a rider who isn’t really demanding a whole lot from them and they are likely to give you a hard time when you ask them initially. If your horse hasn’t done this work for a while start off with something easy like a leg yield in walk, where he moves away from one of your legs with a slight arc in his body away from the direction he is moving. He will probably not be straight and may lead with his shoulders but just get him in the mode of moving off your leg.
Next try working on circles with direct and indirect bend. This is less about lateral work and more about softness and flexibility. It will also get the horse’s shoulders working. A direct bend is when the horse is bent in the way he is travelling and an indirect bend is where, for instance, he is travelling on a circle to the right but is bent to the left. When he is performing
LEG POSITIONS
I ride with my toes turned out to
wrap my legs around the horse. I keep my heel down so not to make contact with the spur
This is the central leg position. Note the alignment between ear, hip and heel
Here the horse is
moving away from my right leg
this well in the walk move him up to the jog and lope, and work on different diameters of circle. This is a good test of how off your leg he his as you may find that he quits wanting to go forward as you are making him work
his body. Again, if he is physically out of shape you may be asking for too much so make the exercise a little easier by making the circles larger. However, if you feel he is just trying to evade work that he is capable of performing you may have to increase your leg pressure until he gets the message that you are serious and that he better get moving or the pressure will increase. Even on a finished horse it’s still important to work through the most basic of exercises from time to time as these will help keep him honest. To move a horse through his shoulders I move my weight slightly in the direction I want to travel and softly close my opposite leg on his side. If he does not follow my seat I then drive him with my leg in time with the desired speed of stride. Once he has moved I centre my weight for a couple of strides and then ask again. When asking a horse to give his hip I take my leg back a little. I always slide my leg back slowly and softly, giving him a chance to move away from the light pressure. If he doesn’t move I quickly increase the pressure until he does. I then walk straight for a few strides and ask him again.
Leg Centre – When sat up straight in the saddle there should be a vertical line through my head, shoulders, hip and heel. My leg is here most of time. This is the position I use to cue my horse to move forwards and when my leg is passive
* Leg Forward – I use my leg forward of the cinch to ask the horse to stop and move backwards
* Leg Back – I take my leg back slightly to move the hip
* Feet – I ride with my toes turned out to wrap my legs around the horse more. The more leg I use the more my toe is turned out. I keep my heel down so not to use the spur when it is not needed
In my programme, all my horses can perform side pass, small circles with direct and indirect bend, and small circles with their hips in and out at the walk, jog and lope in both directions. Work on your horse’s fitness and response to your seat and leg so that he too can perform these exercises. These really are just foundations that all fully trained western horse should have. They will help with suppleness and softness, and come in useful if you have to fix anything later on down the line. We’ll be using them in future articles so get practising so you have them in your toolbox in readiness for the next edition.
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