How To Help Your Stiff Horse Bend

You can help your stiff  horse bend better by gently doing the opposite of what he wants to do with his body.

Few horses are ambidextrous—meaning they can bend as easily to the right as to the left. So your goal is to make your horse’s soft side more “stiff” and his stiff side more “soft” and bendable.

How Do I Make the Stiff Side “Softer”?
Dressage riders in particular tend to think that the stiff side is the “bad” side because it feels harder for them to bend their horses when that side is on the inside. But you need to think outside the box. The stiff side is not the problem. Your dressage horse feels stiff to the right because the muscles on the left side of his body are shortened and contracted.

The solution to this problem is to stretch those shortened muscles on the left side by riding your horse with too much bend when you track to the right. In schooling, you’ll live in “right bend” until you feel the muscles on his left side elongate. (You’ll know those muscles are stretching because it’ll feel easier to bend your horse to the right.)

So, let’s track to the right—the stiff (hard, strong) side. The main reason your dressage horse feels stiff to the right is because the muscles on his left side are shortened and contracted. These shortened muscles limit how much he can stretch his left side and bend around your right leg.

Here’s an exercise to gently stretch and elongate the muscles on the left side (the hollow side) of your dressage horse’s body.

If your horse is really stiff, do the exercise in the walk.

• Go on a large circle to the right.
• Pick a point somewhere along the arc of the circle, and turn onto a 6-meter circle.
• While on the small circle, think about your bending aids. (Put your weight on your right seat bone, keep your right leg on girth, place your left leg behind girth, flex your horse to the right as if you’re turning a key in a lock with your right wrist, and support with your left hand.)
• Ride the 6-meter circle a couple of times until your horse’s body conforms to its arc.

• Once he’s bending, keep applying the 6-meter bending aids, but blend back onto the 20-meter circle.
• If it gets difficult for your horse to stay bent this much to the right, blend back onto a 6-meter circle. The idea is to ride the 20-meter circle with a 6-meter bend.
• Once you can do this on a circle, try riding straight down the long side with your horse bent as if he’s on the arc of a 6-meter circle. (The feeling is a bit like doing shoulder-in in front and haunches-in behind at the same time.)

When you go down the long side, bend your horse to the right from nose to tail as if he’s on the arc of a circle. Be sure you bend him behind your leg as well as in his neck.

How Do I Make the Hollow Side “Stiffer”?
The flip side of this “stiff to the right” issue is that your dressage horse will be hollow or soft to the left. You might think his soft side is his “good” side because he feels easier to bend, but the hollow side of your horse needs help as well.

On the hollow side, your horse doesn’t have true bend-equal from poll to tail. He usually overbends the neck to the inside and places his inside hind leg to the inside of his line of travel. By doing so, he can avoid bending the joints of his inside hind (engagement), and he also doesn’t carry as much weight on it. As a result, that leg gets weaker, and your horse develops unevenly.

My solution for this problem is to ride your dressage horse without any bend at all when the stiff side is on the outside and the hollow side is on the inside. Keep your horse as straight as he is on the long side even when you go through corners and circles. Think that his body is like a bus that can’t bend on turns.

Let’s say your dressage horse is hollow (soft, weak) on his left side. When circling to the left, ride without any bend at all. Keep his body as straight as a bus.

• To get a perception of straightness, halt somewhere on the long side. Make your horse’s body parallel to the long side all the way from poll to tail.
• Also, ride him either with no flexion (His chin is lined up with center of his chest.) or in counter-flexion (-1). In counter-flexion, his face will be 1 inch to the right.
• Ride through corners and circles with no bend through his body and in counter-flexion at his poll. If you ride in this position, your horse’s left hind leg will step underneath his body.
• This will make that leg stronger over time. (This exercise is only for schooling– not for horse shows.)

If you use this philosophy of doing the opposite of what your dressage horse would do on his own, and it’ll be easy to get him to bend on his stiff side. You’ll also find that you rarely get stuck solving training issues. Invite your horse to do the opposite of what he chooses until it becomes easy for him. Once that happens, settle back into a happy medium.Click on suppling the stiff horse for more help for you stiff horse

How to Supple Your Dressage Horse’s Shoulders

Do you ever feel like your dressage horse’s shoulders are so stiff and stuck that not only is it hard to turn him, but his hindquarters are disconnected from his front end?

If your horse’s shoulders are stuck, it’s like having a kink in a water hose. The energy can’t flow from behind, over the back, into your hands where it can then be recycled back to the hind legs.

Here are two shoulder suppling exercises for you to try with your stiff horse.

1. Make a 20-meter box with 4 corners in the walk.

•  To give you more control of your dressage horse’s shoulders, do the exercise in counter flexion. (That is, you’ll just barely see his outside eye or nostril.)

•  If you’re going to the left, ask for right counter flexion with your right wrist. Stay in counter flexion during the entire exercise.

•  At the first corner, bring both hands to the left to swivel your horse’s shoulders around the corner.

•  Then, soften the contact without letting the reins get loopy.

•  After the corner, walk straight ahead in counter-flexion.

•  At the next corner, bring both hands to the left again.

•  Do this in all four corners.

•  As your horse’s shoulders become more supple, it’ll get easier to spin his

shoulders around the turn without meeting resistance.

•  You can tell there’s no resistance when the weight in your hands stays the same as you swivel your horse’s shoulders around the corner.

2. Ride down the long side of the ring, and move your dressage horse’s shoulders slightly to the left and right.

•  Walk down the long side of arena.

•  Flex your horse at the poll opposite the direction you’ll be moving his shoulders. For example, when riding to the left, ask for a counter flexion to the right by turning your right wrist. Then, take both hands to left to slide your horse’s shoulders over. Move the shoulders over only 1-2 inches.

•  Now change to a correct flexion by turning your left wrist.

•  Move both arms to the right to pop the shoulders back out to the track.

•  Smoothly and fluidly move the shoulders back and forth as you work your way down the long side.

Click on supple my horse, for more suppling exercises for your dressage horse

Supple Your Stiff Horse

There are lots of exercises you can do to supple a stiff horse. But one of my favorites is one I call “+7/+1″.

Here are the aids to supple your horse with that exercise.

THE ACTIVE AIDS
1. The Inside Rein:
• The action of the inside rein is the same as it is for loosening the poll (indirect rein). However, in this case, ask for a bigger bend. Turn the key in the lock to bend his neck until his face is 7 inches (+7) to the inside of a neutral position (neutral means his chin is directly in line with the crease in the middle of his chest.).

To use an indirect rein, turn your wrist so that:

1. Your thumb points toward the center of a circle.

2. Your fingernails point up toward your face

3. Your baby finger “scoops” up toward your opposite shoulder

4. Your entire fist stays forward in the “work area” but moves over toward the withers. (Come very close to the withers, but don’t cross over.)

5. As soon as you’ve turned your hand in that position, return to a normal position with the thumb as the highest point of your hand

• Bend and straighten your horse’s neck to a +7 three times.
• Do the “three bends” one right after the other. Do them very quickly but very smoothly.
• Make sure to keep a contact with your horse’s mouth before, during, and after you bend him. Don’t let the rein get loopy.

2. The Inside Leg:
• It’s very important to use your leg at the same time you use your inside rein.
• For example, bend your horse’s neck with your right wrist to a +7, and squeeze with your right calf at the same time.
• By doing so, you’re telling his right hind leg to go forward into your right hand.
• In this way, you put your horse “through” the right side of his body.

THE PASSIVE AIDS
1. The Outside Rein:
• Keep your outside rein steady and supporting to limit the amount of bend in your horse’s neck to a +7.
• Don’t let your outside hand go forward toward your horse’s mouth. Keep your hands side by side.
• As soon as you’ve bent your horse’s neck to a +7, use your outside rein to straighten it and bring your horse back to a +1 flexion.

Important: Don’t keep him bent to a +7 until he “gives”. That’s the wrong kind of “giving”. He’s just giving in the jaw, and that’s not what you want! You want him to come over his back as he connects his hind leg to your hand)

2. The Outside Leg:
• If your horse is very stiff, you’ll need to support him with your outside leg to prevent him from swinging his hindquarters out when you bend him with your inside leg and rein.
• Make sure all four of his legs stay on the original line of travel. Your horse’s neck is the only part of his body that comes off the line of travel.

The Sequence of Aids Is:

Go on a circle, and supple your horse three times in a row. Then leave him alone for 6-8 strides to give him time to react to the suppling. During those 6-8 strides, make sure your contact is elastic depending on whichever gait you’re in.

Elastic contact means:

1. In the walk and canter, your elbows open and close as if you’re rowing a boat.

2. In the trot, your elbows open and close like a hinge or like you’re washing clothes on an old-fashioned scrub board.

Keep alternating between suppling your stiff horse three times and then being quiet for 6-8 strides. If you’ve been effective, with each set of “three supples”, your horse will lengthen and lower his head and neck. He’ll also feel looser and softer in his body and more mentally relaxed.

Click here fpor more help with getting your stiff dressage horse to bend.