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

Learning Dressage Movements-Shoulder-in

Shoulder-in is the father of the advanced lateral dressage movements. It does many wonderful things for your horse. Here are just some of them:

Shoulder-in is a suppling exercise because it stretches and loosens the muscles and ligaments of the inside shoulder and forearm. During shoulder-in, your horse passes his inside foreleg in front of his outside foreleg. This motion increases his ability to move his forearm gymnastically in other movements.

It’s also a straightening exercise because you should always straighten your horse by bringing his forehand in front of his hindquarters. Never try to straighten him by leg yielding his hindquarters out behind his shoulders.

Shoulder-in is also a collecting exercise. It increases your horse’s self-carriage because he lowers his inside hip with each step. As a result, his center of gravity shifts back toward his hind legs. His hindquarters carry more weight, and his front end elevates.

What Does Shoulder-In look like?

In shoulder-in, you’ll flex your horse to the inside, and bend him around your inside leg. Then bring his forehand 30 degrees off the wall so he’s on three tracks. At this angle his inside hind leg lines up behind his outside foreleg.

Many people bring their horse’s forehand in more than three tracks. When this is done, all four legs can be seen. This isn’t a problem as long as you can maintain your horse’s bend so that the exercise doesn’t become a leg yield.

Sometimes in competition, the judge likes to see a hoof’s width more than three tracks. But don’t bring the forehand in more than that, or you’ll lose the bend.

What Are the Aids for Shoulder-in?

If you’re doing left shoulder-in, the aids are:

Seat: Put your weight on your left seat bone.

Left leg: Keep your left leg on the girth for bend and to ask for engagement of the inside hind leg.

Right leg: Place your right leg behind the girth to prevent the hindquarters from swinging out.

Left rein:Use your left rein to create a +1 flexion at poll.

Right rein: Keep your right rein steady and supporting to prevent too much bend in the neck.

Both hands:

• Keep both hands low and equidistant from your body as you move them to the left.
• Move them to the left enough to place the outside front leg in front of the inside hind leg. (Or half that distance for shoulder-fore)
• Use your inside rein as an opening rein.
• Bring your outside hand very close to the withers, but never let that hand cross over the withers.

What’s the Sequence of Aids?

• Always ask for bend before you ask for angle.
• The formula for the advanced lateral exercises is:

Bend + Sideways = Engagement. (It’s NOT Sideways + Bend=Engagement.)

• Make a 10-meter circle (or ride a corner with a 10-meter arc) to bend your horse.
• You’ll know your horse is bending easily when you can soften the contact on the inside rein, and he stays bent by himself. He’ll also feel like he’s “giving” in his rib cage. (i.e. If you’re circling to the right, his rib cage feels like it’s bulging to the left.)
• Once he’s bending nicely, start a second 10-meter circle.
• Interrupt that circle during the first step, and continue down the long side.
• To interrupt the circle, look straight down the long side, and give a squeeze with your inside leg.
• Bring both hands to the inside to place the forehand 30 degrees away from the wall.
• Make sure you do shoulder-in with the same amount of bend and angle in both directions. Don’t ride on three tracks in one direction and on three and a half tracks in the other.

How Can You Tell If You’re Doing a High Quality Shoulder-in?

• The quality of the shoulder-in really comes down to BEND.
• You know your horse is bending if his hindquarters are in exactly the same position (i.e.
• parallel to the wall) in shoulder-in as they are when you’re just riding straight down the track.
• If his hindquarters swing out at an angle to the wall, you’re just doing a leg yield in a shoulder-in position.

Click here for more info on shoulder-in lateral dressage movements.

7 Tips to Develop Trot Lengthenings at First Level

A lot of riders struggle to develop trot lengthenings with their First Level horses. What follows are 7 quick tips to help your lenthenings

1. THE AIDS FOR TROT LENGTHENINGS
When you’re ready to ask for an upward transition from working trot to a trot lengthening, apply the aids simultaneously, as follows:

• Seat: use a driving seat, as though you’re pushing the back of the saddle toward the front of the saddle.
• Legs: press lightly with both legs to signal your horse to express his energy forward over the ground in longer strides.
• Reins: soften your hands a bit forward, but keep a contact with your horse’s mouth, and a bend in your elbows. Do not ‘throw the reins away’.

2. TROT LENGTHENINGS develop suppleness.

Here’s an image that will help you understand the type of suppleness you’re developing when you practice lengthenings with your First Level horse. Think of your horse’s body as a rubber band that can easily stretch and contract. Not only will this quality make him more athletic, but it’s also extremely useful for all disciplines of riding. Take showjumping, for instance. Just think how many jumping faults could be avoided if your horse’s stride were easily adjustable like this!

3. MAINTAIN THE TEMPO OF THE WORKING TROT
As with most new work, when you begin to incorporate lengthenings into your training at First Level, you start in the trot. It’s a bonus if you have a horse that can naturally lengthen his trot. Many Warmbloods and Arabians have this ability, but I’ve worked with a lot of Thoroughbreds, Connemaras, Morgans, and Quarter Horses who really need help developing their trot lengthenings.
If you ask your horse to lengthen in the way I’ve described and the tempo gets quicker because he runs with short, fast steps, you need to systematically develop his lengthenings. Part of his difficulty may be purely physical. He may lack the suppleness and strength that he will gain in time by basic dressage training. But part of the problem may be that the horse just doesn’t understand that he is to take longer strides in the same tempo. He actually thinks he’s being obedient when he rushes off because he feels you close your legs, and he responds eagerly by immediately going forward.
I often find that I can help him understand that he is to lengthen his strides without speeding up, by asking for the trot lengthenings while going up hills. Once he gets the idea, I go back into the ring and see if he can transfer this concept of lengthening in the same tempo on the level footing.
Sometimes I do something unusual with the horse that tends to quicken his trot tempo when asked to lengthen. Since it takes time to develop the trot lengthening, I go out in a big field, or I go all the way around the ring and round off the corners so that I don’t have to slow down for them. First, I take up a heavier contact than normal. In this way, I can temporarily act as the horse’s fifth leg and purposely support him so he doesn’t lose his balance. Then I ask for a lengthening in posting trot. While posting to the trot, I rise very high and stay in the air a fraction of a second longer than normal. I pretend that I can hold the horse in the air with my body. And, in my mind’s eye, I picture him floating over the ground with his feet never touching the ground.
I ask my horse to give me a greater and greater effort and eventually one of two things will happen. The first is that he realizes that his legs can’t go any faster, and he ’shifts into overdrive’ and takes some longer, slower steps. At this point, I immediately stop, praise him, and let him walk on a loose rein.
In my experience I’ve found that the first time, I might have to go all the way around a ring once or twice before I get a couple of longer, slower steps. But after the reward, the next effort yields results much sooner. And the same for the next attempt.
The other thing that might happen is that he loses his balance and falls into the canter. This isn’t the disaster it seems to be. If my horse hadn’t lost his balance and cantered, his next trot step probably would have been a bit longer. So I re-establish and immediately ask for a trot lengthening. It’s in that moment that I’m most apt to get a longer stride in a better tempo. And once again if I get even one or two better steps, I stop and praise him. The reward helps the horse to understand that by doing something different, even if initially he doesn’t understand what it is, he’ll be praised.
Once I get two or three better steps as soon as I ask for the trot lengthening, I leave them for another day. During each session the horse builds his understanding of what’s being asked, and over time he physically gets strong enough to lengthen in a good tempo for a greater number of steps.

4. HEAR THE TEMPO

Use some good auditory images to help you while you’re teaching your horse to do a trot lengthening in the same tempo as his working gait. Pretend you’re standing by a paved road and your eyes are closed. Because the tempo stays exactly the same, you can’t tell from the sound of the footfalls whether your horse is in the working gait, lengthening, or doing the transition in between.

Here’s another auditory image to help you teach your horse to lengthen the trot in the same tempo as his working trot. Pretend you hear a metronome ticking. The tempo stays exactly the same both when you’re in working trot and when you’re in the lengthening. (Even though I’m discussing trot lengthenings at the moment, you can use the same type of auditory image if your horse quickens his tempo in a canter lengthening. ‘Hear’ the tempo as if your horse is moving over the ground with big, ground-covering bounds in slow motion.
If your horse still tends to quicken his tempo when you ask him to do a trot lengthening, overcompensate by imagining that you ‘hear’ the tempo get slower. Pretend that the tempo gets slower because your horse stays suspended in the air for a long time. If you’re doing a posting trot, try rising and sitting more slowly to see if you can be the one to set the pace rather than automatically posting at the speed that your horse chooses.

5. USE FIRMER CONTACT FOR SUPPORT
Don’t be surprised if the contact with your horse’s mouth during trot lengthenings becomes somewhat heavy. Remember that lengthenings are developed out of the working gait at First Level, and the weight in your hands is somewhat firm to begin with. In addition, while your horse is learning how to balance himself during trot lengthenings, his center of gravity might shift even a bit further to his forehand. Don’t be alarmed by this. It’s a stage of his training, and it’s fine to temporarily support him by maintaining a firmer contact. Later on, if you decide to go on to more advanced work, you’ll develop ‘uphill’ extensions out of collected gaits. Because the horse will have a greater degree of self-carriage when he’s in a collected gait, the contact will be lighter.
However, there’s a fine line between a solid, supporting contact and one in which your horse is leaning so heavily on your hands that your arms ache. Here are some things you can try to improve a contact that is too heavy. Before you even begin to ask for a trot lengthening, make sure you drive the horse’s hind legs more under his body by closing both of your legs. In order to carry himself, your horse needs to have his hind legs underneath him. If his hind legs are trailing out behind his body, he can’t support himself in the lengthening and he has no option but to lean on your hands.
You can also ride some quick transitions: from trot to halt and back to trot again, or from the canter to the walk and back to the canter again. This will help to rebalance your horse and make the weight in your hands more comfortable.
Another reason the contact can get too heavy is that you may be asking for too many lengthened strides at one time before your horse is ready. Doing well-balanced trot lengthenings with his hind legs underneath his body for only a few strides at a time is much more valuable for your horse than lengthening for many strides with his hind legs pushing out behind his body. Remember that when you do the downward transition back to the working gait, be sure that you close your legs to send his hind legs under his body. It might feel natural to ask for the downward transition from the lengthening to the working gait by just using the reins. But, as you know by now, if your goal is to rebalance your horse and improve the contact, you need to add hind legs while doing the downward transitions.

6. ALLOW THE FRAME TO ELONGATE IN TROT LENGTHENINGS
In trot lengthenings, the front feet should touch the ground on the spot toward which they are pointing when each leg is at its maximum extension. When a horse has to draw his front legs back toward his body before placing them on the ground, or his toes flip up in front, it usually indicates that he hasn’t been allowed to lengthen his frame.
Sometimes a rider makes it difficult for the horse to lengthen to his utmost. Although I said earlier that you shouldn’t be concerned in the contact is a bit too firm, you want to be sure that you’re not making it heavy because you’re cranking his neck in. If you keep your horse’s neck short by restricting him with strong or non-allowing hands, he has to draw his foreleg back before putting it down. Allow your horse to lengthen his neck and point the tip of his nose more or less forward. To help you to do this, think about ‘opening the front door’ by softening your hands a bit toward your horse’s mouth and by cocking your wrists upward in a way that allows your little fingers to go more forward.

7. SIT UPRIGHT
When you use your driving seat to ask for the transition into the trot lengthening, don’t try to ‘help’ your horse to lengthen by leaning back. Even though you might feel that you can drive him forward this way (and I see many dressage riders doing this in lengthenings and extensions) you’ll just end up driving his back down and making it hollow. Stay vertical at all times.
I learned this lesson about sitting correctly in trot lengthenings the hard way while trying to qualify for the Olympic Festival with Jolicoeur at a competition that was being held at Knoll Farm in Brentwood, New York, back in 1987. One of the finest international judges in the world, the late Mr Jaap Pot, was there. He was a stickler when it came to the correctness of the rider’s seat. I remember Jo and I doing huge extended trots for him. I thought we had done really well until my score sheet came back with extremely low marks for the extensions and the simple comment - rider leaning behind the vertical. Believe me, it made an impression.

Click here for more info on First Level Dressage Trot Lengthenings.

Jane Savoie’s Youtube Shows Leg Yielding Exercise for Dressage Horse Suppleness

I just posted a quick leg yielding video on my Youtube channel at janesavoie. It shows a simple zig-zag exercise both for dressage horse suppleness and for rider coordination.

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.

Tips To Supple Your Dressage Horse’s Poll

If your dressage horse is supple at his poll, you should be able to flex him laterally to the left and right. If you’re not sure if he’s locked at the poll, ask yourself some questions:

• Will he easily flex to the left or right with one quick turn of your wrist or does he stiffen against the action of the rein?
• Does he tip his head on small circles or lateral work with a bend like shoulder-in?
• Are his ears level when you ride either to the left or to the right?

If he stiffens against your hand or tilts his head when you ask him to flex left or right, you probably need to supple his poll.

Here’s a 2-part “poll suppling” exercise to help your dressage horse.

Part 1. Start in the halt on the rail so you can check that you’re keeping your horse’s body absolutely
straight. If he’s straight, his body will stay parallel to the rail. The most common mistake is to bend the
neck. Your horse can bend his neck and still stay locked in his poll.

Think of moving his face only one inch to the left and one inch to the right so you can just see his inside
eye and/or nostril (this is also called position left and position right or flexion and counter-flexion).

Do this by keeping your fingers softly closed around the reins and turning your wrist as if you’re unlocking a door, turning the ignition key (right hand) to start your car , or scooping a spoonful of sugar out of a bowl. (DON’T vibrate or saw left/right on the reins. That will only flex his jaw and close the angle at his throatlatch.)

When turning your wrist, keep your hands stay side by side. If you’re suppling the poll to the right, in the moment that you turn your wrist, your thumb points to the right, your fingernails face upward, your baby finger points diagonally toward your opposite (left) shoulder. Once you’ve turned your wrist, return to your “starting position” with your thumb the highest point of your hand. That is, don’t hold your hand in the position with your fingernails facing up. (This action of your wrist is called indirect rein.)

Your hand comes close to the withers but it should never cross them. Also, be sure you support with the opposite rein so he doesn’t just bend his neck. If you’re next to the rail, you’ll easily be able to see if you haven’t supported enough with your opposite rein, because your horse’s neck won’t be absolutely parallel to the wall anymore.

Part 2. Once it feels easy to get position left and position right, pick one of those positions, and put your hand forward toward your horse’s mouth to put a little loop in the rein. If you’ve suppled your horse’s poll successfully, he’ll stay flexed in that direction and not “boing” back with his face in the other direction. For example, flex him left, give the left rein, and see if he stays flexed left without your hand.

Once you can supple your dressage horse’s poll at the halt, go to the walk. When you can do it in the walk both to the right and to the left (flexion and counter-flexion), ask in the trot. Once you can get the answer you want in the trot, go to canter. Don’t expect to get anything in a faster gait that you couldn’t get at a slower gait. Also, if you
have success in the trot, but not in the canter, go back to the trot (or walk or even halt) until you can do the second part of the 2-part exercise successfully.

Click here for more help on suppling dressage horse’s poll.