Posts Tagged ‘aids’

Some dressage horses don’t understand accepting contact with the bit and your hand. They are quick to go from coming above the bit to curling behind the bit. If that sounds like your horse, you need to be able to quickly and smoothly change your aids to help your dressage horse understand and accept contact.

When your horse comes above the bit, use connecting aids as follows.

1. Close both legs to send him forward toward a lengthening.

2. When you feel the “surge” of power coming from behind, close your outside hand in a fist to capture, contain, and recycle that power back to the hind legs.

3. If your horse starts to bend his neck to the outside, vibrate the inside rein to keep his neck straight.

As soon as he ducks behind the bit, send him “forward through his body”.

Here’s what I mean by that. Go on a circle in rising trot, close both legs and ask for a trot lengthening for 6 or 7 strides. Do this several times until it becomes a knee jerk reaction for him to go “forward over the ground” when you close your calves.

Then close your legs as if you’re going to do a trot lengthening, but don’t lengthen. This time you want your horse to go ” through his body” rather than “forward over the ground”. As you feel him go forward though his body and start to take a contact with your hand rather than curling behind the bit, praise him.

You might have to alternate a trot lengthening with asking him to take a contact with your hand several times. But once he understands, you’ll have a tool to use any time he comes too low in front.

This system works well for the horse that likes to go with his poll too low and his face behind the vertical, but if he’s curling so badly behind the bit that he’s ducking his chin toward his chest, you’ll have to be a bit more proactive as far as explaining correct contact to him.

If he’s curled behind the bit really badly, in addition to sending him forward through his body, you might have to raise your hands to place the bit out in front of him so he can step toward it.

The feeling is like putting a sheet on your bed. You lift the sheet up, and then let if softly drift onto the bed.

You can also think of it like doing “the wave” at a football game.

If you do have to raise your hands because your horse has dropped behind the bit, keep the following things in mind:

1. Always use your legs BEFORE you raise your hands.

2. Raise both hands evenly.

3. To the degree that you raise your hands, ALSO put them forward toward his mouth without losing contact. That is, if you lift your hands 2 inches, they must go forward 2 inches. If you lift them 4 inches, they must go forward 4 inches.

4. As soon as you’ve placed the bit out in front of your horse, put your hands back down. If you keep them up, he’ll curl behind the bit even more.

5. Keep a smooth, steady contact with his mouth throughout this whole process. Don’t let the reins get loose, drop contact with his mouth, and then snatch him up. That will discourage him from stepping toward the bit.

To sum up, for the dressage horse that alternates between coming above the bit and dropping contact to come behind the bit, smoothly switch from connecting aids to sending him forward through his body as needed until you’ve clearly explained the right connection to him.

Are you sick and tired of complicated and confusing training techniques? Are you frustrated by negative emotions like fear and lack of confidence? Would you like to be trained by a Three Time Olympic Coach? Learn how by going to http://www.janesavoie.com/ or http://www.dressagementor.com.

Author: Jane Savoie
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

One of the best ways to get started training a young horse or any horse for that matter is at liberty in the round pen. First-what do we mean by “at liberty”? All that means is that we remove all control and training aids from the horse-so that there’s no halter, bridle, or lead/lunge line. Aside from being inside the round pen, the horse is basically free. A bridle or halter, of course, doesn’t really matter, what’s important here is severing direct control between the handler (you) and the horse.

Why is it that round pen training is so effective when training a young horse?

If done correctly, round pen training allows you to build leadership and trust with your horse in a fundamental way that he naturally understands. And this can be done in an essentially safe environment-something that’s really important to keep in mind. Safety should always be your priority with equines. The less training a horse has, the more control we need to maintain safety. And when training a young horse it turns out a round pen is just what the doctor ordered. When done at liberty, the horse is free to move and work through his fears without feeling panicked or confined-even though in reality the horse is confined, by the virtue of being in a round pen he can move off from a scary stimulus if he chooses to do so. Now nothing is perfect-and there will be occasions when a horse feels panicked in a round pen or even escapes-I’ve seen that happen. But in the vast majority of cases, a round pen will safely confine a horse-while giving him the ability to freely move.

Earlier we mentioned that round pen training is really effective when training a young horse. And in fact its a great tool to use when starting any horse. Let’s see why in more detail.

The first reason is that a round pen produces a setting within which it is pretty easy to establish leadership-a vital step in training a young horse. This is due to the way that horses naturally establish their heirarchy in a herd (wild or otherwise). Every group of horses that lives together has a hierarchical structure and every horse knows his rank. One thing you will see dominant horses doing is making the other horses move around. I once herd a phrase that sums this up: control the feet, control the horse. In the round pen, you mimic this behavior by controlling the movement of your equine in four basic ways:

• You tell him when to move
• You tell him what direction to move
• You tell him how fast to move
• You decide when he can come to a stop

Even better-by working at liberty you’re going to be controlling the movement of your horse using energy and body language. So its all going to seem quite natural to the horse-and he will instinctively see you as his trusted leader. Another aspect of working at liberty is that you are also building communications-another vital step in training a young horse successfully. Your communication skills which you start off in the round pen will carry over to riding-by applying pressure to the appropriate spots on the horse. In the round pen, when working at liberty, you learn to apply pressure with energy and body language. This makes the round pen not just valuable to your animal-it makes it a great training school for you too! If you are able to master communication with your horse using only energy and body language-think about how effective you’ll be when riding and using your reins and legs. You will be able to talk to your horse from the saddle light as can be.

As one specific example, if you want your horse to move out while in the round pen focus your energy and body language on his hip area. At first, you will need a tool to help out-but you should have good success without actually touching the horse as time goes on. Suppose you keep a lead rope with you. You can swing the lead rope in the direction of the hip, without actually striking the horse to ask him to move out. But what you should really be thinking about is focusing your gaze on the top of his hip-and directing energy there. Focus your gaze on the spot where you would actually tap the horse with your crop if you were using that method.

If the horse doesn’t respond, and he may not the first few times, then up the volume. Swing the rope more vigorously, and then let it strike the ground. If the horse still doesn’t move, then at this point direct contact may be necessary. But you will find with practice that less direct contact is required.

Don’t be discouraged if you don;t have complete success at first-nobody becomes a horse whisperer in a day. Keep practicing! With time you will find you need less actual contact with your horses to get them to do what you ask. Round pen training is a great place to start training a young horse or a horse you don’t know, to brush up with an old horse or to just work on your own equine communication skills.

David McMahon is a freelance author who is owned by 3 horses. For more information, please visit Gentle natural horsemanship.

Author: David McMahon
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Do you saw left and right on your dressage horse’s mouth or wiggle the bit with both hands to get him “on the bit”.

If you “saw” on your dressage horse’s mouth by alternating squeezing and releasing with your hands, you’re riding your horse from front to back. He might look like he’s “on the bit” because his head is down and his nose is on the vertical, but you don’t have an honest connection from back to front.

The only part of your horse’s body that you can affect by “sawing” is his jaw. Moving the bit in his mouth encourages him to chew. When he chews, he flexes in the jaw.

So, if all you do is saw on the bit, all you have control over is a flexed jaw. And your horse has a whole lot more body left over that you have no influence over.

That’s why you might think your horse is on the bit, but you wonder why he comes off the bit when you ask him to do something like a transition.

The reality is that he was never on the bit to begin with. All you had was a flexed jaw.

To put your horse honestly on the bit, use your “connecting aids”. Close both legs to add power from behind as if you’re doing a lengthening. When your horse “arrives” at your outside hand, close that hand in a fist to capture, contain, and recycle the power back to the hind legs. Do this for 3 full seconds.

THEN, lastly you can vibrate or squeeze on the inside rein for two reasons:

1. To keep his neck straight. Your goal is to keep him form bending his neck to the outside in response to your closed outside hand. This means that when you ride with his soft (hollow) side on the inside, chances are you won’t need any inside rein because he won’t try to look to the outside when you close your outside hand.
2. To move the bit, encourage him to chew so he flexes in the jaw.

Remember, you’re riding your dressage horse from front to back if you wiggle both sides of the bit. So never do with two hands what you can do with one hand (move the bit). And you have the other hand left over for the more important job of recycling power back to the hind legs.

Author: Jane Savoie
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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So many riders are confused by how a dressage horse should look and feel when he’s honestly on the bit. So what follows are specific ways for you to tell if he’s on the bit by what you see and what you feel.

When a dressage horse is on the bit, this is what he’ll look like:

His entire outline from back to front looks round.
His hind legs step actively underneath his body, his back is up and swinging, his neck is long and low enough to be in line with the “power train” of his hindquarters, his poll is the highest point, and his nose is about 5 degrees in front of the vertical
From the saddle his neck is widest at the base (just in front of the withers) and becomes progressively narrower as you get closer to his ears.
From the side, his neck looks longish and relatively low rather than up in the air and short.

When your dressage horse is on the bit, here’s what he’ll feel like:

He’s one unit rather than a jumble of “disconnected parts”.
He’s more comfortable to sit on because his back is relaxed.
In trot and canter, he feels like a beach ball bouncing along.
His back (behind the saddle) is up and swinging rather than dropped and tense.
The energy is self-perpetuating. The power comes from behind, over the back and gets recycled back to the hind legs. If the horse is truly connected and isn’t crooked with the shoulder falling out and the haunches falling in, the energy is self-perpetuating. If the horse, let’s say, is popping out one shoulder and the energy is going diagonally across his body, then you have to come with your driving aids and recreate the energy because it’s not self-perpetuating.
Anything is possible within the next step. For example, he can immediately go from trot to canter. Or he can immediately go from working canter into a canter lengthening. Or he can do a canter depart in the next step.

If you’re not sure if your dressage horse is truly on the bit, ask for a transition. If it’s easy to do within the next step, then you know that your horse is on the bit.

Author: Jane Savoie
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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