Some horses are of course more sensitive than others, but a horse can turn lazy or become unresponsive to the aids sometimes within a single lesson. It is a fundamental rule of horse training that "a little bit from the rider should mean a lot to the horse", but how do you get him to respond eagerly to that little bit?
It is of course about patience and persistence, but both of these can actually be the main causes if not correctly applied in training. A rider who is patient will repeat the exercise hoping for a different result, whereas an efficient rider will exit mid-way and begin again until he is satisfied from the exercise's very introduction.
A persistent rider may allow the horse to drop from canter to trot, thinking that if they re-establish a balanced trot they can resume the canter with a nice well balanced transition. However an effective rider will know that if he allows the horse to fall to trot even once, the horse will search for the same chance again and even if the rider believes himself partly to blame for the break, he should push the horse immediately back into canter, making sure that the trot transition only comes after his very clear request!
We have all seen it: a top rider jump on a desensitized horse and within 30 minutes have the horse moving actively off a light seat and leg. It is not because they have a gift from god, it is because they immediately feel how much pressure to apply to the horse to achieve the right response, and the minute the horse fails to respond to their desired level of pressure, instead of applying more and more pressure in the hope of success, they release the aid, discipline, and then apply the same pressure again.
If you are at the halt and you have released the rein aid, you must ask the horse to move off with a light leg. If he does not respond, don't ask with the same leg aid just more firmly. Tap him with the whip, then halt again. Now ask again, the same light leg aid, and if no response, tap with the whip. Until he moves off with this light pressure of the leg from the halt, he will in every other exercise, wait until you ask with more pressure, until gradually you will have a horse that won't respond until your legs are in the air kicking. Besides being very ungraceful, this will only force you to work far too hard and him not.
Once you have established a correct light aid into the walk, the horse will be waiting for the next light aid and will correspond with the readiness and sensitivity that we are all aiming for. You always think, of course, “I always make sure I move off with a light aid,” but if you really think about it, quite often we get lazy, and instead of correcting, we just ask with a bit more of the same pressure. It may be once, or twice, but from this the horse learns that if he waits, you will just keep on asking him, and eventually he learns to just wait until he feels like it You must ask, then demand, then ask softly again.
The secret to sensitivity in horses, is not in a rider's physical strength, or even their balance or posture or technique, it is in their commitment to thinking about what happened and being definitive about what they are asking the horse do to!
"I don't want riders who work physically hard. Work by thinking." N.Oliveira (1998, 29).
Always be clear in your mind what you want. How else will the horse know what is expected of him? If you want to go to trot, go to trot. If the horse moves into walk instead, don't say, oh well, I'll try a halt to trot next time. No! Halt again, and go to trot! Same in canter, if you half-halt to collect the canter and he trots, don't say, oh well I'll just go to trot because it must must have been me not giving him the right aids. No, return immediately to canter, and ask the aid for collection again. How else will he learn to respond to the aids you give?
Perhaps your aids aren't completely correct, perhaps there are no completely correct aids, because don't they differ according to each rider's physical limitations? So, in order for you to progress, the horse needs to be clear what your aids are, and what desired outcome they correspond with! However this means that you again need to be clear about what your aids are and even if you're not a top rider you must be aware of how your own body directs the horse and which signs correspond with which thought patterns in your head!
Secondly, the term "let him move alone" is crucial in maintaining the sensitivity of the horse. How else can he possibly recognize our aids if we are constantly using them just to maintain forward motion.
"The secret in riding is to do few things right. The more one does, the less one succeeds. The less one does, the more one succeeds." N.Oliveira (1998, 29).
Whenever you can, even if only for a few seconds at a time, you should aim to be completely still on the horse, just to check that he is carrying himself and moving himself forward without hesitation. If you take off your aids and attempt to just flow with the horse and he stops. Well something is wrong! Aids must tell the horse something. If you put your leg on, at any stage and your horse doesn't ask you, "what would you like me to do from that leg?" then he is asleep! And probably you're in a sweat!
One of my favorite Nuno Quote's is:
"Equestrian tact is not only the subtlety of the aids but also the feeling for the choice of the aids that have to be applied, and it is the velvet softness in the coordination." N.Oliveira (1998, 16f.).
Note the feeling of choice, meaning the conscious decision about what we are trying to achieve. We may not all have the natural talent of an Edward Gal or Dr Klimke, but if we think, feel, and choose carefully, we can hopefully achieve that velvet softness in our coordination!
by Sarah Warne for Eurodressage
Related Link
Sarah Warne's Classical Training articles