From: Deb Bridgewater
I've just discovered "horse-sense" and I'm so excited! It looks great! I've already gotten tons of great helpful info from your archives!! I have two questions. My nine year old Arab gelding who is the love of my life and whom I've had since he was three has gotten progressively lazy in response to my leg. I'll squeeze his sides and he'll speed up for a stride or two and then settle back to being strung out and lazy. If I use my crop he does better but I seem to be working much harder than he is most of the time! I have worn spurs once or twice (just the stubby English ones -I ride English and Jump), but I just can't seem to bring myself to use them. I'm afraid I'll hurt him. He has a long back for an Arab and finds it much easier to go along all stretched out than to collect and use his hind end. Of course, when we ride out in the open fields on trailrides, etc. and things are more fun and exciting he is much more responsive. I know he finds arena work boring, but sometimes it's necessary(we have an outdoor arena, no indoor one).
Deb
Carry the stick and USE it. In fact, carry a longer stick -- I would suggest a dressage whip rather than a crop, especially as your horse is somewhat long-backed. You need to be able to smack him behind your leg without shifting YOUR position, twisting your torso or taking your hand far away from your reins -- you can't do this with a short bat or crop, but you CAN with a lovely long dressage whip.
The whip is wonderfully useful for this sort of retraining, and it is actually much kinder to the horse when it's used correctly to reinforce a leg aid. If you use it for punishment, he will learn to fear the whip -- that's not useful. If you constantly niggle and nag at him with your legs, he will learn that you do peculiar things with your legs, which he is quite safe to ignore (and may be INTENDED to ignore!) until such time as you kick hard or whack him, and then he is meant to speed up for a stride or two and then slow down again.... does this sound familiar? ;-)
Your horse needs to know what you expect from him, and he needs to know that you expect him to be consistent in his response -- but to convince him of this, you will have to be consistent in your aids. Ideally, your horse should respond to a light, soft leg aid, which you could then relax, knowing that the horse would carry on until you asked him to do something else. This is the goal you should keep in mind. I know it seems unrealistic at present, because you are working harder than the horse, pumping and kicking to keep him moving forward at all. But this is something you can change!
Avoid escalating your aids! It's too easy to fall into this practice: the soft leg squeeze becomes a nudge, the nudge becomes a hard squeeze, the hard squeeze becomes a thump, the thump becomes a hard kick (usually accompanied by the rider rocking in the saddle to try to PUSH the horse forward) and finally the horse receives a smack with the whip, not as a signal but as a punishment... this will only make you tired, confuse your horse, and make you unhappy with one another.
Instead of speaking more and more loudly until you finish by yelling at a horse that has learned to ignore you, change the rules! Teach your horse to listen to you, to pay attention, to hear and respond to a whisper. He can do it, and you can help him.
Carry your dressage whip at all times -- remember that it's not an instrument of punishment, it's a teaching aid. When you want your horse to move off from the leg, use the aid you WANT him to respond to: a soft squeeze followed by a relaxation of the leg. Give him a moment to respond -- if he responds, praise him. If he does NOT respond, don't squeeze harder or longer, and don't kick. Repeat the aid that you WANT him to respond to, give him a couple of seconds to respond, and then reinforce the aid with your dressage whip: give him a sharp smack behind the leg. A light tap with the whip will not have the effect you want, and neither will constant nagging with the leg -- you need a gentle leg aid followed by a single sharp smack. When he jumps forwrad in response to the whip, praise him. He'll get the idea. It won't take long before your horse learns that it behooves him to pay attention to the leg signal, and not to wait for you to reinforce it! Three strides later, when you feel him begin to lag, use the soft leg aid again -- just a whisper -- and if he responds correctly, praise him. If he doesn't, relax, repeat the soft signal, and then REINFORCE it.
Your goal is to turn your current situation around: just now, you are shouting at your horse and he is (eventually) whispering a response; you want to change that, so that you can whisper to your horse and he will shout a response.
The most difficult part of this re-training is not convincing the horse to listen -- horses are very quick to understand. The difficult part is to change your OWN habits -- if you are in the habit of resorting to stronger and stronger leg aids, you will have to be careful to make yourself learn a new habit of being quiet and repeating and reinforcing a gentle aid instead.
Give yourself things to DO in the arena, and your horse will not be bored. I think that you'll find, as most riders do, that your horse's attention span is precisely equal to your own, and that when YOU become bored and inattentive, your horse will reflect your state of mind. If you stay focused and busy, your horse will reflect THAT state of mind -- it's under YOUR control. If YOU are bored and can't think of anything to do in an arena, I recommend Cherry Hill's book 101 ARENA EXERCISES -- you'll stay busy and have fun, and you won't be bored. ;-)
Good luck, let me know how you get on. It's worth making the effort to retrain your horse to respond to the leg -- a responsive, attentive horse is SUCH a pleasure to ride, and he will enjoy himself more too!
Jessica
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