From: Sandy
Dear Jessica, I hope you can help me with my mare Fancy. She is a four year old American Quarter Horse. My problem is she won't use her neck and she takes little tiny steps. Before I got her she didn't have any training, and now she is good about saddles and bridles and riding but she just doesn't seem to know what I want her to do. My instructor says I need to make her go more forward and I need to get after her, but the time she rode Fancy the same thing hapened with her, so I don't think it's me that's the problem, it really is the horse. I want to ride her in hunter shows and go on trails, do you think that I can ever do that? OR am I just crazy to think about hunter shows on a QH? Is it just natural for a QH to have a really short stride? Please help us, if you give us things to do I will do it! Even though I don't want to get after her with spurs and a whip.
Thank you for your help in advance!
Sandy
Hi Sandy! No, you're not crazy at all. Lots of QHs make nice show hunters, and some even make good field hunters, and I've never yet seen one that couldn't learn to do trails. And unless a QH is lame, or has been quick-trained for WP (or both!), it should be able to have normal strides. ;-)
For now, don't worry about her neck. I know what you mean about her not using it, but your FIRST priority has to be getting Fancy to use her rear end and back more. If you can do that, she will automatically use her neck. The engine is in the rear, and that has to be engaged before anything else will work. You'll have to engage it -- not just once, but every time you get on her, and every step, at least for a while.
Since Fancy wasn't ridden before you bought her, she hasn't been ruined by bad training. From the sound of it, she just hasn't ever learned to move freely under a rider. If she moves okay on her own, and if your vet and farrier can't find anything wrong with her, there's a LOT you can do. And you'll do most of it -- all of it, for the first few weeks -- at a walk, and you won't use a whip, or spurs. ;-)
Walking her up and down slopes would build her strength, but if you don't have access to any hills, there are things you can do on flat land, or even in an arena.
Transitions will help her a lot. She needs to learn to reach under herself with her hind legs, USE her rear end, and lift her back -- and the neck will stretch when those other things happen. She needs to be physically developed to the point where she CAN do what you want, and she needs to understand what you want, and how to do it. You can teach her ALL of this.
Start by doing transitions within the walk. Start by riding her normal walk, on steady contact, with your legs stretched long and draped around her belly so that you can FEEL how it shifts from side to side as she walks. Once you've got that feeling, drop your heels a little farther down and add a little leg pressure with alternating legs, so that each leg in turn "pushes" her belly as it swings away from you. This is asking her to take bigger steps with her hind legs. If she does it, you will feel a little more weight in your hands, and she'll make your arms move a little more as she takes her head farther forward and down. Go with her. After about ten steps like this, relax your legs and let her come back to her normal walk, keeping the contact with her mouth. Do ten strides of normal walk, then ask for another longer walk, and do THAT for ten strides. You can keep this up indefinitely, it's no-impact and no-stress, but it WILL help build her muscles and use her neck. It will also teach her that soft steady rein contact is guaranteed, no matter how much or how little she needs to use her head and neck for balance -- you're going to keep up with her.
As she gets better at the exercise, do eight strides and eight strides, then six, then -- when you can both make the change without getting flustered -- four strides.
There's another variation on this that involves adding a SHORTENED walk, but leave that alone for now -- you need to do ONLY things that will send her FORWARD into her bridle.
Once she does this smoothly and reliably at the walk, and lengthens her stride when you put your leg on (which is, after all, the point of the exercise), you can start doing it at the trot (again, when you have more room!). Go back to the ten strides, and don't expect quite as much of a change between "normal" and "longer" trot, but as long as you feel her stretching through her back and neck, it's okay. Since you won't be moving your hands, the difference you'll feel in front will be either (a) more pressure in your hands, or (b) the same pressure, because you've moved your hands an inch farther forward.
Do your trotting on contact, of course, but on as LONG a rein as possible -- when you ask her to use her hind end a bit more, wait for her to respond, and then when you feel more weight in your hand, offer her a little more room in front. If you offer more rein BEFORE you feel her take a stronger contact, you may lose the contact altogether. If you wait, she will round up a little underneath you, reach forward, and THEN if you offer an inch or so more rein, she will stretch into it, and she'll be using her neck even more. ;-)
Another really nice exercise, if you have room, is to put a pole on the ground on either side of the arena (hexagonal or octagonal poles, NOT ROUND ONES -- ROUND ONES ROLL) and just walk around and around the arena, stepping over the pole each time. She'll want to stretch down and look at the pole, maybe even sniff it -- keep your legs on and let her stretch her neck. After she's sorted out where the pole is, or poles are, walk around on nice contact, inviting her to stretch down. She will -- and that's one point of this exercise. The other point to this exercise is that it teaches her to reach forward with front legs as well as hind legs! Be ready to add a little leg if she shortens her stride as you approach the pole. At first, be happy if you can just keep her going at her normal walk, and have her step over the pole without sucking back and taking baby steps. Once she goes over without hesitating, ask her to take LONGER steps, and when you have the option of a LONG, reachy step over the pole, or an extra, short step before it, ask her to do the LONG step.
Once she can do this easily at the walk, do it at a trot. And when she's smooth and reliable at the trot, do a LOT of transitions between walk and trot. Then ask your instructor to help you do the same transitions within the gait (that's what all that walk-walk, and trot-trot work was!) at the canter. You'll also be ready to start trotting over small crosspoles, with your instructor's help -- Fancy will be learning to jump, and this time she'll be strong enough to handle it, and she'll know exactly what you want her to do.
Don't be in a hurry, though -- forget schedules for a few months. You have to take this at the pace that works for Fancy and keeps her comfortable and happy. You don't have a train to catch -- you don't HAVE to be trotting in four weeks and cantering in eight and jumping in twelve. ;-) The time you invest NOW, walking and doing those exercises, will be well worth the effort. Take as long as it takes to make your horse strong and supple; you'll have a better hunter AND a better trail-horse in the long run, and you'll be a better rider. If Fancy is a typical Quarter Horse, she's smart and balanced and sensible, and she will take VERY well to good training. Let me know how it works out for you!
Jessica
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