I agree but judges are not able to see a horse that is behind the bit. It is so sad to see all the horses improperly ridden. I wish this would change and horses the out there get a break from the broken neck system. The Rollkur riders that place in the dressage shows is overwhelming.
Can you explain EXACTLY what you are doing with your hands (how much pressure and when you release or give pressure) and when you use the whip and how much pressure you give with the whip. What exactly are you looking for him to do? I want to be able to do this the right way with my horse
Answered by Art2Ride Associate Trainers: Katherine Potter Check out this video by Chelsea MacPhail teaching her husband to do WIH - it will answer most of your questions. www.macphailequestrian.com/.../You-can-always-go-back Every horse and every trainer is different, so there is no hard and fast rule about how much, when and where to use the aids - sorry. You will just need to make mistakes and learn from what you get as a result to a certain extent. It would help if you submitted a video - doesn't have to be more than 5 minutes and then we can comment on your technique with better understanding of your challenges. The bottom line is just like everything else we tackle as riders/trainers, it takes time and patience to perfect. Give yourself that time and maybe look for someone near you who is in A2R here: www.zeemaps.com/map?group=2289609 Carol Kurtz Darlington There is a certain amount of stepping under themselves with the inside hind that will lift the horse's back. The amount of stepping under needed will vary slightly from horse to horse. This will then lengthen the neck. If you think more about the horse activating and stepping under itself a little, it may help not to worry as much about the exact position or pressure of the reins and whip. WIH is like riding from the ground, which is always back to front. Hope this helps! Tytti Vanhala Ok, here comes in-hand work hopefully explained exact. Hand positions before starting. The easiest way of keeping the reins is to take them in your upturned hands. Thus both inside and outside hands palms up. The easiest way to keep the whip in your outside hand is to have it going between your thumb and index finger, and middle and ring finger (or index finger and middle finger). This way the whip falls almost automatically downwards towards the place where your leg would go if you were riding. It is also easy to use the whip by just turning your wrist, if you keep the whip like this, than if you would keep the hand facing downwards towards the horse. The inside hand should be keeping contact with the inside rein towards the bit. The outside hand should be positioned below the withers beside the shoulder. The outside hand can lie on the horse’s shoulder gently, not heavily or pressing. Start. You start by asking the horse to walk on. You use your whip aiming it at his quarters to ask for him to move straight on. And use your voice. Once he is moving. Ok, the are three most likely outcomes once he starts moving… 1. He is sticky and either wants to lean on you all the time with his inside shoulder. 2. He is rushing on head high and wants to cut you off. 3. He is walking on steadily. What to do. 1. If he is leaning on you all the time, you counteract it by asking him to yield his shoulders away from you and give you space so that you can both walk on side by side in harmony and calmness. How to do it: a. Lift your inside hand upwards and outwards towards his throat area (not through there or past it, but towards). Keep steady contact, but don’t pull. b. At the same time ask him to yield by tapping him on his shoulder with your hand and tapping him with the whip on his side where your leg would go when you ride. Don’t lean on him, but don’t yield yourself on him either. c. You can also face him more with your body posture to bring home the message that you want him to stop leaning. d. Keep the outside rein contact also steady, but don’t pull. Don’t let it slack. e. You can use a voice command with all this, f.ex. ‘yield’. f. When he yields even one step away from you, release reins a little, stop all other aids, even let the reins slack a little for an instant. And praise. g. If he doesn’t lean anymore, keep the contact (weight of rein) and walk on with good activity. h. If he leans, repeat. If you have a very leany horse, it will take a while for him to not lean on you, so don’t be impatient with that, just repeat, and when you get reaction in the form of yield and him giving you space, relax and praise. It should get better and easier as the time goes on and you practice more. 2. If he is rushing on and cuts you off, keep your calm, keep contact on both sides, follow with your inside hand upwards with his head and also towards him. Stand your ground, stop and ask him to yield away from you (contact on both hands, use your whip where your leg would go when riding, use voice command, face him more if you want to make things even clearer). Make sure you have consistent outside rein contact so that he cannot over bend inwards with just his neck. Once he yields, give reins. If head goes up, follow with your inside hand again. Walk straight on with him. 3. If he is being excellent and just walks on straight without leaning or cutting you off, that is a very nice start! Also when you get here from the previous two points… a. After walking on for a round or two in relaxed manner with good energy, ask a couple steps of leg yield by keeping the contact on both sides and tapping with the whip on the place where your leg would go. b. If head goes up, follow it with your inside hand by lifting it upwards towards his throat, and keep the contact with your outside hand as well (moving it f.ex. downwards his shoulder). c. When he yields, praise, give reins a little and stop using your voice command and whip of course. d. If head goes downwards, follow with your inside hand downwards and give rein with both hands. Keep a slight contact though (weight of rein) through this. e. If head goes up after initial stretch down, follow it up with your inside hand, keep contact with the outside rein and ask for a step or two of yield again. And repeat. f. After leg yield goes fine, you can start asking for shoulder fore a couple steps in between walking ‘straight’ on and leg yielding. This would mean that you would position him slightly differently and ask him to yield and step under with the inside hind leg while walking on a straight line (or a curve on a circle for that matter, just thinking that straight line, f.ex. along the fence line will be easiest to start with). Keep an eye on the bend on his neck and don’t let it over bend to the inside by keeping the contact with the outside hand. Continue walking with him straight in a good forward pace and doing the leg yields and shoulder fores every now and then. Follow his head with your inside hand and keep the outside contact constant with your outside hand. The contact is mostly the weight of the rein. But it may vary between slightly more and slightly less. It would be more when his head is up and you have followed it up with your inside hand and less or even occasionally slack when you feel that he is wanting to stretch. Never pull horse with the reins. The whip aid is only tapping, not hitting or slapping. So, there is no force behind it. If you use your hand on his shoulder to aid with the yield, it is likewise not hitting or using force, but just nudging and equivalent to tapping with the whip. What you want him to do is to yield the inside hind leg to the middle and under himself and step in general more forward which then in turn will facilitate the lifting of his back and stretching of his neck forward and downward. Once he has yielded and is stretching forward and downward, he should find it easier to lift his back up and step forward under himself more, which will eventually enable the building of his topline muscling in relaxation. So, the aim of the in-hand work is to activate the back and the topline muscles. And once they are activated, work them more. Thus once you have a good working routine with the in-hand work, you can start to ask more yield and more shoulder fore incrementally. This will further activate his back… In-hand work will require skill and practice, so take it easy and practice a lot and after a while it should get better and easier. Also, send in a video if you feel you are stuck or need more practical advice. Ok, that was the lengthy and more detailed answer to your question. Hope it helps and is not too confusing. ;) Katherine Potter Go Tytti!!
Honestly, after watching the last video with the paint, things finally clicked for me. I tried everything to get my horses head down and stretching so I could work his back, but I was trying to get his neck down to raise his back, instead of getting his inside hind to step under. As soon as he started getting that inside hind under him, his head dropped and he's now reaching happilly for contact!! Thank you for everything!
HI Will! I love your methods and I'm trying to teach my 5 yr old Spanish Norman mare to stretch down and work in hand. we work in relatively small circles so she has to step under herself and stretch down. She's green to in hand work and so I'm having trouble with her crowding my personal space. I do carry a dressage whip when I work in hand, but I'm not sure if I should use it to correct her when she crowds me. how do you correct a horse that's crowding you with in hand work?
Answered by Art2Ride Associate Trainers: Chelsea MacPhail It's great to hear that your having success with the in-hand work, it can be so tough to get right! When your horse crowds you pick up your inside rein (like up toward the sky) and take slightly more pressure than you would if you were following the contact lightly, which is ideally the weight of the rein. You can use your whip to continue to ask them to walk on. Once they move away from you, release any pressure and continue to use your inside rein as you would normally, maintaining light contact, softening the inside jaw slightly or following down with the stretch. This is really common so don't worry, many horses need a reminder now and then to stay out of our space :) Good luck! Let us know if you have any more questions. Tytti Vanhala In addition to Chelsea's advice, you can further push your inside hand towards the outside (towards your horse's throat) as you bring it up to follow her head. This usually helps a great deal. And you can tap her shoulder with your outside hand. Short pushes, not leaning... and then indeed the whip on the spot where your leg would go. So, ask her to yield her forehand. It can be very tricky in the beginning. But these should help. Also, walk at first on a larger circle. I know that working on a smaller one is a lot more efficient, but if you are not very versed yet in the method, it is by far easier to first just walk around in a large circle and gradually start to do some milder leg yields. First concentrate on getting her yielding her front end so that she will walk beside you in a relaxed manner without leaning on you. It is more difficult than it looks... I know. Hope you get it working! Elisabeth Spetschinsky I would say that it depends also on the hand on which your horse leans when he comes towards you, is he leaning on the outside rein? Then use your inside rein like Chelsea and Tytti explain and he will come back in the bend. If he leans on the inside rein it might be useful to act on the outside rein to straighten your horse like you do when you ride and you put the shoulders in front of the haunches.
