How to teach your horse to piaffe in hand 

Sweet!! That’s great! Keep at it!

Dear Amelie thank you so moch i just love it. You are so sweet with your horse you convince him. I can t wait to try i let tou know. Dominique

How does smacking their butt make them piaffe anyways? It just annoys them right?

Right? All the dressage moves! And go find some Spanish and Portuguese style! It’s pretty cool.

You are so kind

Yeah, this is pretty much the standard for dressage training.

You are so welcome!

You see how at 5:25 she’s touching his hind quarters? Basically do the exact same thing while in the saddle just tap his hind quarters and cluck

Or the shoulder either way

Yay!! Awesome!! Glad to hear it!!

thank you!

You can do it!

@@AmeliaNewcombDressage He gets annoyed with me after 2 mins... I'm kinda scared he's gonna kick me.. I trust him more when I'm ON him rather than being BESIDE him on the ground... If that makes sense??

No its not to late. You can still use this method. You will probably get your results faster than the rest of us

Just keep tapping the leg. It might take a while but eventually they will shift the weight themselves.

Amelia Newcomb Dressage thanks so much!!

For sure! It's a little harder for them since they're not built to excel at it, but there are halflingers, Friesians, and other draft style horses that compete at the FEI levels!

Lee Alexander poor horse hope he is ok and doesn’t suffer of fear, I would get him used to having a whip used on him and lunging him.

I once rode a pony who suffered trauma linked to ball (when he was young another rider through the ball wrong and it landed on his face, making him traumatised of it), and with time and effort in desensitization, we managed to make him ok around the ball. Our team even won events and I rode that pony. I could pick up the ball from the floor and pass it around almost comfortably. Try working on his desensitization and I promise you, if you do it right, it will work.

some hardware stores or home decor stores will have them. Or you can get carbon riding whips. You kind of have to search for them and then when you find the one you like, you latch on!

me too! but mine doesnt lift at all

Well, because the video is not quite truthful. It is showing you basic leg lifting that any horse who is being trined for a hoof work would do. Then she shows you a pre trained horse who is responding to clues that are different from those she showed you before. None of this is educational. It is PR.

@@ezire I made that comment three years ago lol I still used the methode shown in this video. It took a bit of time and patience, but I got my mare to walk and leg lift a while ago. She had just started to do some little piaffe steps in hand pretty regularly when she fell into a lameness that kept her out of work for about a year or so. Were back now, and I'm reteaching her this since some of its been forgotten, but shes still remembered a lot of it and its going great like last time. From my own experiences, this methode is working quite well, even if it is a pr stunt as you claim.

My brother. Joseph Newcomb!!

Do you know where he gets them? Is that something you can get at Home Depot?

Yes, of course!

@@AmeliaNewcombDressage I started teaching her yesterday to lift her leg she did it at first then was tired 😅

I'll get it try

The hind legs get more activity and bend. The Front legs more lift in the shoulders. More forward under the belly and less up and down. They should get to the point where they hold the leg momentarily in the air.

I understand. My Q is why teaching hind',lift vs front-lift?

The tapping helps them understand to lift their legs!

A long time!!! I seen a couple of weeks working with the horse every day just on leg lifting! This doesn't happen overnight!

He already does the leg lifting really good. I've seen other videos, where they train it from the trot, is there a big difference, if you do it from the walk or the trot? Thanks for respond.

i’m pretty sure she’s using her tongue and not a clicker! i would recommend using your tongue if you’re going to eventually do this under saddle, because it would be difficult to hold a clicker and your reins at the same time.

Sometimes the type of stick/whip you’re using can cause a sting that feels painful, try using a different material. I like bamboo.

Teach him to react to the tapping on the leg. Sometimes they don't react naturally but it is possible to teach them!

Sometimes I use a whip with a little flicky bit on the end and kind of tickle my horse. It feels like a fly and they pick up to swat at it. I transitioned that to a tap after my horse got the idea.

My horse didn't react to the whip either. I started tapping with the whip and then slide my hand down his leg like I would to clean the hooves. It took him two sessions to make the connection between the two signals and lift his leg on the tapping of the whip alone

If your horse understands picking up feet for cleaning, you can follow taps with a chestnut squeeze to make it more clear

Kristine McClain You can train a horse to pick up the diagonals to a certain height to get the piaffe you want, and then ask for collection by asking the horse to back up, get round and collect it's hindquarters.

@@coollikegrass2489 yeah. No.... You are not asking them to pick up their legs. You're asking them to push off the ground and round through the back. You can not force a horse into collection. Backing does not teach collection... Modern dressage is leg moving not back moving.

Kristine McClain Yes I'm aware modern dressage is just flashy leg moving. What I'm saying is you dont need collection at the beginning of training. It's training not the finished product. And yes backing up is collection. To back up a horse has to transfer weight back to his hind end and round his hind quarters. There's a gorgeous video of a man who trained a horse like this, just picking up the legs and looking pretty, and then proceeded to ask it to collect by backing up in the piaffe. Look it up I think it's called something like Lustinano passage or piaffe. It's absolutely gorgeous as you see the horse round itself and lower itself as it backs up and actually does a correct piaffe. It's by far the most correct piaffe and passage I have every seen in dressage

Its called Piaffe-Passage Casa Lusitana. Look at those hind quarters as he backs the horse up in the piaffe, and see how his leg pushes off underneath him in the passage. You don't need to start with collection, just the the foundation principles say, collection needs to be in the final product

Keep tapping, a little bit harder each time untill you get a respons. Any respons is good! Then reward. Keep repeating and he will know what to do with smaller aids

@@audreybreuls9117 what do you do when they really don't want to? I am not going to whip his leg with my full strength or anything, I don't want to hurt him lol.

Any advice?

Keep the pressure on her. Not too hard but horses learn through pressure and release. Once she reacts release the pressure

If a horse can trot, they can likely piaffe!

Well, there is definitely an order to things!

@@AmeliaNewcombDressage I just figured that out and i’m happy to report your tutorial did wonders for me and my horse!! Thank you so much i never thought he could move his little thoroughbred legs like that!!