13 Apr The Masterful Student #11
Someone once said there are two things men will never agree on: politics and how to train a horse. Politics seem to be a mess, however, thanks to centuries of experienced horsemen and now modern science, we have sound riding theory to draw upon in our riding lives.
What is theory, anyway? One definition is “the process of contemplative and rational thinking.” That’s a nice intention to set for our riding. Theory also implies a range of evidence, a well substantiated explanation that can incorporate facts, laws, and hypotheses.
Have you every asked yourself what role theory plays in the life of a dressage rider? The best riders are a combination of both theory and practice. If you are primarily a master of theory in the mind, you may not make a great teacher because you will not know how it feels from the rider’s point of view, the feel of the biomechanics and common pitfalls. A teacher does need to be able to teach their student through the many various feelings that occur in riding.
Conversely, if you are a genius rider who mainly rides through feel, you may not be able to explain what you are doing to others. And, you may meet a horse who presents a training problem you cannot solve if you don’t have theory to offer different persepectives from your own natural talent.
Sorting through theory is not for the throes of riding (or the flow state of riding, depending on how your ride is going that day). As my husband says, theory is for before and after the ride, not during. You need all of your awareness and reaction time at the service of the horse while you are riding: total presence.
Over the next several weeks, I’ll touch on some important theories in dressage.
Essentially, all you need to know is that there are two fields of balance: The lateral and longitudinal fields of balance. That’s it. And, there are some basics physics involved that govern riding just as physics governs everything else on earth.
An important theory point that took me years to appreciate is the “railroad tracks” description of the horse bending, and its ramifications for the way the reins are used and in choosing exercises.
Because the horse has some distance between its front legs, when a horse is on a curved line like a circle or when it bends its body as in a shoulder-in, the outside of the horse gets longer and the inside shortens. The horse is essentially on one circle with the outside legs and a second smaller circle with the inside legs. The parallel lines look like railroad tracks.
On a curved line, this means that the two outside legs traverse a longer distance (working harder) than the inside legs and that the muscles on the outside of the horse’s body are in a longer position than the muscles on the inside.
Again, because we know that muscles only work in contraction, this means the inside bend muscles are shortening and the outside ones are stretching and releasing. This means that a horse could be not bending not because the inside is stiff but because the outside won’t stretch and allow the horse to yield to the inside rein.
Our main tool for making the horse more symmetrical from side to side is riding in some kind of bend, lengthening one side and shortening the other at will. It’s important to know which side you are trying to address and that the stiff side is the stiff side, regardless of whether it is on the inside or the outside.
It is also important to remember that horses propel themselves around the turn with their outside hind leg, like an ice skater driving off their outside skate as they turn. Imagine the speed skater Apollo Ohno leaning forward coming hard into a turn and pushing off his outside foot. Unlike Apollo Ohno, horses are quadripeds and so can balance by using their inside hind leg to help prop them up and not lean like a bicycle.
While the outside hind leg is driving around that larger circle, the inside hind leg has a slightly different job, to have greater joint flexion and step slightly more under the mass.
There is a reason that there are all those dressage jokes about the meaning of life being that the rider must ride from “inside leg to outside rein,” and that is because if the rider overuses the outside rein or uses the outside rein in the wrong order in relation to other aids, it shortens or inhibits the outside of the horse from the beneficial stretching and strengthening. This can happen in literally any exercise that involves bend and can undercut the whole point of the exercise.
If we are trying to ride a left-hand circle to help a horse stretch out a tight right side but we overuse the outside rein to assist with turning, we end up shortening that side of the neck.
Shortening the outside rein too much or counter-bending naturally flips or reverses the bend in the horse’s body and negates the railroad track benefits. You may be doing a left-hand circle (a left bending exercise) but if you overuse the outside rein suddenly you are actually bent right, which negates the whole point of the circle, or you have created an S bend in the horse’s body.
Usually, the rider is using too much outside rein or counter-bending because they don’t have enough submission or control on that rein. The horse is running through the rein or is heavy and braced on the outside. It is very common for young horses or very crooked horses to do this. It can be because the inside hind leg is not supple won’t support the mass or because the outside hind leg is not strong and driving the horse through the turn.
So what is a rider to do, to get control back and not undermine the benefits of the outside stretching of the horse, the important railroad tracks theory?
In the trot, making frequent changes of direction with good balance and regular tempo can help the horse move from rein to rein smoothly and with control. The key to a fruitful serpentine is to ride a perfectly straight section for several steps so the horse steps smoothly up into both reins and understands the change of bend as a process from one side to the other, not of throwing them right and left. The spine needs to straighten on its way to the other bend, and the new inside hind leg needs to engage as the hips change position and the new outside hind leg generates more propulsive power.
Later, renvers is a fantastic exercise to straighten the horse and make it more supple on the stiff rein. Renvers, moving from one bend to the other as the horse’s body holds an angle of displacement off the wall asks the horse to be submissive in one rein and then the other, engaging one hind leg and then the other under the horse’s mass.
In canter, the counter canter can help restore balance and submission on the stiff or heavy outside rein.
So, now you know a little more about the theory behind circles and bending lines, their purpose in benefiting the horse by making him more symmetrical, and why counter-bending may get you some temporary relief in the outside rein, but is actually counterproductive to the training because it undercuts the purpose of riding on a curved line. Counter bending doesn’t address the real issues of asymmetry in the body, lack of coordination on one side, or ability to engage one hind leg or the other. We almost never use it.
