One of the most common problems we come across is the horse who won’t go forward from the leg. Given that riders are frequently told to kick the horse with every stride, it’s not surprising that many horses tune out this irritating habit, and become switched off. Switching them back on again, provided there are no underlying physical or medical reasons for their lassitude, can be surprisingly easy. Nicole has written a two part article on this topic for Intelligent Horsemanship’s Listening Post, and also was featured in Your Horse magazine dealing with just this problem.<\/p>\n
The Listening Post articles are reproduced here below:<\/p>\n
Kicking is considered one of the worst vices a horse can have, particularly if it\u2019s habitual. We\u2019re so concerned about being kicked that \u201cdon\u2019t walk behind a horse\u201d is one of the first things we say to children or people unfamiliar with horses. Yet fortunately, being kicked by a horse is really rather rare, and usually only happens when we shut down their other options.<\/p>\n
The same is not true of the horse\u2019s chances of being kicked by a human. The \u201cproblem kicker\u201d I\u2019m writing about here is the rider.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s one who uses their legs only rarely or the one who incessantly nags, I\u2019m questioning whether kicking of any sort is ever really appropriate, or has any part in the sort of finessed riding we would all aspire to\u2026<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to define \u201ckicking\u201d in terms of the amount of force used, rather than a particular action of the leg. So to kick would move a football, for example, and it could be either a bit punt across the entire pitch, or a little nudge, but the ball would move.\u00a0 Looking at it another way, I would consider anything more than the sort of touch you would use if you were tapping someone on the shoulder to get their attention to be kicking. I was going to write \u201canything more than is necessary for the horse to notice\u201d, but I realised this paves the way for people to thump their legs against their distracted horse\u2019s sides, and that\u2019s not what I meant at all. If you do tap someone on the shoulder and they don\u2019t appear to notice, you don\u2019t immediately resort to thumping them (I hope), you\u2019ll find another way to attract their attention.<\/p>\n
I think perhaps that for people who ride schooled horses (I\u2019m using the term very loosely here to mean an established horse, ie, not one who\u2019s only just been backed), the oddness of the way in which we\u2019re often taught to use the legs (strongly, repetitively, and inwards) isn\u2019t that apparent. But you only need to be the first rider on a few youngsters to realise that there\u2019s not much intuitively obvious about these leg \u201caids\u201d, as commonly taught to the horse. The same is true for the action of the bit, and yet not true, in my experience, of the action of the seatbones. Once a starter is happy with the concept of a rider on board, and isn\u2019t being led by a handler (so perhaps the second or third backing), they very often seem to \u201cget\u201d stopping and turning by the use of the seatbones, but the required response to the legs needs to be taught. If a youngster does move forward when they feel the legs against their sides, it\u2019s usually very rapidly and clearly because they were surprised by the legs.<\/p>\n
So what I\u2019m asking the reader to consider here, is what the role of the rider\u2019s legs should really be, and exactly what we want to be teaching the horse about these possible \u201caids\u201d.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve mentioned that I would consider anything other than a very light tap to be inappropriate, but I would also add that the number of taps is at issue, too.\u00a0 Continuous use of the legs does not fit into the \u201crelease of pressure\u201d model, and we work very much on the basis that the ground rules shouldn\u2019t suddenly change because we\u2019re on board. If we expect the horse to lead politely beside us without pressure on the head, is it too much to expect the horse to move forward under their own steam whilst being ridden without continuous pressure from the legs?<\/p>\n
During the riding lecture on the Foundation course I always introduce this notion of the self-propelling horse, and almost always someone is incredulous. What I suggest is that the horse should be trained in such a way that one \u201cplease go forward\u201d request, whether delivered by the legs or some other means, lasts until another request \u2013 say to stop, or go up a pace- is made. So if you were only working in walk for an entire hour, there would be one request made at the start of the ride, and it wouldn\u2019t need to be repeated \u2013 at all. If you made ten transitions to trot, there would be ten of the very lightest leg taps, and no more. If you made a hundred upward transitions there would be a hundred requests, but you would never within the pace be using the legs to say to the horse \u201cplease keep going, that\u2019s it, continue moving your legs, that\u2019s right, another step, ooops, you\u2019ve slowed down, please go on, that\u2019s it, keep moving\u201d. Once the horse was moving as requested there would be no further conversation from the legs, and they would never be used as a reminder. In this way, we\u2019re asking the horse to take responsibility for their actions, and also giving them a chance to fail, two key IH concepts, applied in a ridden context.<\/p>\n
Some people love this idea, and only want to know how to make it happen, because they know it isn\u2019t the case with the horses they ride, and they hate the constant nagging they feel they have to do just to get the horse to move. Don\u2019t worry, there are detailed instructions on how to get this desired response coming up in the next issue! Other people have a more fundamental problem with the concept. They feel that the strong use of the legs is simply an integral part of riding, and being asked not to use them takes away one of their key tools. I\u2019ve even had someone ask \u201cbut if you can\u2019t kick, how can you make a horse jump a fence?\u201d. I wasn\u2019t sure where to start with this one. But I am clear that you can\u2019t make a horse jump a fence, although strong leg aids might sell the case to him a bit, and that if a horse wants to jump, the use of legs against his side, whether gently pressing, lightly tapping, or brutishly thumping, is in no way necessary to him being able to launch his body off the ground, and in the case of\u00a0 thumping or hard squeezing, could be positively detrimental. It sounds mad when written out, but people have claimed to have an epiphany moment when we\u2019ve pointed out to them that horses manage to move across fields on their own \u2013 even reaching quite impressive speeds and clearing obstacles \u2013 without the benefit of a rider on their back pressing their heels into their sides\u2026 I think perhaps this idea derives from riding bikes, which really do have to grind to a halt unless we keep pedalling (or are going downhill, of course) that makes us feel that somehow horses can\u2019t move without constant input from the rider, but we only have to look a little closer to see the fundamental difference, and to work out that horses have their own legs and muscles and cardio-vascular systems, and are perfectly capable of moving without us.<\/p>\n
Sarcasm aside, I feel so strongly about this because I feel that it\u2019s one of those many unexamined assumptions about riding, and it\u2019s an assumption I feel a lot of horses would like us to re-evaluate. Of course, I\u2019m not claiming to be somehow morally superior to anyone in this. I\u2019ve been a riding instructor for long enough to have shouted \u201cleg, leg, use your leg!\u201d more times than I care to count in my earlier days, and even now, years into pretty intensive training to improve my own riding, I still have an annoying default that would bring my heel up and into the horse\u2019s side if things aren\u2019t going too well in one way or another.\u00a0 But for years now I have been riding with the most minimal leg signals, and the joy of having a forward-going horse that I don\u2019t have to cajole is such that I would really like to share the method with as many people as possible. I\u2019m sure that the horses appreciate it too!<\/p>\n
Another little issue we need to quickly address is the whole using the legs to steer thing. I\u2019m not fundamentally against this approach \u2013 indeed, a horse that moves sideways away from the leg is very useful when opening gates, for example, but I feel that for most riders, most of the time, all the stuff about bending the horse around the inside leg and pushing the horse across the school in some lateral movement is counter-productive. The horse isn\u2019t clear, often, whether the leg means go faster or go sideways, and the exaggerated movement of the rider\u2019s leg destroys the rider\u2019s alignment and often disrupts their balance. This is a big topic and for now I just want to say that during the process of teaching the horse to respond to a very light leg aid and to stay self-propelling, it\u2019s better that the legs aren\u2019t used to steer, and that if the horse doesn\u2019t respond brilliantly to direction from the rein, it\u2019s probably best not to sweat precision of movement for the moment. It will be something that can be looked at later. If you already steer from the core, seatbones, reins and thighs, hopefully you should be able to continue doing that!<\/p>\n
So am I saying that you would never use a strong leg aid, that there are never situations when it is appropriate to \u201csupport\u201d the horse with the use of the leg? Not at all. In fact, that\u2019s part of the point. If you don\u2019t have to kick the rest of the time, imagine how seriously the horse will take it when you\u2019re coming into a drop fence and you feel him back off, and you do dig in your heels and say \u201cgo on!\u201d. If the horse is fully accepting of the concept of being responsible for their own forward motion, and consistently does so, then if you feel a questioning hesitation a little touch wouldn\u2019t be out of place. It\u2019s just that the use of force with the leg introduces stiffness and risks unbalancing the rider. It\u2019s not at all common for a calm horse to have the idea of \u201ckeep going until there\u2019s a new request to the contrary\u201d. (There are plenty of nervous horses that keep going like steam trains, but it\u2019s clearly adrenaline, not training, that is fuelling this forward motion, and a horse that doesn\u2019t stop and stand when asked is also missing out on the basics).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the most common problems we come across is the horse who won’t go forward from the leg. Given that riders are frequently told to kick the horse with every stride, it’s not surprising that many horses tune out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisperingback.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}