Relaxation is a Virtue : Calm, Forward, Straight

When we think of training a horse, it may or may not be apparent that without relaxation everything else is a compromise. The horse can never fully give himself to your requests if he is tense or nervous. And, interestingly enough, tension is often what many methods of horsemanship are built upon. Perhaps that is why so many of them work with only so many horses and riders, or with a limited amount of success in the right hands.

Relaxation is not a trait that you can train into the horse either, it is not a conditioned response. Relaxation is an attribute that accompanies trust, another trait that cannot be forced but instead earned.

I am going through this very process with one of my own horses at the moment. He is trained to a certain degree but everything is a compromise because relaxation is a question, not a given. I am fortune to be able to work with a wonderful ground person (who also happens to be the Equestrian Life Coach for Awareness In Riding…) on a regular basis and I cannot stress how valuable a tool this can be for every rider. It also helps to open dialogue and make the ride more of a journey and discovery, rather than the same old habits and rituals. Having a ground person helps you get out of your head and begin to speak the thoughts that are coming up so they can be formed into logic.

Together we’ve been working under saddle with this particular horse, and I noticed a significant difference following just the first ride. The walk is a give-away gait, meaning that it will give away the holes in the horse’s training. For this particular horse it gives away tension – marked by a lack of tracking up. Under saddle this feels (and from ground observation is confirmed to be something you can see as well) as if he is pounding the ground a bit with his hind feet, like they are short striding and hitting upon a restriction when they stride forward. What they do to my seat is interesting as well, making me feel like we are moving laterally in the hips – side to side, rather than a smooth roll like you would feel in your hips when walking on your own.

So for three rides in a row we worked purely on moving forward calmly and reestablishing the bend in order to connect on the reins. Picking up the reins is often a trigger as well for tension in this horse, where he will start chomping at the bit, oversalivating and moving between hanging on the bit and coming behind it. He is also tricky in that he can position his head and neck to make you believe that he is not only on the bit but also has the correct bend, and is light in the bridle, but the tell of incorrectness is that his indirect rein causes him to slow down or even stop without the addition of a half halt. His direct rein is also missing continuity and would require the use of the outside rein – signs that he is simply holding a false frame of tension.

So the game was to allow him slack reins to the buckle on the rail to establish a steady walk rhythm without interference with the reins. Following that I picked up the reins, working off the inside rein and allowing looping slack in the outside rein, I waited for him to follow the rein – to move straight. In order for him to move straight he has to be calm and forward. Before picking up the reins we established calm and forward by allowing him to step into a walk that was correctly tracking up and had a 1-2-3-4 rhythm (vs 1-2–3-4 or 1–2-3–4). Immediately he was attempting to change the bend, to which I simply kept the inside rein steady, or at some moments would shorten it slightly when he allowed slack in order to help guide him to the bend.

What is the bend? The bend is from the horse’s tail to his poll, it is not superficially shown in the neck. I can get neck flexion and have a horse who does not bend, is not supple.

In this horse he would offer simple neck flexion, and keep the rest of his body stiff as a board, so while maintaining the rein steady I made sure all of my body supported what I was looking for in his. It is really easy as riders to get so intuned to what we want from the horse that we then forget ourselves completely. I focused most of my energy on keeping my eyes up and forward, breathing deeply and calmly, keeping my toes pointed upwards (helps relieve other areas of tension that can be held in the legs and settles your seat for better balance), and my hands correct with thumbs pointing up (tension can also show up in the hands if you tend to curl at the wrists or turn the fingers down).

We circled about the arena just focusing on these small features, when I felt for a moment that he may be maintaining the proper bend for a few strides I would test it simply by applying a small indirect rein to see if he would transition smoothly from a direct to indirect rein (moving towards the rein then moving away from the rein into a demi-leg yield). Sometimes he would, other times he wouldn’t. When he transitioned smoothly and proved the correct bend I would give him the reins and allow a lap or two of free walk. This gave us the opportunity to practice moving from slack reins to holding them, an action that proved or disproved remaining tension in this horse.

What happened is interesting, because in just the first ride his mouth quieted. He went from knawing at the bit to a completely quiet yet soft mouth. There was moisture on his lips but no foam, no oversalivation. His gait was calm and forward when we ended, and he was moving through his bend in both directions.

Straightness? No, but straightness comes only after you have developed the horse’s suppleness to each bend, so we are on the road to success!

The next ride was the same and the one afterwards. There were differences in both sides as far as what he would attempt to offer as incorrect bend or how he would try to straighten the bend. To the right he simply tried to straighten the bend or move against the rein, often poking his nose up and outwards in an attempt to evade that way. To the left, however, he would fall into the inside rein with his shoulder, come behind the bit, give a false head set, do a lot of head tilting, etc.

Yesterday’s ride I introduced some trot work applying this same principle. He came to the work undersaddle brilliantly in the walk right away, very forward, calm and relaxed. He was immediately responsive to both direct and indirect rein aids as well as half halt. He was ‘on point’ so to speak. At the trot he was tense immediately. What I did here was instead of setting forward on a slack line as I had done at the walk previously, was to begin bringing him to the bend right away. His tension was so great and only built on a slack line while he trotted around bent in the opposite direction of travel, strung out and hollow backed. We worked a few times on both sides coming to the bend, to which it didn’t take him very long. His right side took more time than the left this time. After he would come to the bend on each side I brought him back to walk, reestablished calm and forward at the walk before asking for the trot work again.

Why put so much effort into something so small? The brilliance of this is that once the horse is calm and forward, on the correct bend, and the rider has achieved an educated seat that allows their aids to be acted upon independently, the horse simply does the action requested, it becomes a real dance without force. Lightness isn’t something that is achieved, it simply exists when all of these things are present and the horse works without tension. It is when there is tension in the horse that we have to rely upon force and heavy aids to inspire them.