Bending to the Inside of a Circle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horse Must Bend to the Inside of a Circle When Lunging and Riding! On the first three months of training the horse on the lunge line, the trainer and the horse start to get to know each other very well. The trainer has to be constantly observing the horse – its likes, its dislikes, whether or not it is sound-sensitive, afraid of strange sights, whether it is bold and fearless, timid and shy, aggressive and dominant, aggressive and insecure, big and clumsy, well balance and athletic, or for instance, whether or not it is going to challenge the trainer’s rank.  Horses have many different personalities; they are very individualistic. The trainer who can get to know what kind of personality they are dealing with before they back the horse will have a huge advantage. Horses are strongly controlled by hormones. I have found, for example, that if mares have a reasonable amount of training before, they become completely mature sexually, they rarely are unmanageable during estrus. If they have no early training and start  four-year olds, they can be very difficult..

 

Primary Objectives

 The primary physical objective will be to prepare the horse to be ridden. This will involve preparing the horse to carry weight on its back and to be guided by the rider’s aids, and to address any conformational faults that might inhibit the process.  In the first days, the focus of our attention will be primarily upon the safety of the horse and rider, which encompasses acclimatization to the equipment and place of work. Soon, it will shift to a more sophisticated analysis. It is very important that we start this work somewhere where there is good footing.   Having many young and more mature horses with and without a round pen, I can tell you that, especially if you are alone, the whole process will go much more smoothly if you begin (even if only for the first few weeks) in such a ring. It need not and should not be too large. A 60-foot round pen is best because we can also do mounted training in it. When the young horse can be trained to follow a round fence, it allows the trainer to be much softer with the lunge line. Since it is not needed to hold the horse on the circle, a lot of upsetting tugging on the lead is avoided. Furthermore, a round pen virtually eliminates the problem of young horses spinning their hindquarters out, to end up stopping facing the trainer, or trying to go in the other direction. Without a round pen this can be a nerve -wracking problem, but if the trainer does not have one, it must be solved by patient readjustment. It must never be addressed by attacking the horse, compelling it to move out of control.

 

Any push from behind could be all speed, thrust propelling energy through a stiff back. Without training, we could not influence the longitudinal balance of the horse, which manifests itself physically in the horse’s profile. A galloping racehorse, for example, the greatest weight being borne on the forehand.  The sooner the trainer can get the horse in a round working shape, the better. Once the trainer has the young horse trotting in circles with both side reins connected, it is time to take a well-deserved sigh of relief.  The trainer can now begin to form a strategy which will address faults of conformation or the individual behavior of each horse as it is lunging. In some cases, the strategy may be to adjust the size of the circle, making it small for instance, to keep a difficult horse under a little more scrutiny and control. In other cases, it may entail adjusting the tempo: more forward for horses looking for trouble, slower for certain nervous types; more transitions, less transitions, depending on the needs of each horse.

  

Lateral Balance - Inside Bend

Let’s say we have our horse circling on a circle at the trot loose in the round pen or on a lunge line. What we will be aiming for will be a form where the curve of the horse’s body relatively matches the curve of the circle on the ground.  We always strive for the bend to the inside. The horse’s neck will also be curved gently to the inside and the profile shape will be an arch with the poll near the highest point. One should not confuse this with the spine underneath – we try to approximate a shape we would like to ride. One of the first challenges we encounter when we begin to study this fundamental circular work is that it is full of paradoxes. Since the horse has four legs, if it were traveling on the circle over fresh-raked footing, we would see two concentric sets of tracks – one set left by the two legs on the left side of the horse, and the other left by the two legs on the right side of the horse. If we connected these hoof prints with a line, we would see two concentric circles left on the ground. If we looked carefully at the tracks or pattern of the footfalls (let’s say the horse is traveling to the left), they would look symmetrical. The left hind might step exactly on top of the track just imprinted on the ground by the left fore. (Forging happens when these feet do not miss each other) If we went over to the outer set of tracks, we might see the right hind steps exactly on the track just made by the right forefoot. Depending on the horse and the size of the trot, the hind prints might go over or past the prints of the forefeet, or they might step short of the front prints, but it will usually be the same for both sides of the horse. In common dressage terminology, when a horse is moving in this way with its hind feet in line with its forefeet, it is said to be straight. Straight whilst following a circle! This is even more of a paradox than it seems. Although the hoof prints appear symmetrical – the two inside legs doing the exact same thing as the two outside legs – they are not. A careful measurement of the distance between where the left (inside) hind strikes down from one step to the next, and a careful measurement of the distance between where the right (outside) hind strikes from one step to the next, will always show the outside measurement to be larger. To any engineer’s mind, this is rather obvious. Since the horse has four legs, and since the two forelegs and the two hind legs stand apart, then depending on the distance they are apart, the larger circumference of the circle of the outside tracks may add several inches to each stride of the outside legs. This is one of the most important fundamentals in the whole study of dressage. It impacts on almost all riding techniques in a positive or negative way. This observation shows that the horse’s body can lengthen on one side and shorten on the other. In riding, it is this ability to bend that allows the horse to remain perpendicular to the ground when circling. When its mass stays balanced over its feet it is safer to ride because it doesn’t slip. This is especially true if the rider stays balanced above the horse and does not add to the problem by leaning. The horse is nimbler, and can turn more quickly and tightly. (If you drive an automobile in a large harrowed dressage arena and turn a small circle the rear tires cannot follow the front tires. The car, being made of steel, is unbendable and much less maneuverable than a horse.)   For hundreds of years (and to this day), riders have been constantly challenging this principle with experiments in bends to the outside.  

When we start with the young horse, what if it doesn’t track its hind feet in line with the tracks of the forefeet? What if it is not ‘dressage straight’ that is, matching the curve, but is instead ‘ship straight’, metal stiff and swinging its haunches out? Or what if it is cured like a boomerang, constantly carrying its twisted haunches inside? Balance, repeated in so many forms, will be come a trainer’s mantra.

 

The first balance required is the trainer’s own mental balance. You must understand and get beyond strangling dual effects. You will quickly realize, for example, that although tightening the inside rein may give you more bend, it might also push the haunches out further and make the horse more crooked. You won’t be able to adjust anything without a rippling effect. You will learn to be aware of and to control clusters of effects.   The bulk of the work starting now will be on the torso of the horse, the flexible, multi-dimensional cylinder of its back, sides and stomach. We will often use the neck and the hind legs to get at the torso. Later, once our horse has had more training, when we apply the left leg we will learn to feel the entry go ‘through’ immediately, feeling a response on the right side of this cylinder. The ribs are flexible. We will learn to ride evaluating and responding to all these feelings at once. We will worry most when something goes into that cylinder on one side and does not come out. These are the ghosts of evasion that haunt a rider more than any horror story. Nothing can be addressed on one side only. Many problems will not have a single answer. The sooner the trainer gets more comfortable with thinking this way, the better. This is not easy to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using a surcingle with a lunge line or side reins.............The curve of the horse’s spine must match the curve of the circle.

 

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Bending to the outside forces the horse out of balance and to lean like a bicycle on the turn, or it forces the hind end to swing out, disengaging the motor.

 

 

This has never worked. The principle of inside bend remains unshakeable because of its simple but important physics: it remains one of the cornerstones of riding. Almost all of the classical lateral exercises a rider-trainer uses in practice are aimed at perfecting this ability, and this work begins unmounted on the lunge line. This is a common problem – the horse is bending right whilst traveling left. When this occurs, rather than shortening the left rein, you may have to let out the right. This happens constantly in riding: riders shorten on the left to correct the bend (so they now have two short reins) instead of allowing the outside to stretch and lengthen around the outside curve of the neck.  Once the horse has inside bend, we can check the tracking. When adjusting the side reins, always remember to give the horse a few circles to adjust its body. Sometimes, horses start out stiff in exactly the same position they were in previously, but then they feel the change and allow their bodies to fall into the correction. Let us suppose that both the horse’s hind tracks are off to the outside of the front tracks. The trainer has to be flexible and creative. It is possible that there is still not enough bend to the inside and the horse is too straight through the body. It is traveling ‘ship straight.’ Therefore, it needs more bend. However, it is also possible that the inside rein is too tight and the horse has too much bend and the haunches are being forced out in a kind of leg-yielding position. The correction could be as simple as letting the outside rein out a little, or it might mean tightening the outside more to restrict bend, but also keeping the submission inside.

 

The young horse on the circle might be tracking fine on the outside legs, but consistently moving in the inside hind leg over to the outside of its fore partner, resembling a mock shoulder-in. What is usually happening here is that the horse is dropping its inside hip. Instead of moving square with its hips to the ground, which would demand good flexion of the inside (left) hind leg, the horse tips its pelvis. The inside hind leg swings over lazily, moving like a person with a cast on their knee. The outside (right) hip sways to the right and the whole pelvis buckles. You can try this yourself. Stand up. Swing your left leg over in front of your right leg; keeping your hips very relaxed. Feel your left hip drop as it follows your left leg down and over. Feel your right hip push over to the right. Now do it again, and this time keep your right hip firm. See how you will have to balance on that leg and how it will keep the whole pelvis from collapsing. The pelvis stays level until the inside leg finishes its track and hits the ground. Both legs are now in a scissor of support. In the first case, your hips collapse as the leg moves under the center of gravity. It keeps you in balance without the expenditure of energy involved in raising and moving your center of gravity. In the second case, in order to stay in balance with straight hips, the center of gravity must be lifted and balanced over the right (stance) leg. Instead of trying not to disturb the center of gravity, or a center of balance, the second way of moving becomes a practice or an exercise in deliberately adjusting balance, and building strength and dexterity in the muscles by doing so.  Usually with the horse that drops the hip to the left, for example, we add impulsion to compel that leg to do more work. If the leg continues to ‘cheat’, turn in the other direction, put that leg on the outside, making it drive the turn and work on it more until the action becomes more symmetrical.

 

 

When the horse is bent correctly to the inside it is ‘dressage straight;’ this bend allows the outside to extend correctly and the horse leaves two distinct sets of tracks.

 

When the horse does not extend on the outside or bend on the inside

 

You will also notice this when you first round pen a horse free style.  It is forced to lean like a bicycle, moving here on one track. The horse is beyond ‘ship straight’ – it is actually bent to the outside. The result can be seen in the tracking and balance. It is impossible to cover every kind of problem or question that will occur in lunging. Even if it were possible, one probably shouldn’t do it. Each of us has to learn for ourselves. It is not a matter of successive reinventions of the wheel. What we are trying to do is set up a system for approaching questions and problems – a way to think. That is precisely what the classical approach is all about – learning how to think. After several months of this kind of preparation, the young horse or remedial horse will be in a much better position to be ridden. The lunging may continue to augment challenges in the riding. And, it will have formed the basis for all the later advanced work in-hand.

 

 

 

Lunging on a bend is a critical component of educating/training; it is one of the safest and most ethical preparations to ride. Then, as a proof of its fundamental soundness, this versatile method evolves to be the foundation  for the most advanced work a horses can do!