ARTICLES BY and ABOUT MANOLO MENDEZ
SCHOOLING THE HORSE: THE IMPORTANCE OF LENGTHENING THE NECK by Manolo Mendez with Ysabella Dean
In the paddock or in the wild, we can see horses playing or challenging each other with a naturally collected outline and a flexed poll. But a horse will hold this posture for moments only before returning to his most natural and comfortable stance - head and neck lowered and most of his weight on the forehand. And when he does collect, he will also instinctively lift his back and use muscles, ligaments, tendons and bones all over his body to properly support this posture.
In training for dressage, one of the most damaging things we can do to a horse - especially a young horse - is demand an outline. A beautiful outline is something that will, if the training is correct, develop naturally over a period of years. To insist on it before the horse is ready can and does lead to premature breakdown in body, mind and spirit.
A short neck destroys balance.
Horses have evolved to carry most of their weight on the forehand for most of the time, and freedom of the neck and head is a crucial factor in being able to balance this weight. A green horse has natural balance, but all that is changed when we expect him to carry a rider as well. Now he must find a new balance. This alone may take many months, depending on the horse, his conformation, temperament and natural ability.
Training a horse to perform the higher movements with grace and beauty is not possible without conserving the horse's natural balance. For flying changes, pirouette, half pass, or any other advanced movement, the horse must have superior balance. A short contact used to create a short neck and to force poll flexion will interfere with this balance.
Take the flying change or the half pass, for example. We should never have too much contact. We should use the reins
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SCHOOLING THE HORSE: THE IMPORTANCE OF LENGTHENING THE NECK
to gently guide the horse in the direction of the leading rein, then we should change softly, allowing the horse time to organise his legs and adjust all his vertebrae. Superior balance becomes even more crucial for the Airs Above the Ground, such as levade, courbette and capriole. Interfere with the mouth, have the contact too short at the wrong time, and you will cause the horse to shorten his neck and thus lose his balance.
How short is too short?
Of course, training with too long a neck can cause problems, too. If the horse is not encouraged to seek contact with the riders hands, to lift a little, he will never learn to carry himself in a way that will help him develop the muscles he needs.
But how short is too short and how long is too long? How much contact is the right amount to allow the horse to work with his neck in the optimal position? It depends on each individual horse and the level of his training.
In any type of training, the nose must be in front of the vertical at all times. If we force a green horse to work with a short contact, he will go behind the vertical in an effort to evade the pain we are creating in his mouth and neck.
A nose behind the vertical causes the poll to become stiff. The neck rolls too much, which makes the top muscles too tense. The muscles underneath suck up as the horse tries to support himself in this uncomfortable posture. The seven neck vertebrae become stiff and tense, which causes the rest of the vertebrae (the horse has fifty-four in all, from the poll to the tail) to also become stiff and tense.
With a horse working at a high level we may need more contact, but this is because a horse at a high level has developed the ability and the stamina to hold himself in a collected outline with his poll flexed. It is still a light contact: he does not need to be held
there. Shorter contact should always be by-product of physical development, not the means by which physical development is achieved. If it is the means, then it will be the wrong physical development.
Even so, we should not work even a highly trained horse in a collected frame for more than a few minutes at a time. Most of his work should be done on a gentle, fine contact which encourages him to stretch down and out with his neck and head, to seek our hands through the reins. This is called long and low.
Long and low or deep and round?
Long and low is not the same thing at all as the deep and round principle, which relies on bringing the horse behind the vertical with a lowered head and a shortened neck.
Working a horse deep and round is often achieved with side reins and running reins, and is thought to lift the horses back and stretch the spine by enabling the hind legs to come through properly. In fact, when a horse is worked too deep in the neck, his back must arch down. This will indeed cause him to work his back legs harder to compensate, but there is too much movement in the stifle and the hock, and not enough in the body. The hind end is not working in harmony with the front end because the bridge between them - the back - is not moving. With the legs working so hard, they hit the ground harder. This can cause concussion of the spine and hip.
Deep and round restricts the respiratory system and blood supply, and the horse can't see where he is going. The horse ends up weak in the spine. You cannot always see the damage immediately; it happens over time.
In the beginning was the long neck.
LATERAL WORK PART 1: BEGINNING LATERAL WORK by Manolo Mendez with Ysabella Dean
Dressage is an art form and, like any art form, it needs time and the right conditions in which to grow and flourish. The rider and his horse must work together, in harmony, to develop balance, rhythm, co-ordination and skill. We do not teach the horse e passage or piaffe or tempi changes: these things he was born to do. But to do them with the same grace and beauty under saddle means we must work within his natural limitations, building his strength and willingness. If we don't, we end up with a pale copy of the real thing. Allowing him to work with his neck long and low is where it all truly begins.
When we teach the higher movements preparation is the key. Preparation of smooth transitions is crucial in assisting the horse to maintain its balance and rhythm for lateral work. If smooth transitions are not confirmed, all lateral work will then appear and feel stiff and forced, translating into lost rhythm and quality of movement. All training thus far if done correctly leads up to this moment, the horse is going freely and smoothly in correct balance and rhythm. This is the moment when our horse is ready to begin its introduction to the higher movements. Now we can begin to introduce the beginnings of lateral work. We do not ask for more than a little bit here and there and are willing to go back to the fundamental basics of training to maintain the horses confidence in the work. The horse will then develop a relaxed attitude towards lateral work.
To start the shoulder-in the horse must have reached the stage where he is well-balanced under the riders weight. He should be finding it very easy to do eight, ten and twenty meter circles, also loops and serpentines. He should clearly understand all leg aids and by this stage these must be subtle and refined. When we have all that, we know we are ready to start lateral work with a little shoulder-in.
In the beginning there was the shoulder-in.
The shoulder-in is the foundation for all higher movements. It is also the most useful training exercise because it produces suppleness and collection, encouraging the horse to take more weight on his hindquarters, thus freeing up the shoulders.
LATERAL WORK PART 1: BEGINNING LATERAL WORK
The shoulder-in also helps the rider to develop a feel for fine-tuning the aids to get more refined responses from the horse.
The horse has fifty-four vertebrae from the poll to the end of the tail, and all have to be bent equally in the shoulder-in. With a young horse, we start by asking for a slight bend around the inside leg, and school up to the movement on three tracks.
Introducing the shoulder-in on a 20 meter circle
We begin teaching the shoulder-in on a twenty meter circle because this is the easiest way for a young horse to understand what we want from him, which is that he bends his body evenly to the inside from his poll to his tail. We want him to go both forward and sideways and to bring his inside hind leg under himself as best he can as an individual at this early stage of his training. We ask for only a little angle to begin with and just a few steps. We are careful not to allow the hindquarters to fall out: this is a sign that we are demanding too much bend. It can happen more easily on a circle, and we must be aware of this and not allow it to develop into a habit.
When we get a little try from the horse, no matter how small, we reward him by asking him to return to a single track and forward. We build up to a few steps, and then reward again the same way. We ask for a few steps here and there, and that is enough for each training session at this stage.
When the horse understands what we want on the circle, we practice the movement down the long side of the arena. We can begin by asking for an eight to ten meter half-circle on the short side, after the centre line, and asking him to do a few steps of shoulder-in back to the long side, then to go straight. Later we can do an eight to ten meter circle in the corner, and, as we come out of the circle, we ask him to do a few steps of shoulder-in down the long side. Then we ask him to go straight. We can repeat the circle along the long side and again ask for a few steps of shoulder-in as we return to the track. This will help create suppleness and reinforce the understanding of the leg aid.
Introducing travers
When the horse understands the shoulder-in exercise, we are ready to introduce the travers. Travers is good because it supples the hindquarters and hip joints. But we must be careful not to execute this movement with too much angle because the risk is that the horse will find it too hard and will "open" his body i.e. evade bending its spine by straightening out its head, neck and shoulders. The movement will end up on four tracks instead of three.We start by asking the horse for an eight to ten meter half circle in the corner, coming back to the long side in a little travers only four to five steps, then we let him travel straight again. We repeat the exercise, asking again for another few steps of travers, then letting him travel straight again. As with the shoulder-in, we ask only for a little, and just here and there, always keeping in mind how we prepare for the lateral movement.
We do it this way for a little while till the travers is established, just like the shoulder-in.
Establishing shoulder-in and travers makes half pass easy.
At this stage we do not ask for too much angle in either the shoulder-in or travers. By asking for just a little effort here and there, we do not make it too hard, and the horse will enjoy trying for us. We gradually increase the angle over time, aiming eventually for complete synchronicity and coordination of all four legs.
When the horse is well able to do these simple exercises, we shouldnt have any problems introducing the half pass. But we should not be greedy when we get to the half pass and ask for too much angle because the horse must always travel forward and keep learning to travel forward, as well as maintaining balance and rhythm. The half pass is a movement where many green horses often lose balance and rhythm. If we keep it clear and simple, the legs under the horse have plenty of freedom, and the horse is not blocked in travelling forward. With half pass the angle is about forty-five degrees, but we should start about halfway with the angle and work up gradually.
In half pass, the horse has to be bent to the side hes going, but we should always make sure we do not ask for more bend on one side than the other. We have to keep the bend in a very soft, simple way.
When we introduce half pass we start with the ten meter half circle in the corner and ask the horse to half pass back to the track. We are careful to keep the impulsion, and to make sure the quarters do not fall out, and we keep the horse on the correct bend, not letting the neck bend too much. We make sure our weight moves into the direction of the movement i.e., we do not allow ourselves to slide to the outside of the horse.
As the horse gains confidence and suppleness, we can ask for the half pass from the centre line. We must always go straight for a few meters before asking for the half pass because we do not want him to anticipate and fall into the movement as he turns onto the centre line.
Conformation may affect lateral work
It is possible to establish and perform correct shoulder-in and travers in three to five months if the horse is not finding it difficult physically and if the training is gentle and sympathetic. But it can take longer, especially if the horse has to overcome disadvantages of conformation, or needs to adjust the way it travels naturally e.g., head too high.
Conformation may affect the degree of angle and the degree of ease with which a horse executes different movements. A narrow horse often finds it much easier to travel in half-pass than a horse with a wider chest. Long legged horses find it easier than those with short legs and a big body. Horses that find it harder may need more time to develop the shoulder-in, travers and half pass, and should be brought on slowly and carefully.
A horse with more angle in the stifle area, i.e. from the stifle to the hock, will often find it much easier to do dressage, especially
the higher movements. . A horse that is straighter in the hocks will need more time to develop through basic training. We must also watch and feel, and decide where the horse needs special work to help him; how to help him in areas where he is lacking in muscle and strength.
But conformation is not everything, and in fact a horse who finds some things hard may be better at other things. Temperament and the nature of the individual horse will also affect how easy he finds it to learn to execute the various movements.
The most important thing, the crucial thing, when we start to do all these exercises is that we have to be very careful to prepare our horse for the lateral movements whilst maintaining the desired position of the neck, and the angle of the nose and the amount of contact. The head must be in front of the vertical, so that the poll is not stiff or bent too much. If we force the outline, and the horse goes behind the vertical, we will make the contact weak. If the horse tries to evade the forced outline by pulling, our contact will become too strong. With a forced outline the horse will get hollow in the spine and thus lose the connection between his poll and his tail, which will create even more problems with contact.
If we get the horse behind the vertical in the early training we will have difficulty later when we are training the higher level movement -- piaffe, passage, pirouette. With these, you need plenty of room to go in and out of collection in order to build the horse's confidence with collection and to create harmonious the transitions. If we insist on ignoring the importance of length of neck and of building up strength and confidence, we will create a horse that becomes short necked and long bodied with a hollowed back, and the movements will become forced and stiff. True collection is soft, light and balanced.
If we shorten the neck and put the horse too much behind the vertical, we are blocking the freedom and regularity of movement, and this will cause bigger problems later on. Whatever the front legs do, so do the back legs. We have to be very careful how we start all these exercises with a young horse. Preparation is key.
Training should improve horses, not damage them.
We can damage our horse by working him too high, and we can also cause damage by working him too low as in low, deep and round. This low, deep and round is one of the worst things we can do to a young horse because we stop the shoulder of the
horse moving out. We block the stifle, and the hock will not come under. After that, there is nothing left but to force him under with whip and spur, and this we never want to do to our horse.
If we do the right thing by the horse by not making him stiff and inflexible through incorrect training, then he will be able to perform the higher movements with true freedom and fluidity. And this is the point of training; to teach the horse to work in such a way that it improves his body, not causes it to break down. The horse should be better physically at Grand Prix then he was at training level, and he should have a lot of confidence because he understands his job properly and knows he can do it without hardship.
This is the real test in training: can we get the horse to Grand Prix level without expecting him to sacrifice his body and mind?
To teach all the high movements, we should only be using the spurs and whip to remind him not to go to sleep if he gets a little lazy, not as a forceful measure. We remind him and he tries, and then we reward him.
That way he understands clearly what we are asking of him.
In teaching lateral work shoulder-in, travers and half-pass we are aiming all the time to develop the horse so he can carry himself in an increasingly better position, becoming more proud, more elegant, and more beautiful with every passing year. In dressage training we are working towards the ultimate, which is riding the Grand Prix movements in true lightness. Every training exercise we do with our horse should bring us a step closer to true lightness, not take us further away.
Copyright © 2003 Manolo Mendez
LATERAL WORK PART 2: THE MARRIAGE OF LATERAL WORK AND NATURAL COLLECTION by Manolo Mendez with Ysabella Dean
Lateral work consists of the shoulder-in, travers, renvers and half pass. We start with the simple shoulder-in and, when the horse understands it and can do it easily, we progress to travers (quarters-in) and renvers (quarters-out). When these movements are established, we then introduce half pass. Our first task is to build the horses fitness, suppleness and confidence. Remember, we are not asking for too much in these early stages, and we are required to assist our horse in maintaining balance and rhythm.
Good basic lateral work makesGrand Prix more attainable.
Lateral work requires the horse to move forwards and sideways at the same time. These are very special exercises because they develop and supple the muscles the essential equipment for higher level training. The importance of lateral work is reflected through the levels of dressage competition. In Elementary, only very simple lateral movements are required (shoulder-in and travers). In Medium and Advanced, increasingly developed movements are required. If the basic lateral work has been rushed or forced, this will show up more and more as the horse moves up through the levels. There will be more resistance: the horse will be finding it difficult to get to Prix St George. And yet this is really only halfway to the top, because to properly develop all the movements required for Grand Prix can take another twelve months or more. If the horse has to struggle to get to Prix St George, how difficult will he find it to get all the way to Grand Prix?
No horse can perform Grand Prix movements with grace and ease if he has not been properly and thoroughly prepared through lateral work. This is like asking a human who has only ever run forward to suddenly start moving sideways or backward. He does not have the coordination; he needs different muscles that he has not yet developed. He has to build these slowly, slowly, step by step. We do not expect him to achieve perfection overnight, and neither should we ever rush our horse through any stage of his development.
LATERAL WORK PART 2: THE MARRIAGE OF LATERAL WORK AND NATURAL COLLECTION
Anticipation leads to resistance.
When we start lateral work we are trying to teach the horse so much. We have to be very careful because the horse can become oversensitive to our leg, and then he can escape quickly to one side or another, to the left or right. His brain will work faster, he will get quicker to coordinate, and therefore he will respond faster to very light aids from the rider. When he is learning, he also may misunderstand these aids. He may be so eager to please that he will respond to what he thinks we are asking for, and he will then make mistakes.
Anticipation from a horse occurs when we make him oversensitive in this way. Think of some of those school contests we see on television, where the children have to beat the buzzer. Often there will be a very intelligent child who presses the button too quickly before he has all the information to give the correct answer. Just as a child who fails in this way may feel disappointed in himself and lose confidence, so can a horse. And that is a shame, because a young horse who is difficult like this is often one who has the potential to be very good.
Anticipation can also lead to resistance because the horse, in trying to please, does more than he is physically ready to do. For instance, when practicing travers and half-pass, one simple exercise is to do a ten meter half circle from F and ask the horse to move back to B (or from M to B). Sometimes, because the horse knows what is coming, he will take his hindquarters to the inside too soon -- as he comes round the circle. Then he will travel back to the track with his hindquarter in too far, which will affect his balance, and he will feel that he is in trouble. Next time we ask for this exercise he will feel that it is too hard.
When a horse starts to think negatively about an exercise, we start to build resistance. So we have to be careful not only not to ask him for too much too soon, and to avoid letting him giving us more than he is ready for, but we also have to make sure we present each exercise in a way that will build his confidence. An example of this is when we introduce half pass. We should always do this by going
from the middle of the arena to the track, not vice versa. We do a half ten-meter circle in the corner and ask the horse to half pass to the track. The horse knows when he reaches the track he has finished, and the track pulls him like a magnet. But if you ask him to go from the track to the middle of the arena before he is comfortable doing it the other way, he may think you want him to half pass the whole length of the diagonal. He knows very well how long the diagonal is, and he may feel it is too hard. And so he will resist.
If a horse does anticipate, we must never, never punish him. We must reward him and then ask for the exercise in a different way. And we also look for ways to slow down the training, to take the pressure off, to change the way we are working. This may mean not only finding a different way to do the exercise, but perhaps not doing that exercise at all for a few days. And so we will encourage the continued development of suppleness and coordination by avoiding resistance and anticipation.
Lateral work and collection go hand-in-hand.
Building suppleness and coordination is only part of the big picture. The other very important purpose of lateral work is to achieve natural collection. We know when we are ready to move on from lateral work because our horse will understand what natural collection is - and know when and how to use it.
Lateral work and natural collection are two aspects of training that cannot and should not be separated. Just as lateral work leads to more advanced movements such as flying changes, pirouette, piaffe, passage, so natural collection leads to refined collection which gives us the necessary lightness and elevation needed to perform these movements. As the horse learns lateral work and as his body develops, he also learns about collection. And if he learns this for himself, we will never need to force it out of him.
So what is natural collection? What is a natural anything? It is when the horse gives you something with fluidity, to the best of his ability, when he understands clearly what you are asking for and he knows how to use his own body to best achieve it.
Natural collection comes from the horse when he prepares himself for certain movements. He cannot achieve good lateral work without this self-preparation. And although this comes naturally to a horse playing or posturing in the paddock, it is a much harder thing for him to learn how to use it when he is also carrying a rider. Not only does a rider change his own natural balance, he must also learn to be in harmony with his rider, to perform the movements not at will, but as a discipline.
Just as forcing lateral movements too soon can lead to resistance, so can forcing collection destroy the horses confidence and ability to collect naturally. Natural collection will come just as fluidity through the lateral movements must come little by little, step by step.
But this does not necessarily mean that the rider never asks for a little more collection. Because the horse is only learning, there are times when the rider must, through the contact and the use of his body and by pushing the horse on just a little at the right time, encourage the horse to find the level of natural collection he needs for the movement he is performing, without asking for more than the horse is ready and able to give.
This requires a very fine feel from the rider. Even more important than knowing when to ask for more is to know when to stop asking at all.
So collection is a combined effort; it is the rider and horse working in perfect understanding and harmony, each helping the other to such a degree that the two blend into one.
It's like a pair of ice-skaters who have practiced and polished their performance to such a high degree of refinement that when they work together they are no longer two separate people. Their partnership has become so finely integrated that they appear as one entity. They come to the part of their act where the man must lift the woman above his head and skate around the ring with her. From the moment she takes a foot off the ice, he has prepared himself and is already in the best position to lift her and hold her. But her own position is vital, too. If her balance is not quite right, it will affect his balance. If she is a good skater, she will adjust her own body to help her partner. Maybe she will need to move one arm back or forward a little to adjust her weight distribution, or hold her neck and head a little higher or lower. She will be able to feel by the way he is balancing which way she needs to balance herself to maintain total harmony between them.
We have to strive to find this same balance and feeling with our horses. Collection is a partnership where horse and rider become so dependent on one another that they perform as one being. The rider who makes his horse short in the neck with an unyielding, insensitive contact, then uses the spurs to make him piaffe is therefore not achieving true collection. Execution of the movements with technical correctness is not dressage. Dressage is gracefulness, lightness, beauty and harmony.
BEYOND LATERAL WORK by Manolo Mendez with Ysabella Dean
What comes after lateral work? It is all done. But it is not finished. Now it is time to get everything together, to purify the movements to refine. And to refine, we need to come back all the time to the basics, the foundations. We continue to do only a few steps here and there of lateral work, looking for the horse to respond well. We should not insist or abuse the system.
Think of carving a wood sculpture. The artist will do everything rough all over - a foundation - and then go back to refine. A portrait painter, he will first do the rough outline of a face and only later start to give colours, shading, details.
We should think of our young horse as an unfinished work of art. The horse schooled this way will feel very secure and enthusiastic. He will have a lot of confidence. And then he will be able to participate with the rider in a more open way.
As crude oil is taken from the ground and then refined in different ways to produce different products, so can dressage work be refined in many ways at this stage to produce many different products. You want the oil, you know you need to refine it, but not every horse can be refined in the same way. Some horses are very sensitive. They know you are going to ask a question and they will anticipate the answer. Some have less sensitivity; they don't answer so quickly. Some give the wrong answer because they dont listen well enough to the question. And some dont hear the question at all. People are just the same!
So you have established the basics and introduce shoulder-in, travers and simple half-pass. Now you just refine, going backwards and forwards; a little shoulder-in here, a few steps of half-pass there, asking a little more only as the horse builds confidence and muscle. It all becomes more established over time. And as the horses understanding and suppleness increase, so does his ability to self-collect.
Collection means self-collection
In the last article I spoke of natural (self-) collection and how it is achieved through lateral work. At this stage it is too easy to think it is all right to force more collection. But if we do that, we will destroy all the good work we have done until now.
BEYOND LATERAL WORK
Collection comes from the whole body, and true collection comes only with time. Elegance and balance – that is what we want.
If we make a horse collected too early, he will not understand how to give us what we want, and we will make the neck too short. If the neck is too short, the body is too long. The horse has to shorten his stride anyway as he builds up to the higher levels of dressage, and if he has been trained with too short a neck, his body will already be too long to “come under”. (That’s how a horse shortens his stride – by shortening his body.) And if he cannot bring his legs underneath, how can he ever attain the maximum suspension and spectacular action necessary for extended trot, piaffe and passage?
Even when a horse has learned to collect himself, we must never allow him to work collected for too long at one time. If we do, he will get tired, and, once again, will become too short in the neck and too long in the body. You will have the front end but not the back end - we see this all the time. That is unbalanced.
When I ask a new student to show me what his horse can do, I see him shorten the reins to shorten the horse for collected canter. I see the horse cantering in this shortened frame for five, sometimes eight, minutes at a time. I see how the horse starts to get cross. He has much better collection in the first few minutes and then he starts to lose it.
The other danger during all training, but even more so when we get to lateral work, is that we make the horse crooked. This is very common. I have not ridden a nice, straight, soft horse for a very long time.
Crooked horses are made, not born
The horse can only move straight if there is even contact in the two reins. If we don’t make sure of this with the young horse, he will always be stronger in one rein and therefore never straight.
Some people say that horses are born crooked, but I do not believe that. I have many times watched the young foal run round his mother in the paddock. He passages, he canters, and he does flying changes – all so straight and soft and even. When we put the bridle on the young horse, that’s when we start to change him. That’s when we start to make him crooked.
I see many riders working their horses to one side for too long. They make one side of the muscles stronger than the other. A racing car that has been in an accident and ended up with a bent chassis cannot be raced again unless it is given a new chassis. But we cannot give a horse a new body, a new mouth. We must be careful not to make the chassis crooked in the first place.
A crooked horse can often be fixed with the right training, but he must not and cannot be forced into changing. To that horse, crooked is the correct way to go. We have to tell him that’s okay because that’s what he thinks at the moment. We will work with him over time to help him understand better and to fix his body. For example, the right side may be easy and the left side is stiff, so we give him some exercises to help build up the left side. But then the horse, when cantering to the right may want to change to the left because he has gone a little too soft and flexible to the left. So we have to be very careful to improve the right side more, to make the work easier to the right side to create more confidence again.
What NOT to ask for
So in our training we are always careful not to do anything to create stiffness or resistance. But sometimes we can fall into this trap as we discover what the green horse is good at, what he likes to do best. A young child going to school for the first time can get very enthusiastic about something he really likes. He might study and study and try and try at that one thing, forgetting about all the other subjects. He might get “A” in that one subject and only “B” and “C” in all the others. But if you only get A’s in one subject you will never get into the hardest university courses, like law and medicine. Grand Prix dressage is like the most difficult university course there is.
With a young horse we have to work the first couple of years with a lot of enthusiasm and patience, to cultivate his interest in everything we ask him to do. We open his mind and make him think, okay, that’s not so bad. Later, we have to be careful how we improve his lateral work and his collection. We don’t say “Today, we’re going to teach you half-pass,” and do nothing else. The young horse will start to resist because it is too hard, and then we insist and the horse starts to get stiff in one side, and we force with the whip and spurs.
If we make everything too quick, we confuse the horse; make him nervous. And the thing I find all the time is that nerves create tension and resistance. The horse struggles, hesitates or even refuses. His posture gets bad, he gets short through the neck. Or he may respond too quickly because he is nervous and confused.
A horse who does not respond in the right way or who hesitates is often called lazy. I call him lacking in understanding. We need to ask again, and we need to ask in the right way, clearly showing him how we want him to be – calm and relaxed.
What we CAN ask for
In training we have to change all the time, do many different things and allow for the horse as an individual. Not only may he find some things easier than others because of body type and personality, he will, like humans, have days when things seem easier or harder.
Everything should be easy in the early stages – walk, trot, canter with no collection or interference. In this way we can increase power and softness to the joints and muscles. It’s like a dancer. If the neck is stiff and squashed up, so is the whole spine and therefore the limbs. The body cannot move fluidly so the dancing is expressionless.
If a horse wants to give collection at this stage of the training, you take advantage, but you must not keep that collection for too long. For example, on a 20-metre circle, you can ask for a few strides of collected canter. You slow down and slow down very smoothly and carefully in canter then you go forward again, asking the horse to lengthen his stride, before he gets uncomfortable or finds it too difficult. You ask for the horse to lengthen just as smoothly and carefully as you ask for him to shorten. If it is too abrupt, the horse may lose his balance and posture, and this can lead to resistance and tension.
The flying change
As well as taking advantage of natural collection to ask for a little more, we can also introduce the flying change after the lateral movements are well established. For flying change the horse has to change beat diagonally, from one side to the other – that is therefore also lateral work.
Some riders want their horses to change on a very straight line, through the diagonal, but to start the flying change this way is to do it with too many restrictions for the horse. We should ask the horse for one flying change here and there, on the circle, or after changing rein on the diagonal and only after asking the horse to change the bend of his body to the new rein. We must get him to understand that what we want is just one flying change here and there. We should not worry if the change isn't perfect, as long as the change comes from him. If we put too much pressure on the horse, it will start to do harm in other areas of training. Body position, hesitation, too much pressure through the bridle We must have patience when the horse starts to do the flying change.
In my experience, the rider asks for too much in general when the horse is too young and too inexperienced. In jumping, a good trainer will do lots of cavaletti, a little jump here and there, not too much. He knows the horse can jump higher but at this stage its about confidence-building. He doesn't want to risk giving a horse a fright over a bigger jump because every five to six jumps a green horse might get it wrong, be a bit uncoordinated and get put off. This can put the training back for months. In dressage we can make a lot of mistakes like that asking too much, too soon.
But how do we know when the horse is ready to be asked for a flying change or any other new exercise? That's about feel, something the rider must develop as he works with the horse. If we develop this, we will know when the time is right because
everything will feel effortless. The horse will feel soft and balanced, and will have no trouble with correct flexion, balance and holding a rhythm. Correct timing is about the ability to feel.
When teaching a horse flying change (or piaffe or anything) the horse can do something wrong change different left to right, right to left on one diagonal he may change too late or too quick. As with any exercise, we have to give the horse time to develop gymnastically before we can expect perfection.
When a horse starts to develop some hesitation or tension through the half-pass or flying change, we should back off very quickly or we create anger, frustration. So only when we get the opportunity, when we see some potential for the flying change, where the horse wants to give it to us, we ask and then he will respond with more enthusiasm. When he hesitates orconfused, we go back to the basics or to other exercises. Walk, half-pass, a little travers. Then we come back again later and do maybe one or two flying changes, and he will respond well, and we can finish on a good note.
Blossom before fruit
So - a little collection here and there, one flying change here and there, a little shoulder-in, travers, half-pass. When we have trouble or the horse is confused, we can start again by restoring the correct flexion and the body position, changing the rein, giving a little break. This will make it much clearer to the horse what we want from him. And when the horse knows the aids, the position, the language, he becomes soft and his rhythm is even. He is relaxed and clear-headed. He is balanced in body and mind. And balance is the main, the most fundamental principle of good training.
Then you can say, Well, I have a good roots, now I will have a good tree and then I can have the blossom and then the fruit. You can start to put it all together. You can connect all the different exercises, refine the movements and begin the piaffe
Copyright © 2005 Manolo Mendez
REAL ESCUELA ANDALUZA DEL ARTE by Manolo Mendez. p.2
Today the school is internationally renowned for showcasing Spanish horses, their training and the role of the horse in Spain’s history. In its early beginnings the Spanish Riding Schools Vienna, France, Portugal and Spain invited one another to their respective schools to observe and take part in the riding and training of the horses.
Where the School now stands the palace was adapted for the construction of a 1,600 seat indoor arena and stables for 60 horses.
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THE PREPARATION AND STARTING OF A YOUNG HORSE (Part 1)
by Manolo Mendez with Ysabella Dean
Every horse is different; it is in their benefit to take the time necessary, on the ground so they learn trust and confidence. I recommend the use of ground work in the beginning, to be followed with a combination of simple, light ridden work for your young horse to build confidence, balance and self-carriage.
When riding the young horse we use a light contact with even, balanced reins. This allows and encourages the horse to use all of the muscles throughout its body, building strong, yet flexible muscles. To a young or green horse, the leg means go forward and the hand means slow down. We must not confuse the horse in the early stages by using both at the same time. However, before asking for the transition, we do ask with the hand for the horse to go a little lower with his head and neck. We want the nose to be in front of the vertical, not on it or behind it. Then we give a little release with the reins and ask the horse to go forward from our leg.
Going
The horse must learn to travel straight very early on. This is where he develops much of his gymnastic ability. A young horse should do more straight work than circle work, and should not be asked for any flexion on straight lines, just to go straight. The riders hands should have a gentle, light contact on even reins when travelling on a straight line.
The challenge for the rider is to learn to allow their hands to follow the horses natural head nod, with a light contact so as not to hinder the movement in any way. To force the horse into an outline with an unsteady and or uneven contact will result in a stiff body, crookedness and lack of confidence.
When using circles as a form of exercise in these early stages make sure to keep them large 20m circles. The repetitive nature of circles and especially smaller than 20m at this stage will more than likely cause damage to the tendons, ligaments and muscles of the young horse.
THE PREPARATION AND STARTING OF A YOUNG HORSE ( Part 1)
Once the young horse is able to walk, trot and canter around the arena on both reins in a nice, comfortable, steady rhythm with a light and even contact, you can pretty much think of the next phase as the balance building and muscle building phases.
Horses are athletes. Their muscles require warming up, weight carrying, stretching, bending, balance exercises and a cardiovascular fitness program. One of our main jobs as a rider is to concentrate onimproving the muscle quality of the horse.
Keep it very simple for the horse. It is important not to confuse them but to carefully help them learn to stop softly to the hands, and go softly to the leg. At these early stages we are careful to use the leg wisely, and separately from the hand, especially in downward transitions. The rider is to release the leg in downward transitions. To leave the leg on in halt just confuses the horse, and explains why we constantly see such poor downward transitions, and halts that are crooked, behind the vertical, resisting or wanting to step back.
THE PREPARATION AND STARTING OF A YOUNG HORSE (Part 2)
The first trotting exercises are to encourage a trot with a nice, regular rhythm. I would not encourage any sitting trot during these early stages, to do so will result in the young horse using the wrong muscles, his back will hollow and his body stiffen.
Only when the horse has found his natural balance under the rider, and has developed physically showing strength to support the rider with rhythm and balance can we start sitting trot.
He should be able to turn left and right with even contact on each rein, not with one rein heavier with the rider forcing the horse to turn. Keep our transitions smooth and easy.
The transition from trot to canter can be made easier for the horse if we have the horse going a little more forward. Use this as a stepping stone remembering to assist the horse at these early stages. Developing good contact is an even bigger challenge in the canter. If we keep our hands stiff and rigid in the canter the horse will develop what I call a head hammer effect because we are restricting his body with our unrefined use of our hands and contact. Soften your hands, allow your body to become flexible to follow the movement of the horse. If the horse falls back from canter to trot, help out by encouraging the trot back to a relaxed, settled rhythm before asking again for canter. This will encourage them to remain calm and keep their confidence. These are the first stages of developing healthy strong muscles yet with superior flexibility.
THE IN AND OUT OF WORK IN-HAND By Manolo Mendez with K. Barber and C. Larrouilh
Working in-hand is a challenging but greatly rewarding way to gain insights in our horse's mind and body and create a better working relationship. It requires great care on our part to exercise a sensitivity that we may not be able to display in our riding. It requires a feel for what is right, what looks right, when to ask, when not to ask.
It requires fitness and the ability to move ones body with great timing and accuracy, mirroring what we are trying to create in our horses. In-hand work is a big part of my training and I use it as an integral part of my foundation and correctional work, on every horse, from green to advanced.
Traditionally, in-hand work is used to teach Haute Ecole and Piaffe but I use it from the first moment a horse begins its training with me. I work in-hand with the young horse to teach him how to use his body. I assist the horse in gaining confidence in me and in himself and at the same time teach him balance and rhythm. This requires the handler to develop feel, have sensitive hands and perfect the art of timing.
It is very easy to destroy the horse's rhythm and pull him off balance through the incorrect use of in-hand techniques: hard hands, bad timing, pushing too hard or punishing the horse without cause In-hand work is a unique tool and must be used correctly as it can help the horse but it can also really harm it greatly. Mechanical lungeing on a circle can make it easy for us to just tire the horse, but if we want to make learning easy for him and help him to first, develop straightness, rhythm, balance and confidence and then, learn lateral movements, introduce collection and eventually Passage and Piaffe, we have to really think about how we communicate with our horse.
Success in in-hand will depend on a few factors: what training the horse had prior to coming to training, if any, his conditioning, and his understanding of how and what we are trying to communicate to him. We want to work so that the horse is not defensive or afraid, and learns to accept, listen and respond quietly to our requests.
THE IN AND OUT OF WORK IN-HAND
In-hand work's success depends greatly on our ability to pay close attention to the horse's body, his expressions, and his movements: how he responds to our own motions, our requests. I do not work in-hand from the bridle; instead I only work in-hand with a cavesson and not any cavesson either. I prefer a light, adjustable Spanish cavesson with an adjustable poll, jaw and nose strap and with a buckle for attachment on a padded noseband. Why? For one, in insensitive hands, working from the bit can create problems with incorrect flexions among other things and two, I want the horse to move freely with enthusiasm and feel comfortable. I want the horse to move and find his balance. I never use side reins for the same reason.
How to get the Most out of Beginning In-hand Work: Keeping the Horse Calm and Accepting.
Once I have my horse understanding how to move freely and softly - with, balance, rhythm and correct flexion/bending - in both directions on a lunge line in walk, trot or canter, then I can vary the in-hand work and introduce different exercises.
I can use the track (wall) to keep my horse straight and touch one leg with my bamboo (I use a simple, straight garden variety bamboo that has been allowed to dry so that it is dry and light), walk on and then halt again and touch another leg then repeat the walk, halt and touch another leg till the horse responds. I want to desensitize the horse to having his legs touched by my bamboo, take away his fear and teach him that when I touch him a certain way, I may be asking him to engage a little bit more this leg, or step up or back, or place it in front of his feet so that as he touches it, he creates rhythm. Before any of this can happen, the horse must be acclimated to the bamboo.
