Comparing Movements Between Different Types of Horses.

Last month I blogged about how dressage is for all horses (click here to read it) and it can be difficult to appreciate the same movement with different horses. There are a lot of factors that affect how a movement looks with different horses, some of the main ones are
 

• Conformation which gives the expression that a horse creates in a movement
• The training a horse receives changes the way a horse works and different training methods will create differences in the way a horse expresses the movement.
• The age and previous work that your horse has done. Whilst age is not limiting in itself, if is unreasonable to expect a 15 year old horse who has been show jump all their life to produce the same type of expression in a movement as a 15 year old horse that has been training for dressage since they were backed.
• And most importantly, the rider, as it is the rider (and trainer) who influences the horse most.

 
Whilst I take these factors into consideration, I always look to develop the horse as fully as possible. Often by using the developmental exercises to build towards a more difficult movement, the horse comes into their own and offers you the steps you were seeking to create.
 
Each horse gives movements their own expression and unique quality and this can be difficult to appreciate. When you see big moving expressive horses striding through half pass, it’s easy to dismiss such a movement from your cob’s training program.
 
However, if you train the qualities of each movement more things become possible. For example the qualities to look for in a shoulder-in are
 

• The horse should be bent around the rider’s inside leg, maintaining the same bend throughout.
• The horse should carry himself with his weight on his inside hind, not his outside shoulder
• The strides should be slow and energetic, not hurried or the horse becomes hollow.
• The rhythm should be regular throughout the steps.
• The horse’s neck should not be over bent by the rider’s inside rein as this produces a twisted horse, not shoulder-in (use the outside rein to move you horse’s shoulders)

With this in mind, it becomes easier to train all horses in the basic lateral movements, and often further movements develop from there.

​©Training Riders, Transforming Horses