Mary Wanless teaches how to handle horses heavy on the rein by starting on the ground. Establish light pressure with immediate release when the horse responds, use a whip to tap the front legs if needed, then transfer the same principle to riding while keeping your elbows still.
Welcome to our new series Better Riding in two Minutes or Less. In this video we're going to talk about how to work with horses that are strong to the contact. I'm not going to give you the standard advice of doing endless transitions in an attempt to lighten your horse to the contact. This advice presupposes that you're able to make good transitions with a good core in difficult circumstances and that the horse somewhere understands the rein aids. As always, you should get the horse's teeth back and saddle checked to make sure the horse is not in pain. Before you start. Make sure you hang around until the end of the video where I'll tell you how to access a free video series which goes much more in depth about rein aids, transitions, Bend, turning and Contact we hope you enjoy our two Minutes or Less series which gives you laser focused instruction to help keep you on the straight and narrow. Speaking of straight and narrow, the Fleck Carbon Composite Whip is the only schooling whip we use or recommend for both our ground and ridden work. It's beautifully light and balanced and can transmit energy without all the wiggle and wobble of normal whips. It takes only the slightest movement from the rider's hand and is stiff enough to allow for precision placement. Check it out on our online shop which we only sell products that we use personally in our day to day work. Members of dressage train TV get a full 15% off any of the products. Often the issue with horses which are strong to the contact or slow to stop is that they don't correctly understand the rein aids you Usually this is due to lack of groundwork training and sometimes because the rider does not understand pressure and release. The problem with using transitions and rein back to help with strong contact or a horse that's on the forehand is there is a presumption that the horse is doing the transitions in a reasonably correct manner. A rein back where you're pulling on the reins with a hollow horse doesn't help anyone, so we first need a good baseline. The very first thing I teach a horse after we make sure the horse is habituated to the whip is back. The aim is to teach the horse to step back from a light contact. Initially we accept one step and then as soon as the horse steps back we release the pressure. In this way we're starting to show the horse how to get release from the pressure. If the horse is too strong or doesn't move from your initial pressure, you can use the schooling whip to lightly tap the front legs whilst using a light pressure on the bit. As soon as the horse moves, release the contact and remove the whip. It won't take many repetitions of this before a horse starts backing away from light pressure. Once this is achieved, we can begin teaching stop Again, we use light pressure. Notice here in the video how the horse stops but the handler continues walking backwards to the end of the reinforcement. This is to ensure that the horse follows the rein aid and not the handler's feet. Once you've got the horse light on the ground, we transfer to ridden. The rider should ask with the rein and then release the contact as soon as the horse commits to halt. In terms of rider position, the rider needs to be careful not to lean back or lean forwards or pull back with the elbows. Training your horse to understand rein aids Using groundwork is really important and makes the goal of light ridden aids much more achievable for riders of all standards. If the horse doesn't understand the rein aids on the ground, it won't know when ridden. Now I realize that that is a lot of information to convey in two minutes, so we've created a fuller, completely free series of videos called the Rein Aids which cover the basics bend, turning, transitions, tone and contact and on the bit from the ground and ridden. Just sign up today from the form on this page or if watching on YouTube for the link in the description and we'll send the series to you. We're just doing the final editing on the first video, so you'll see it in your mailbox very soon. Do let me know in the comments below what you'd like to know about in the video series as there's still time for us to add content into them before we send them out. We do read all comments, so go ahead and let us know what are you struggling with in your training and riding. Thanks for watching.
