Mary Wanless teaches how to get a lazy horse moving forward with a single sharp leg aid from the knee down, not repeated nudging. Keep your upper leg steady, lift your lower leg briefly, then strike so you contact the stirrup iron. One decisive aid sets a boundary; nagging lets the horse run the show.
The Fleck carbon composite whip.
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February 2019.
So most people's kick is a bit of a nudge. Like if my fist on her leg was your leg on your horse. Most people kind of go nudge, and then they go nudge, nudge, and then they go nudge, nudge, nudge. And they're often. You're smiling knowingly here, and the lower leg often comes back here when they do it, and they end up with the lower leg too far back and their heel up, and they're kind of going nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, kick, flap, nudge, nudge. And not a lot happens. To get a good leg aid, we need everything from the knee up to stay the same. Now, that has a compelling logic to it to me, that all of this lot that we want molded to the saddle and the horse shouldn't move in a leg aid. And the legate happens from the knee down, and your leg may have to come away a little bit before you kick. And your aim is to hit him with the stirrup iron. If you hit him with the stirrup iron, it means your leg is working in that direction. Legs like to go in that direction. That's what knees do easily. This movement is not so easy. So you want to think of just slapping him with both legs from the knee down in a short, sharp. Yeah. So my hand now is doing a slap rather than a nudge, right? And I can do a light slap or I can do a heftier slap. But what defines a slap is the rebound. If you try and get strength by doing, you will get yourself into trouble. And for those of you with lazy horses, how you use your leg is one of the big things that could be working against you, right? And meaning you're not getting the response and the result and the changes here that you could have. And. And if you know that you're somebody who goes nag, nag, nag, do you have enough mental fortitude to set a boundary that says horse? I'm the human and I just said go, and go means go or are you willing to go nag, nag? Actually, go doesn't mean go. I really don't mean it. I'll sweat and contort and jiggle and niggle up here, and you go or not as you choose, because at that point in time, you're letting the horse run the show, and you're starting to contort yourself to fill in for what he is not doing, because he has a responsibility in this partnership, too.
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